Add a forum

How to add a Forum page

Use these instructions to add a Forum page to your intranet. Forums are designed for online discussions - for sharing knowledge on varied topics, developing ideas, and asking and answering questions. By setting the page type to Forum you transform the way subpages appear. Subpages appear as post titles in the center of the page, along with some information about the post - post owner, posting time or date, number of comments and last commenter.

First add a new page

1. Navigate to where you want to create the new page and click the Add button (plus icon) in the top right.
2. Give the page a clear title. It's a good bet to include Forum in the page title.
   1. Example: ThoughtFarmer Customer Success Team Forum.
3. Click on the Content type dropdown on the right and select the Forum content type. If your intranet has more than one forum template, click on the Template dropdown and select the template that you want.
4. (optional) Choose a Forum Type from the dropdown on the left. (To learn more, see Choose forum type below.)
   
   
   
   
5. (optional) Select the Lock this page checkbox if desired. (To learn more, see Lock this page feature below.) 
6. Click on Security permissions on the right under Security and make sure all the right people have edit permission on the page. (See complete instructions on how to change permissions to view & edit.) Click Done when you are finished.
   
   
    
7. Click Publish and your Forum page will appear, ready for posts to be added.

Choose Forum type

There are three default Forum types available: Discussion, Idea Forum, and Q & A. Your intranet administrator may add more Forum types specific to your organization. The wording for each Forum type helps customize the direction your Forum takes:

• In a Discussion Forum, you choose Add topic to add a post.
• In an Idea forum, you choose Add idea to add a post.
• In a Q & A Forum, you choose Add question to add a post.

If you do not select a Forum type, the default Forum type selected is Discussion, and the wording will read Add topic.

Lock this page feature

Once the page display option is set to Forum, a new option appears in edit mode - the checkbox Lock this page. If you check this box, people who have edit permission on the page can add new Forum posts, but they are not able to make edits to the Forum page itself - it is "locked". Only the page owner can edit the Forum page when it is locked.

Add a new Forum post or topic

See complete instructions on how to add a post or news item.

Add reply to a Forum post

Forums are designed for online discussions. A comment window is automatically open at the bottom of every Forum post page, awaiting your reply.

1. From the Forum page, click on the Forum post title to go to the individual post page.
   
   
    
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page, or click Add comment above any existing forum comments, and the page will bounce down to an open comment window at the bottom.
   1. Type the text of your reply in the comment box.
      
      
       
   2. If you wish to respond to another person's reply, click Reply below their reply, and your reply will be added in-line under their comment.
   3. Click Add file at the bottom of the comment box to add a file as a reply. (See how to attach a file for more information on attaching files.) Add any text in a separate reply.
      
      
       
3. Click the Post button to add your reply to the forum post.

Forum features

• Only post titles show, not content: The title of each post (Forum subpage) shows on the Forum with the name of the post author. When you click the title you'll see the whole Forum post along with comments. This allows easy browsing of many post titles. Other information that shows with the post title on the Forum page is when it was posted, the number of replies to the post, who made the last reply, and whether there are new replies that you have not viewed (signified by a red dot beside the number of replies).
• Sort by most recent, most popular, or A-Z: There are three options for sorting Forum posts at the top left of the list of posts, you can also reverse the sort order:
  • ​Recent: most recently edited or commented on posts at the top,
  • Popular: most popular posts at the top - popularity determined by a combination of most replies and likes, and most recent replies,
  • A-Z (alphabetical): posts in alphabetical order by title (only available if your intranet administrator has enabled it).
• Browse by Published date, Owned by or Tag: On the left of Forum pages in the SuperNav, you can browse posts by Published date (eg. last 7 days, last 30 days), Owned by (post owner) or by Tag (learn about tags).
• Forum search: On the left of Forum pages in the SuperNav, there is a search field for the Forum. Type search terms in the search field and click the magnifying glass and you will get search results only from posts on that Forum page.
• Jump to new replies: When you are browsing through forum posts titles, a red dot beside the comment icon indicates new replies since you last visited the post. When viewing the post, the number of new replies is shown at the top of the forum replies. Click on the number of new replies to be bounced down the page to where the new replies start.