Member Forums are community areas where members submit their own posts. There are two types of Member Forums:

1. Member Forum—The default option allows invited members to create their own posts, view other members' posts, and participate by commenting and voting.
   • When members submit a post, they are prompted to create a title and can upload or embed files if the forum allows it.
   • When the member post is submitted, other members can view, comment, or vote on the post.

2. Diary Study—Participants record their thoughts, experiences, and activities over a period of time, often in a log or journal, to gain insights into user behaviors and experiences in context. Members can only see their own posts. Moderators and clients can view and comment on a Diary Study post, but members are prevented from viewing other members' posts.
   • When members submit a diary study post, the title is automatically created and starts with Entry #1 and continues sequentially with Entry #2, and so on. This helps keep the entries organized for moderation purposes, so you can compare Entry #1 across all members, for example.
   • When the diary study post is submitted, the member will only see their posts. Mod and Client users can see all member posts and comments, but members will never see posts from others.

Create a New Member Forum or Diary Study

Go to Activities > Member Forums and click the + button to add a new Member Forum or Diary Study.

Step 1: Details

• Title [required]—This is the title of the member forum that displays to members, such as "Ideas for New Products and Services"
• Activity Card Description—Use this to describe to members the type of posts you want them to provide in this forum. To make the Activity card in the Community look like all the others, this description is required to be added.
• Description [required]—Use this to describe to members the type of posts you want them to provide in this forum.
  

  The description word limit is 5,000 characters.

• Publish Options > Add to Topic—By default, a link to Member Forums is added in the Categories drop-down. You can also add a forum to a topic from here.
• Hide From—By default, a member forum activity box displays on the homepage and the topics landing page (if added to a topic). To hide the forum from those listings, select the checkbox.
• Select Platform—Desktop and/or Mobile Apps.
• Commenting

  Fuel Cycle servers will automatically transcribe video and audio uploads to comments within minutes.

  • Enable Comments—Select this option if you want members to be able to comment on other members' posts.
  • Enable Attachment Comments—Select this option if you want members to be able to comment and attach files on posts.
  • Approval Required—Choose this option to require approval before an attachment comment is published.
  • Uninfluenced Comments—Members can only see other comments once they submit their own.
• Diary Study—Select this option if you want to run a Diary Study. A Diary Study is when a member can only see their submissions. Moderators and clients can view all member submissions.
  
• Voting Type—Enable or disable voting for the member forum.
• Require Approval—If you want to hide member posts from other members until a moderator approves them, select this option.
  

  If you want to approve member forum comments and also allow pictures as attachments, the Approval Required field above needs to be checked, and this field needs to be set to Yes. Members would then be able to comment and attach a picture before mods approve.

• Options—The activity card displays in all list views in the community. This includes the homepage and inside topics. The options selected here will also be used in the homepage featured "carousel view" if the activity is featured.
  
  • Activity Card Image—Optional. If no image is uploaded, the activity card will display a preview of the member posts.
  • Featured Image—Optional. Featured activities are displayed on the homepage carousel in large format. You can upload a featured image here. High-quality images work best. We recommend images that are at least 2500 pixels wide for best results, though we support all jpg and png images, large and small.
  • Featured Button Call-to-Action—Optional. This is the text that displays on the button when the activity is added to the homepage carousel. If you leave this blank, the button will says "MORE"? but you can customize it below if you prefer. Character limit 40
  • Customize Card Background & Text Colors—The activity card background color and text color will only be used if no image is uploaded with the card. The colors will also be used in the feature carousel if this activity is featured. When used in the featured carousel, the featured image will fade on the far right to the background color below to create a seamless element that runs across the full width of the browser.
    
    • Card Background Color
      
    • Card Text Color
• Allow File Uploads—If you want members to be able to upload files to their posts, enable it here. You can also choose to allow uploaded files to comments and require moderator approval for uploads from this section.
• Actions & Points—If gamification is enabled, you can set point values for different actions related to member modules.
  • You are now able to set a maximum point amount within a Forum. Once a member reaches that maximum inside the forum they can't earn any more points.
  • It is not required to set a maximum point amount. If you do not set a maximum point total within a forum, a member may earn infinite points.

Step 2: Instructions

• Call to Action—The Call to Action label is the button that is displayed on the Member Module landing page below the description. Enter the text that you want to display on the button here, such as "Submit your idea".
  

• Submission Instructions—These instructions are displayed at the top of the member submission form. This is a good place to describe what type of content you are interested in from the member to also give the member any tips that might be helpful with their submission.

  Please note: the word limit is 5,000 characters.

  

Step 3: Invite

You can choose to allow all members to access this module or select Invitees based on a group or manual member selection.

Step 4: Schedule

Select the post and close date of the forum here.