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Create a New Discussion Board 🎦

Author: Mark Rickard Updated

Discussion boards allow members to engage in textual interactions, share insights, collaborate on ideas, and ask questions. It is a hub for meaningful discussions and knowledge exchange among community members.

Community Member settings, such as forcing private responses, remain in the legacy platform at this time.

Choose an Activity Type

Click the + Create button in the top right corner of the Activities list screen to get started.

  1. Click Discussion Board.
  2. Click the Next button.

Select an Audience

Choose the audience to target with your activity.

  1. Choose an existing community from the Audience options.
    • Choose all members of your community

    • Choose specific Groups or community members.

      NOTE: your audience is locked in once you save this Audience section. Any changes to your audience will require a new activity.

  2. Click Next to continue. Click Save to save your progress and remain on the same page.

Activity Details

Community Experience Settings

  • Category—Categories are most frequently used to organize community activities around functional themes such as Surveys, Discussions, Live Chats, or Albums. You can also create Categories to list different types of research methodologies.
  • Topic—Topics organize community activities around a topical area. You could list TV shows, vehicles, customer experience, or many more cases.
  • Community Display—These checkboxes indicate where in the community pages you wish to display your Quick Question:
    • Home
    • Topics
    • Categories
  • Availability—These settings indicate which device platforms you wish to make your activity available on.

Activity Setup

Name your activity objectives and assign moderator teams to lead.

  • Activity Name—This is entered in Step 1 above.
  • Objective—Define your reason for the activity from one of the preset Objective options.
  • Assign Team—Assign a team of moderators to lead this activity. The activity is available to all moderators by default if no team is assigned. Once you assign a team, this may not be changed.

Community Experience Settings

Once all required fields are added to this section, click Save to save your progress and remain on the same page.

  • Activity Card Details—Write a detailed description of your activity. You will not be able to publish this activity without completing this field.
  • Upload Card Image—This image is displayed on the activity card in your community.
  • Upload Featured Image (Optional)—Featured activities are displayed on the homepage carousel in large format.
  • Customize Card Background & Text Colors—The background and text colors of the activity card will be used only if no image is uploaded with the card. The colors will also be used in the feature carousel if this activity is featured. When featured in the carousel, the image will smoothly transition from left to right to the background color, creating a seamless full-width element.
  • Featured Button Call-to-Action (Optional)—This text displays on the button when the activity is added to the homepage carousel. You can customize this if you prefer. If you leave this blank, the button says "More".
  • Category—Categories are most frequently used to organize community activities around functional themes such as Surveys, Discussions, Live Chats, or Albums. You can also create Categories to list different types of research methodologies.
  • Topic—Topics organize community activities around a topical area. You could list TV shows, vehicles, customer experience, or many more cases.
  • Author—This field identifies who originally created this activity based on who was logged in at the time.
  • Enable Voting—Enable members to vote with a "Like".
  • Community Display
    • Home
    • Topics
    • Categories
  • Accessibility
    • Mobile App
    • Desktop/Web browser

Landing Page

Content Blocks

The landing page is comprised of individual content blocks. Blocks can be added, edited, sorted, and removed. Community managers have wide latitude to create content for their communities with the tools available in Fuel Cycle. 

Create a new block by clicking the âž• button next to the appropriate type. Then, customize the block content and add it to the landing page.

Block types include:

  • Text Blocks allow you to include prompts, instructions, and other messaging.
  • File Blocks are used for including images, videos, or other file types from the Asset Library or your computer. You will also have the option to embed video/audio files, gifs, and clickable prototypes from external websites via their distribution links. Supported File Block file types:
    • Images—jpeg, jpg, png, bmp, gif, ico
    • Video—mp4, mov, qt, flv, f4v, wmv, asf, mpg, m2v, mp2, avi, webm, ogv, ogg, ram, rm, mxf, mts, mkv, r3d, flac, mj2
    • Audio—aac, m4a, f4a, mp3
    • Text—plain text, PDF, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations

Edit the name of any content block by clicking on the block title and replacing the text.

There are a few buttons associated with blocks to be aware of:

Research Engine Block Adjustments.jpg

â‘  Click these dots and drag them up or down to reorder your blocks.

② Show or hide the details of this block.

③ Delete this block (confirm your choice after this by clicking the X button).

â‘Ł Choose your source file for this file block.

⑤ Add your text content to this text block using the rich text editor.

Comment Settings

Please utilize the following settings to define the behavior of comments:

  • Enable Member Comments
  • Require Comment Approval—Moderators must review and approve the comment before other members can see it.
  • Force Private Response—Members will not see each other's comments; only moderators can see them.
  • Enable Uninfluenced Comments—Members do not see comments until they submit a comment.

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

Incentives

Enable personalized rewards for members in exchange for their participation. Incentives are initially disabled, but you can enable them by sliding the button to the Enabled position. Here are some settings available to you:

  • Define the Maximum Points a member can earn.
  • To control how members can earn points, click on the checkboxes to toggle them on or off: 
    • Upload files
    • Comment on an uploaded file
    • Complete the survey successfully
    • Disqualify from the survey
    • Comment on a post or someone's comment

Publish

Schedule

Enter dates and times to Publish your activity and to Close participation.

If you do not include a date to close your activity, you can close it manually from the Actions menu in the activity List.

Review Summary

  • Take time to review your setup so far. Edit your Audience, Teams, and activity Configuration by clicking the pencil icon to the right of any of those sections.
  • Internal checks will determine if you can publish your activity. For instance, you can't publish if you have not added blocks to your Landing Page.

Preview or Publish

RE Discussion Bd Draft Publish.png

  • Check your survey questions with a preview of your activity. Click Preview at the top right to see what your activity looks like.
  • When your activity is set to how you want it, click the Publish button in the top right.
  • If you want to publish your activity and send an email campaign, click the Publish and Email button. You will be redirected to set up an email campaign and publish your activity. You will be charged credits once you publish this activity.
 

 

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