Forums Administration Overview

To administer a forum, you must log on to Community Server with an administrative account. From the home page, navigate to Control Panel Dashboard > System Administration > Forum Administration.

The Forum Administration control page looks like this:

Forum management provides you with two workflow tabs:

• Forums and Groups
• Configuration

Each workflow tab contains task sub-tabs. When you select a workflow tab, the Community Server user interface provides you with access to the task sub-tabs. The following example shows the task sub-tabs for the Forums and Groups workflow.

Forums and Groups Workflow

A forum is a medium for discussion and debate on a single topic. On a technical forum you may have a Forum Group of “Setup and Installation”. The forums which make the group could be “Prerequisite technologies”, “Product Setup” and “Getting Started”.

Forums must belong to a forum group, so you must define at least one forum group before you can create a forum.

The Forums and Groups workflow allows you to add and manage forum groups and forums.

The Forums and Groups tasks include:

• Create new forum
• Forum groups
• Forums
• Sort order

Create New Forum Tab

The Create New Forum Basic page looks like this:

The Basic page allows you to specify the basic forum properties, such as the name and description of the forum, the forum group with which it is associated, and the enable forum setting.

Forum Groups Tab

The Forum Groups page contains the list of forum groups in your community.

You can add a new forum group or edit, manage, and delete your existing forum groups.

Forums Tab

The Forums page contains the list of forums in your community.

You can add forums or edit, manage, and delete your existing forums.

Sort Order Tab

The Sort Order page also you to sort your forums.

Your forum groups and the forums associated with them display in the workspace, where you can manually order them. Click here for more information about sorting forums.

Configuration Workflow

The Configuration workflow allows you to specify default properties across all of your forums, such as default permissions and default global settings. The Configuration workflow tasks include:

• Default permissions
• Global forum settings

Default Permissions Tab

When you click Default Permissions, the User Permissions page displays.

The default permissions task contains 2 pages:

• User Permissions
• Admin Permissions

User Permissions

The User Permissions page allows you to specify default permissions for each user role that has access to your forum. Such permissions include read/write access, post and reply permissions, and permission to attach videos and other files to forums. Click here for more information about forums user permissions.

The Default Permission tab also contains the Admin Permission page.

Admin Permissions

The Admin Permissions page allows you to specify default administrative permissions for your user roles. Such permissions include editing, deleting, and creating a user poll.

Global Forum Settings Tab

When you click Global Forum settings, the General page displays.

The Global Forums Settings task contains the following pages:

• General
• Editing
• Attachments
• Duplicates & Flooding
• Popular Posts

General

The General page allows you to specify general post settings for your forum, such as enabling RSS feeds, thread tracking, and anonymous posting.

Editing

The Editing page allows you to specify post editing settings, such as whether or not edit notes are required when posts are edited and edit notes display with comments.

Attachments

The Attachments page allows you to specify settings when attachment is included on forum posts, such as allowable file extension types and maximum file size.

Duplicates & Flooding

The Duplicates & Flooding page allows you to specify duplicate posts settings and post flooding parameters.

Popular Posts

The Popular Posts page allows you to specify parameters for the most popular posts on your forum, such as popularity criteria.