Communities

Communities enable learners to connect, collaborate, and share knowledge with each other. Learners can create and join communities, participate in discussions, and build learning networks within your organization. If your company has the Communities feature turned on, you can view and join them, post, and respond to posts. If you are a privileged user, you can also create communities and invite others to participate. Your platform administrator assigns the privileges to create communities.

Anyone can participate in public communities. When you are invited or accepted, you can also participate in private communities.

Access communities

To view and participate in all communities to which you have access, from the left navigation, select Communities.

On the Communities page, you may some or all of the following:

• Feed: This tab shows all the communities available on your site that have had recent activity. It shows both public communities and private ones that you have joined. Each community is labeled as either public or private. You can participate in any public community, but you must be invited or accepted into a private community.
• My communities: This tab shows all the communities you chose to follow.
• Requests: This tab contains two views.
  • If you have the privilege to create communities and invite participation, one view shows outstanding requests from others asking to join your private communities. Once you respond to a request, it is removed from the list.
  • Another view shows all outstanding requests you sent to join private communities. Once someone responds to your request, it is removed from the list.
• Invitations: This tab shows invitations you received to join a private community. You can either accept or reject the invitation. After you accept or reject the invitation, it is removed from the list.
• Create community: If you have the privilege, you see the option to create a community. You can create both public and private communities.

Actions you can take in the community include:

• Follow and unfollow
• Make a post or start a discussion
• Respond to a post
• Report a post
• Edit a post you made
• Delete a post you made
• Create a community
• Invite people to participate in a community
• Share a community
• Request to join a private community

Follow a community

To follow a community, locate it in the Feed tab and select Follow.

When you follow a community, it displays on the My communities tab and activity from the community shows in the Feed tab.

To unfollow a community, locate it in the Feed tab, and select Unfollow. You can still see the community in the list, but it no longer shows on the My communities tab.

Make a post

When you want to start a new dialog in a community:

1. Locate the community in the list and select the link to open it.
2. Scroll to the Start a discussion section.
3. Enter a Title for your discussion. This is could be a question or a topic or perhaps the headline of an insight you want to share. You are limited to 250 characters.
4. Add more details. This is where you can share your insight or elaborate on the topic. You are limited to 500 characters.
5. Optionally, check the box: Require response before viewing comments. If you check this box, learners must add a comment before they can see others' comments in this discussion.
6. Select Post.

Edit a post

When you want to edit a post you made in a community:

1. Locate the community in the list and select the link to open it.
2. Scroll to the post.
3. From the Actions menu, select Edit.
4. You can change the title or the details.
5. Select Update discussion.

Delete a post

When you want to delete a post you made in a community:

1. Locate the community in the list and select the link to open it.
2. Scroll to the post.
3. From the Actions menu, select Delete.
4. You can change the title or the details.
5. Select Delete discussion. All comments and likes are deleted when you delete the discussion.

Respond to a post

When you want to respond to a post:

1. Locate the community in the list and select the link to open it.
2. Scroll to the post.
3. You can either comment or Like the post.
   1. Select Comment and enter your comment, then select Post comment.
   2. Select thumbs up, Like, icon and choose how you want to respond.

Report a post

If you find a post offensive or not within company guidelines, you can report it. When you report a post, those with credentials review it and decide whether to remove the post or disregard your report and keep the post.

To report a post:

1. Locate the community in the list and select the link to open it.
2. Locate the post in the list and from the Actions menu, select Report.
3. Select a reason you are reporting the post. Your choices are: abusive, suspicious or span, irrelevant, contains inappropriate language, or other. If you select other, enter a reason.
4. Select Report discussion. The discussion remains online until someone reviews and takes action on it.

Create a community

You must have the create community privilege to create a community. Your platform administrator can give you that privilege.

To create a community:

1. From the left navigation, select Communities.
2. Select Create community.
3. Specify the following:
   • Community name: Give a title or name for your community.
   • Description: Describe what you want to discuss in your community and who is likely to get the most out of it.
4. Decide if the community should be public or private.
   • Public: Anyone can follow, post, and respond to posts.
   • Private: The community displays on the Feed tab, but only users you invite or accept can follow, make posts, and respond to posts.
5. Select Create community. The community displays in your My communities tab.

Invite participants to a community

When you create a private community, you can invite others to join you.

To invite others:

1. Locate the community in the list and select the link to open it.
2. Select Invite others.
3. Start typing names of people who have accounts in the platform. After you type three characters, select the matching name from the list or press Enter if there is only one. Add as many names as you want. All users you add must have a user account on the platform.
4. When you are done adding names, select Invite selected people. You get a notification that an invitation was sent. People you invited, get an email and in-app notification. They see the invitation on the Invitation tab on the Communities page.
5. Select the X to close the box.

Respond to an invitation

When someone invites you to participate in a private community, you see the invitation on the Invitation tab of the Communities page. You also get an email and in-app notification.

To respond to an invitation:

1. From the left navigation, select Communities.
2. Select the Invitations tab. You see a list of all your invitations.
3. For each invitation decide if you want to join the community. If you want to join, select Accept invite. If you do not want to join, select Decline. If you accept the invitation, it displays on the My Communities tab.

Request to join a community

If you see a private community in your feed or receive a link to join one, you can request to join it.

To request to join a community:

1. From the left navigation, select Communities.
2. Select the Feed tab or follow the link you were given. You see a list of a list of communities.
3. Open the community page.
4. From the top banner, select Request to join. The owner of the community gets an email and in-app notification. They can either accept or reject your request. If they accept your request, you see the community listed on the My communities tab. If they reject your request, you receive a notification and you are unable to access it.

Share a community

If you see a community in your feed, you can share it with others. This helps promote engagement and draws attention to insightful and valuable posts, especially when your feed gets long and one might be hard for others to find.

To share a community:

1. From the left navigation, select Communities.
2. Select the Feed or My communities tab. You see a list of a list of communities.
3. Open the community page.
4. From the top banner, and the Action menu, select Share.
5. Select Copy community link. The URL is copied to your clipboard.
6. You can paste the link for others to follow. They must have a platform user account to access the community. When the user follows the link to the public community, the community page opens immediately with all posts visible. If you attempt to share a link to a private community to which the user does not have access, they see the Community page with all posts grayed out and an option to Request to join.