You can edit, move, or delete community posts, as well as edit or delete comments on community posts. You can also take a number of actions on the post or comment.
Guide Managers have full permissions to manage community posts. Users with moderator rights can perform a limited number of actions on posts depending on their moderator group permissions. Regular agents, who are not part of a moderator group, don't have permissions to take any actions on community posts.
For information about managing the discussion topics that contain community posts, see Managing help center community discussion topics.
Topics covered in this article:
- Editing and deleting community posts
- Editing and deleting comments on community posts
- Moving a post to another discussion topic
- Adding content tags to community posts
- Closing a post for comments
- Marking a comment as the official comment for a post
- Promoting a post by pinning or featuring
- Setting status on a post
- Marking a post as answered
- Approving pending content
- Moving a live community post to the moderation queue
- Creating a ticket from a community post or comment
Editing and deleting community posts
You can edit or delete community posts as needed.
To edit a post
- In the post you want to edit, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Edit.
- Make your changes, then click Update.
To delete a post
- In the post you want to delete, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Delete.
- Click Ok to confirm the deletion.
The post is removed from the topic and cannot be recovered.
Editing and deleting comments on community posts
You can edit or delete comments on community posts as needed.
You can also mark a comment as official (see Marking a comment as the official comment for a post).
To edit a comment
- Beside the comment you want to edit, click the options menu, then select Edit.
- Make changes, then click Update.
To delete a comment
- Beside the comment you want to delete, click the Comment actions icon (
), then select Delete.
The comment is removed from the post and cannot be recovered.
Moving a post to another discussion topic
You can move a post from one discussion topic to another in your community. You cannot move a community post to the knowledge base.
To move a post to another topic
- In the post you want to move, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Edit.
- Click inside the Topics box and select another topic.
- Click Update.
Adding content tags to community posts
You can apply content tags to new or existing posts to group and display related content to end users. End users can click content tags displayed on community posts to open a search results page that displays links to all help center content (articles and posts) with the same content tag. See About content tags.
- In the post you want to edit, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Edit.
- In the Related to field, click the down arrow then select the content tag you want to apply to the post.
- Click Update.
Promoting a post by pinning or featuring
You can promote community posts by pinning or featuring.
When you pin a post, it moves to the top of the posts list within its topic and has a star beside it. This enables you to draw attention to important posts in a topic, such as announcements or guidelines.
Pinned posts always appear at the top of the topic, regardless of any sorting option chosen. The most recently pinned post will be the top-most. You can manually add styling for pinned posts so that they appear different than other posts in the topic.
When you feature a post, it is labeled as "featured" and appears in the featured posts component, which you can add to any page in your theme.
- In the post you want to pin, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Pin to top.
If you don't want the post to be pinned to the top of the topic anymore, select Unpin from top.
To add styling for pinned posts to your theme
- In Guide, click the Customize design (
) icon in the sidebar.
- In the Theme panel, click Edit theme.
- Select the Community post page in the template drop-down in the upper-left.
- Click Post actions.
- Click Pin to top.
- Click the CSS tab, then add the following CSS to style pinned posts or modify it to fit your design:
.post-pinned .question-title:before {
content: "\2605";
margin-right: 5px;
color: $color_5;
}
- Click Save, then Publish changes.
- In the post you want to feature, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Feature post.
You must have added the featured posts component to your theme for the post to be featured. Otherwise, selecting the feature post option does nothing.
If you don't want the post featured in the Featured Posts component anymore, select Unfeature post.
To add featured posts to your theme
- In Guide, click the Customize design (
) icon in the sidebar.
- In the Theme panel, click Edit theme.
- Select a template from the template drop-down in the upper-left, then paste the following snippet of code where you want featured posts to appear (on your Home page, for example).
<div class="featured-posts"> <h2>{{t 'featured_posts'}}</h2> {{#if featured_posts}} <ul class="featured-post-list"> {{#each featured_posts}} <li><a href="{{url}}">{{title}}</a></li> {{/each}} </ul> {{else}} <p>{{t 'no_featured_posts'}}</p> {{/if}} </div>
- Click Preview at the top to ensure it looks as intended. To preview a featured post, use the preview window to the right of the theme editor, locate a post, click Post actions and click Feature post.
- Click Save, then Publish changes.
Setting status for a community post
You can set a status of Planned, Not planned, or Completed on any community post. This can be especially useful if you have feature requests in your community and want to communicate status.
When you set status, the status appears in the list of posts within the topic and on the post itself. You can filter by any status to see all posts in a topic with the selected status.
To set status on a community post
- In the post where you want to set status, click the Post actions icon (
), then select one of the statuses: Planned, Not planned, Completed, and Answered.
To filter community posts by status
- In a community topic, click Show all, then select one of the status options.
Closing a post for comments
If you don't want to allow comments on a community post, you can close the post for comments.
- In the post you want to close for comments, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Close for comments.
Marking a comment as the official comment for a post
You can mark a comment as the official comment for a community post. You can make either a new comment or an existing comment the official comment. Make sure that you mark only one comment as the official comment for a post. You cannot mark an official comment on a knowledge base article.
When you mark an official comment, it appears as the first comment on the post and is indicated as the official comment. That means that if you edit an existing comment and mark it as official, that comment moves from its current place in the order and timeline of comments, and appears at the beginning, ahead of any older comments.
If a comment is marked as the official comment and the user who made the comment is downgraded to end user, the comment remains the official comment.
To mark a comment as the official comment
- In the post where you want an official comment, either enter a new comment or edit an existing comment.
- Click Official comment under the comment.
- Click Submit or Update, depending on whether you are making a new comment or editing an existing comment.
The comment becomes the first comment on the post and is indicated as the official comment. The official comment checkbox is then hidden for all other comments related to the post.
Marking a post as answered
If a comment has been added that answers the subject of a post, you can mark the post as answered.
- In the post you want to mark as answered, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Answered.
If you have the correct moderator permissions, you can set the status as Answered only if a status has not previously been set.
If you are a Guide Manager, you can change the status to Answered from any other state.
Approving pending content
If a post or comment is marked as pending approval, you can mark it as approved.
- In the post you want to mark as approved, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Approve.
Note: This action is not available for content that is pending approval in the spam queue.
Moving a live community post to the moderation queue
You can send a live post to the content moderation queue if it contains content that you want to review. The post is then hidden from the community and appears in the content moderation queue for Guide Managers.
- In the post you want to moderate, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Hide for moderation.
The post is no longer visible to the community, however Guide Managers can see the post in the content moderation queue. From there, a Guide Manager can review the post and decide which action to take. See Moderating end-user content.
Creating a ticket from a community post or comment
You can create a ticket from a community post or comment. When you do, a ticket is created in your instance of Zendesk Support with the body text from the post or comment and a link to the post or comment.
In the community post, the ticket number link appears at the top of the post so you can easily access the ticket from the post. In a community comment, the ticket number link appears beside the comment. If you click the link, you can access the ticket directly.
To create a ticket from a community post
- In the post you want to convert to a ticket, click the Post actions icon (
), then select Create a ticket.
- A Create a ticket window appears with the following fields prefilled with information from the post:
- Subject:
Request created from: <community post title>
- Description:
This request was created from a contribution made by <post creator name> on <date and time>.
There is a link to the post itself, followed by the post contents.
- Who should be the requester of the ticket?:
The default ticket requester is the person who created the post, but you can change this to be yourself. The person specified in this field receives an email notification when the support ticket is created.
The person specified in this field receives an email notification.
- Subject:
- Click Create ticket.
- In Support, the ticket is created, and is triaged by your support team.
To create a ticket from a comment on a community post
- Beside the comment you want to convert to a ticket, click the Comment actions icon (
), then select Create a ticket.
- A Create a ticket window appears with the following fields prefilled with information from the comment:
- Subject:
Request created from: <community post title>
- Description:
This request was created from a contribution made by <comment creator name> on <date and time>.
There is a link to the comment itself, followed by the comment contents.
- Who should be the requester of the ticket?:
The default ticket requester is the person who created the comment, but you can change this to be yourself. The person specified in this field receives an email notification when the support ticket is created.
The person specified in this field receives an email notification.
- Subject:
- Click Create ticket.
- In Support, the ticket is created, and is triaged by your support team.
36 comments
Peter F
Hi, is there a way for the creator of the original post to mark their question as answered. I want to avoid having moderators and managers mark every post as answered.
1
Dave Dyson
Hi Peter, at present there isn't a way for an end-user to mark their own post as answered. I can understand how that could be helpful though, so it'd be great if you wouldn't mind adding this idea to our product feedback topic for Gather: Feedback on Gather
We've got some tips here on how to write an effective post: How to write an effective feedback post
Thanks!
0
Timur
Hi Dear Zendesk community.
As I understand, there is no way right now to create a ticket automatically when comments are posted.
Doing this manually is really taking time from our support agents.
We want to receive all the tickets in one channel.
Added the same comment in feature request.
If you have any workaround on how we can realize this, I will be super thankful for your advice.
I even tried to create 2 mailboxes and use next schema 1st mailbox is subscribed for an article and comments and have redirection to 2nd mailbox, 2nd mailbox have a redirection to Zendesk main email address but looks like this is not gong to work, since notification are being sent for the same Zendesk domain.
Really waiting for this feature. Did the same comment and upvote in your Feedback dashboard.
Warm regards,
Timur
3
Artur Figueiredo
Is there any way we can move a message only instead of the whole post? I mean if I want to move a message and make it a new post, or merge into another post, is there any way to do it? Thanks!
0
Brett Bowser
Welcome to the Zendesk Community!
As it turns out, there's no way to move just the comment of a post at this time. You can only relocate the post to a different topic.
As for merging posts, this is something our product managers are currently looking into so I would recommend following our Announcements page for new releases :)
Let me know if you have any other questions!
3
Amanda Kissinger
I can't find in any of your documentation how we are alerted when a user posts in the Community/Gather. I also can't seem to find a way to create an alert using Zapier, as it seems there's only zaps available for support tickets and not community posts. In a real world scenario, how is a Community moderator supposed to know if someone posts? Keeping this page open all the time is not an efficient or effective use of time. And if we have to manually check for new posts each and every day, that could mean hours and hours before someone responds. Thank you in advance your response.
2
Robert Brown
I am looking for the same thing. I did receive an email alert for a new post, but it would be nice to be able to filter for unresponded posts.
1
Bryan Hilton
Where do you see who is following Posts in Gather Community Forums? Also, are these followers noted by user, agent, admin?
1
Dave Dyson
You can get the data via your browser, by plugging in your subdomain and the id of the post (the number present in the url of any post). The data returned will be a list of subscriptions; each one will contain a "user_id" field that identifies each user. But you'll need to look up each user individually to determine the role. If you go to a user profile in Support or your help center, you can plug the user ids from the subscription information into the urls of those pages in order to see each user. Alternately, if you want to build a script, you can use various User API endpoints to get the role information for each user: Users
I'm sorry there isn't an easier way to do this! For visibility to our product team, it'd be helpful if you could post to our Feedback - Community Forums (Gather) topic, using this template to format your feedback. That way other users can add their support, via upvotes and additional comments. Thanks!
0
Jacob Erly
Is it possible to change how tickets created from KB comments are created, such as having additional tags or being assigned to specific groups?
I would also like to second the feature request of automatic tickets from comments.
0
Dave Dyson
You can make a trigger using Ticket is Created and Channel is Help Center, and then Add tags and/or set the Group in the actions of the trigger: see Creating trigger updates for ticket updates and notification and Trigger conditions and actions reference for more information on building triggers.
0
hireEZ Support Team
Is there a way we can manage all the content generated by users in a queue? For example, like the articles in the Guid. Also, can we manage the end-users who had ever posted or commented on the community so we can award them the badges but not click into every user's profile?
0
Dane
As it turns out, converting community posts to tickets is currently in the roadmap. As of the moment, we don't have an actual launch date yet. You can always check our Zendesk page to be aware on all the updates and improvements on our products.
In addition, the only option to add badges is to add them manually on the user's profile. Our Product Managers are already aware of this need.
0
Eman Elsherif
Hi,
Is there a way to remove/hide the "in this article section" menu thats on the right side.
It is covering the article guide content causing issues with readers navigating through without the menu hovering over as you scroll through the page.
0
Brett Bowser
If you go to your Guide theme and edit the code on your style.css you can alter the following code block:
I tested by adding display: none; and I no longer see the sidebar you're mentioning when viewing an article.
Let me know if that's not what you're looking for!
0
Ryan Frye
Hello,
Is there a way to export Community posts via API? Also, is there a way to set notifications when a status has changed on a post, to email any users that have voted or commented on it?
0
Dave Dyson
You can export Community posts via API using the Show Post endpoint: https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/help_center/help-center-api/posts/#show-post
There's not a way to set notifications when the status has changed on the post, so the best way to keep voters and commenters updated is to add a comment to the post -- this will send email notifications to anyone who is subscribed (following) the post, and anyone who votes or comments on the post is automatically subscribed (unless they click the Unfollow button to unsubscribe themselves): Following content in the KB and community to get notifications
0
Ryan Frye
Hey Dave,
Thank you for the help! One other question:
1. Is it possible to add tags or possibly something else to boost searching or searching defaults?
Thanks!
0
Dane
You can use labels to influence article search relevance.
Hope this helps!
0
John DiGregorio
Is there a way to disable comments when a topic is posted. We want to use this for enhancements and do not want customers adding comment - we just want them to upvote and down vote
0
Nicole Saunders
Hi John - yes, you can just close the thread for comments. When a post goes up, simply click on the gear icon on the right side of the post and select "close for comments." Users will still be able to vote, but not comment on the post.
0
John DiGregorio
@... Hi Nicole - maybe I wasn't clear. When a post goes up it could take a moderator several days to close for comments. I would like the system to automatically set new posts to close for comments - thought there might be code to do this or a setting.
0
Peter F
hi John DiGregorio, in theme customization you can disable comments to KB articles. To my knowledge, this is global and cannot be applied per article.
0
Julia DiGregorio
Peter F this is for posts not knowledge. We wanted people to add a post and have other users vote on it but not comment. The issue with comments is people can vote on them and it adds it to the total for the post - so IMHO it is not accurate
0
Francisco
Hi there,
Are "set statuses" visible to users? Is there a recommended way to label posts for internal use. For example, a member of our team can go back, filter by the status, to then review at a later time.
Best,
Francisco
0
Sally Anne Dishong
For some reason, over the last few months, I've stopped receiving email notifications for user comments moderation on articles in our three Help Centers. Instead, the user comments on articles have been put into the Community Moderation area and I have no way to dismiss them or approve them from there. We do not have any communities set up on any of our Help Centers, so I don't understand how or why this has happened. Below is a screenshot of what I see in one of our Help Centers. Can you please help me with this? How can I approve or dismiss these comments from the community moderation area? Thanks!
0
Josh
An email goes to someone for a a forum post and they can't reply to the email. People have been asking for this for 10 years (literally) and it's still not a priority.
0
Dane
You need to make sure that you are following the User Content section in Guide to receive the email notification.
The section "Moderation Activity" is an overview of all actions taken by the community team and your community moderators for the end-user contents.
0
Jack D Williams
Can you change the order of featured posts or change their titles as they appear on the home page?
0
Nicole Saunders
You might be able to have a developer code something like that, but those are not capabilities out of the box for Gather.
0