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NEW Launching on Communities Aurora Session #2: Preparing to launch | Instructor Led-Training
We are excited to announce live training on Preparing to Launch in Khoros Communities Aurora are coming in February 2025! Wednesday, Feb 19, 2025 Early Session: 7 am CT / 1 pm UTC Late Session: 3 pm CT / 9pm UTC In today’s ever-changing digital world, customer engagement tools—most importantly, engagement communities—must evolve to retain and keep customers satisfied. Khoros Communities Aurora delivers a sleek, modern, and high-performance system that adheres to community best practices while still giving brands complete flexibility to make changes or updates to address their ongoing needs. In this session, focussed on the Kickoff and Discovery phase of the launch/upgrade process, you will learn about: The Discovery phase and project timeline General tasks to complete prior to and during the Discovery phase Internal resources your team needs to launch on Khoros Communities Whether you are preparing for your upgrade to or launch on Khoros Communities Aurora or simply learning more about the process, we are here to help. Missed the first session? Review the Q&A and access recording here.Aurora: Reverse proxy Best Practices
During pre-sales and launch, our customers often ask us about reverse proxy and vanity URLs. The question usually spawns from branding and search engine optimization (SEO) concerns. Some customers have corporate rules around aggregating all traffic for their domain. Branding, SEO, and corporate guidelines are all reasonable business considerations. In a branding-motivated scenario, a customer may want to use a subdirectory of the customer’s website, such as www.customer_name.com/community instead of our standard subdomain structure community.customer_name.com. With regard to SEO, you can find many articles that discuss how subdomains affect search engine optimization. The tricky part is determining whether the SEO benefit of a subdirectory structure is offset by latency potentially introduced with a reverse proxy. Khoros requires that any customer use of a reverse proxy be implemented in accordance with the appropriate implementation process specified by Khoros and set forth in the Statement of Work (SOW) that Khoros provides. The SOW sets out the process and important information that must be provided to support such implementation. Note: If you are using the Khoros Care with your Community, you also need to ensure that Care is able to communicate through the reverse proxy to Community in both stage and production. If you have IP address restrictions or other access restrictions for your reverse proxy, this might prevent integrations between Community and Care from operating correctly. What is a reverse proxy? In a reverse proxy implementation, community members do not access the community by directly connecting to Khoros servers. Instead, community members make requests to the proxy, which then makes requests to the community on the person's behalf. More generally speaking, any configuration that doesn’t include a CNAME to Community is a reverse proxy. What does Khoros recommend? As a general rule, Khoros strongly recommends against customer-controlled reverse proxy setups as these types of configuration introduce an unknown and uncontrolled layer between the end user (your customers) and our application. Occasionally, we have customers that do not discuss the concerns/goals described earlier with Khoros and add a reverse proxy in front of the community, managing the configuration and maintenance on their own. This practice often causes serious issues with community performance and stability that are difficult to debug. If you truly need a reverse proxy, we provide configuration options to create the most stable experience possible for you and your customers, and we have recommendations and best practices that we’ve learned over the years. Thoroughly discuss using a reverse proxy with Khoros, and work with Khoros Support to configure your request/response flow correctly. Using a reverse proxy—even with Khoros guidance and configuration—comes with costs that customers should understand before making the request. You may find that a reverse proxy's cost outweighs the benefits, or that Khoros has alternative solutions to consider about branding, security, and SEO that meet your needs without introducing a reverse proxy’s complexities. Let’s look at the complexities of customer-controlled reverse proxy implementations more closely: It's a black box to us. Customer-maintained proxies, using a technology of your choosing, are extremely difficult to debug and support without access to your infrastructure and specific proxy configurations. Coordinated debugging is required and can be very time-consuming. Working with Khoros to set up a reverse proxy integration properly pays off in the long run. Issues with a reverse proxy can confuse you and your customers. For example, if misconfiguration or performance issues with a reverse proxy arise, it looks like an issue with Khoros's application/infrastructure to end users. Similarly, Khoros has less information distinguishing users because all requests come from the proxy, which may be pooling connections, transforming requests, or otherwise acting differently than users’ browsers. It often takes some time to find the root cause of an issue. We’ve observed upwards of 2 times the response time for some customer-controlled reverse proxy setups, which can negatively impact SEO and dramatically reduce user retention. The reverse proxy flow has more steps than the standard Khoros response/request flow. More steps translates to extra server resources, a larger attackable surface area, extra latency for the user, and a performance bottleneck. A reverse proxy introduces an additional potential point of failure that is outside of Khoros’ control. If the proxy goes down, there's nothing Khoros can do to rectify the situation. It's entirely dependent on customer resources. Due to the lack of transparency, confusing indicators, and other complexities associated with a reverse proxy, the customer is responsible for verifying the source of any performance issues arising in a reverse proxy configuration. Khoros is not responsible for any performance issues related to or caused by a customer’s use of a reverse proxy. Therefore, it is critical that customers work with Khoros to implement a reverse proxy properly in order to minimize adverse effects. Okay, but what can really go wrong? Need some more concrete details? Here are a few issues we’ve encountered with customers who have attempted a reverse proxy implementation without Khoros guidance and proper community configuration: DNS issues: With incorrect DNS setup for the proxy or when pointing the proxy to Khoros servers incorrectly, the proxy can fail to connect. The failure might not happen at setup time but later when DNS records expire or when Khoros makes infrastructure changes. Examples we have seen include getting stuck in an infinite loop of self-requests, pointing at the wrong servers when we change IP addresses, getting turned away as invalid clients, or repeatedly being redirected to their own URL. The proxy fails to pass destination data from the original request: When this happens, we have no way of knowing the host and port that the end user (your customer) requested. We see only the host/port that the proxy requested. This incongruity can generate links and redirects with the wrong destination. In turn, if vanity hostname redirects are enabled, then the end user (your customer) is either kicked off the proxy or cannot access the community due to infinite redirects. Missing or incorrect client IP: If the reverse proxy doesn’t send the client IP, Khoros cannot get the end user IP. This makes all visitors appear to be from the same computer, which affects per-IP rate limiting and flood detection, IP bans, IP-based analytics in Community Analytics, IP-based geolocation, the Administrator IP-locking security feature, and the User IP address shown in reporting mechanisms. Response transformation: Actions such as injecting markup and JavaScript into the response has caused breakage for end users (your customers) that we could not reproduce or fix. What Khoros needs from you Your SOW order outlines the details of a reverse proxy integration. Here are a few things you can expect us to ask for: Emergency contact information: A person/team on call that we can call in the case of any integration issues, performance degradations, or outages SSL: We will use a secret header with a key to establish trust. Distributed proxy integration requires SSL to avoid the secret and key from being sniffed. These details are worked out during implementation. Proxy headers: We need to know which proxy headers you’re going to send. We require all of the following headers (these are the default, but they are customizable): X-Community-Proxy-Key: This passes the security key provided above and ensures the communication is really coming from your RP X-Community-Real-IP: Original user's IP address X-Forwarded-Host: Originally requested domain X-Forwarded-Proto: Originally requested protocol Requirements for a successful integration Make sure your proxy servers are robust, redundant, stable, and well-monitored. Connect from the proxy to the community via HTTPS for all requests. We also expect your proxy to require HTTPS for the end user. Make sure the 2 proxy headers above are populated correctly on every request. Point the proxy at the internal domain name provided by Khoros (for example, <your-company>.community.com). Do not configure using IP addresses. The community IP address may change at any time. It is recommended to preserve the Host header (for example, use "Incoming Host Header" for Forward Host Header in Akamai). It is acceptable not to preserve the Host header from the client. If you choose not to preserve it, you can pass the end-user request host using the X-Forwarded-Host header. The Host header should still reflect the internal domain provided by Khoros. If you decide not to preserve the Host header, let us know so we can configure it accordingly. proxy.allowForwardedHeader.host = true Do not alter the request or response (including all the headers and cookies) — be completely hands off to avoid regressions that are difficult to debug. If you must transform the request, let us know what you will be doing, and obey the W3C Guidelines for Web Content Transformation Proxies. We do NOT support CDN along with Reverse Proxy implementation, so alert us if you plan to use a reverse proxy so that we can take you out of our CDN. Khoros cannot update robots.txt in reverse proxy communities. You must work with your own IT team to update your robots.txt at the root level. Testing/Troubleshooting Both proxy headers, X-Community-Real-IP and X-Community-Proxy-Key, are mandatory to access the community in a reverse proxy setup across all instances. Consequently, any testing that bypasses the reverse proxy and directly targets our server must use a browser plugin (such as ModHeader for Chrome), to include both secret headers in the request. Still have questions? If you have questions about a reverse proxy implementation not answered in this article, or if you have implementation questions specific to your proxy configuration, discuss them with your Khoros Customer Success Manager.Community Outlook 2025: Trends and Predictions
Join community leaders—Brian Oblinger, Strategic Community Consultant, Brian Oblinger Strategic Consulting, Todd Nilson, President and Community Strategist, Clocktower Advisors, Michel Da Silva, Senior Community Strategist, Khoros, and Shaveta Sharma, Practice Head, Web & Communities, Grazitti Interactive, as they uncover the strategies, innovations, and challenges that will define the community landscape in 2025 and beyond! Imagine a world where communities anticipate user needs before they ask, AI crafts tailored conversations in real-time, and engagement feels less like a transaction and more like a true connection. This isn’t a distant future—it’s the reality taking shape as we move into 2025. With AI-driven personalization, next-gen gamification, and data-powered insights, communities are transforming into intelligent ecosystems that foster deeper collaboration and customer loyalty. Community managers are leveraging predictive analytics, automation is streamlining engagement, and hyper-personalization is redefining member experiences. So, what’s next? What emerging trends will shape the future of online communities, and how can you stay ahead? Some of the Topics We’ll Cover: ➤ AI & Personalization – Crafting hyper-tailored experiences to boost engagement. ➤ Hybrid & Niche Communities – The rise of specialized networks and online-offline integration. ➤ Gamification & UGC – Leveraging interactive experiences and peer-driven content. ➤ Trust, Transparency & Moderation – Building safer, more authentic community spaces. ➤ Data Privacy & Community Analytics – Balancing security with actionable insights. ➤ Scaling Without Losing the Human Touch – Growing communities while maintaining strong connections. ➤ Future Tech & Trends – Emerging innovations that will reshape online communities in 2025.State of Community Management Report Launch
Join ACM Director Venessa Paech and Khoros Chief Community Evangelist Michael Puhala, as they unveil the hotly anticipated 2024 State of Community Management Report for Australia and New Zealand. They'll highlight key trends and results, what they mean for the community space in ANZ, and answer your questions about the report and its implications for your work. The 2024 ACM State of Community Management report addresses: The demographics of Australian community managers Their working conditions and contexts Their toolsets and industry relationships The nature of the communities they build and oversee How community management is framed and integrated into Australian businesses and organisations Key challenges and concerns for community practitioners Moderation challenges and practices Future trends Launched in 2015, the annual ACM State of Community Management Survey is the only benchmarking data captured about community management in Australasia. The survey is a resource for community managers (both professional and volunteer), recruiters and employers, journalists and media, policy makers, researchers and anyone looking to improve their understanding of community management as a field of work in Australia and New Zealand.Analytics API: nodeSubscriptions unexpected behaviour
Hi all, I am using the Analytics API and I am trying to get a total count of subscriptions to all nodes of the community. If I sent the following query to graphQL, I always get a null value: nodeSubscriptions(constraints: {startTime: $startTime, endTime: $endTime}) { metric { value } } } Variables used are: (Yes I know its 3 months!) { "startTime": 1719792000000, "endTime" : 1727740799000 } However if I make this call nodeSubscriptions(constraints: {startTime: $startTime, endTime: $endTime, conversationStyle: FORUM}) { metric { value } } } I successfully get a count of subscriptions, is this bug? or has nodeSubscriptions actually been disabled from pulling a count of the node subscriptions across the community? Even if you had to specify conversationStyles for this call that wouldn't let you know how many subscriptions had been made to the category level. There is a nodeType of Category / GroupHub but that doesn't seem to do it either.Aurora: Manage Follow and Notification preferences for your account
You can manage your follow and notification preferences for the community. Open the Account menu, and then click My Settings. Click Follows & Notifications. The page is divided into different areas for managing your follows and notifications: Follows You can filter the items you follow by clicking the drop-down menu (by default, All is selected) and choosing from among All, Content, Boards, Categories, Groups, or Tags. Once you’ve chosen your filter, you can hover your cursor over the followed item you want to manage, click the options menu, and Unfollow. Email Notifications To adjust your email notification preferences, Get Email Notifications must be turned on in your settings. When this is enabled, additional settings (Receive email notifications when…) appear that enable you to indicate the desired cadence for receiving email notifications. For all settings (except Edits are made to an article within a category or board I follow), you can select Never, Immediately, Daily Digest, or Weekly Digest from the drop-down menu. For the Edits are made to an article within a category or board I follow setting, you can choose from Never, For all edits (includes minor edits), or For all but minor edits. If you select any option but Never, email notifications for this setting are sent immediately. For settings on which you’ve selected Daily Digest or Weekly Digest, applicable notifications are bundled and sent together in one daily or weekly email, respectively. All settings indicate the feature area of the community to which they apply, such as All boards or KB articles and blog posts. Settings related to content apply to all content that you follow in the area indicated. Advanced Settings The following settings, which apply to both in-app (bell icon) and email notifications, enable you to personalize when you receive certain notifications. Select an option from the drop-down menu for each setting. When I’m following a Forum Discussion, notify me about New topics and replies New topics only Send me notifications on posts I have already read Never Always Related topics: About the member Profile page Manage community preferences for your account Manage security settings for your accountAdd third-party analytics to your community
Community administrators may require tracking scripts from third-party analytics in their communities. With the Third-party Analytics tool in Communities Analytics, administrators do not need to understand GraphQL or Handlebars in order to integrate with analytics tools and start analyzing their community on those platforms. Instead, they can add their third-party provider using an ID. Refer to your provider’s documentation to locate the ID and to learn how to analyze the data pulled from your community. Note: At this time, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Meta Pixel are supported in our Third-party Analytics tool. You can add other analytics providers via Page Scripts in Developer Tools. Analytics providers added through Developer Tools are displayed on the Third-party Analytics page but are not editable from that location. To add third-party analytics providers: Open the Account menu and select Analytics. Select Third-party analytics. At the top-right of the page, select Add Provider. In the Add Provider window, select the appropriate Analytics provider. Enter the Tag Manager ID, Google Analytics ID, or Meta Pixel ID as appropriate. Select Add. The provider you added is now shown on the table. In the Active column, toggle on or off the provider as desired. Note: Open the Options (three dots) menu to Edit or Delete the provider as desired.
