Blog Post

Release Notes
12 MIN READ

Community Aurora 23.10 Release Notes

AshaC's avatar
AshaC
Khoros Staff
12 months ago

Member Experience

Events content type

We are pleased to announce that our new content type, “Events,” is ready for Beta. 

Note: Contact support to enable Events on your Aurora Community if Events is part of your contract. If you want to purchase Events, contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM).

Members with appropriate permissions can: 

Community members can confirm if they will attend events or can express their interest in the event and decide later to attend. In a future release, event organizers will be able to send specific communication to the members based on their responses. 

When members respond to an event, they’re automatically set up to follow the event. 

Learn how to set up Events on your community.

Events follows

You can now follow Events boards and individual events posted on those boards. The process for following Events boards and events is similar to all other content types.

Note: While you can follow Events in this release and receive in-app notifications, email notifications will not be available until a future release.

To follow an Events board or a specific idea, click Follow (bell icon) at the top-right corner of the page.

To unfollow an item, click Follow again. See About Following for more information about following places and content. Learn about managing your follow and notification preferences.

Image alignment enhancements in Content Editor

With this release, when members insert any images or videos in the Content Editor while creating or editing a post, Khoros platform enables them not to opt for text wrapping. By default, all the inserted images and videos are center-aligned irrespective of their size or device.

Now, members can align the images or videos to the left, center, or right or choose not to align them. The alignment icons indicate image alignment and text wrapping around the images.

To align an image or video in the Content Editor, click the image or video and select the required alignment option:

When media is selected, the alignment options get turned off in the main content editor toolbar:

Learn more about the Content Editor.

Administrator Experience

Events content type

We are pleased to announce that our new content type, “Events,” is ready for Beta. During this Beta period, you can explore the feature and begin setting up and testing events. We recommend not using this feature on your production community until the GA release early next year.

Note: Events is a paid feature and may or may not be included in your community package. If you have any questions or need additional information, contact your Khoros Account Executive.

As an Admin, you can create, move, reorder, and edit Event boards. Event Boards can be created at multiple levels, providing flexibility to users at the Community level, within Categories or within a Group. 

Here’s an example of an event board:

Learn more on Events widgets and page design

Additionally, Events offers seamless integration with Social Live Videos (Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo), enabling the embedding of live video content directly into event pages.

You can also integrate the Zoom application which enables Event managers to host Zoom meetings and webinars within the community.

Here’s an example of a member attending a Zoom meeting from the community:

 

Learn more about Events

Ideas Dashboard for analytics

With this release we introduce Ideas Dashboard. This dashboard shows the metrics related to Idea boards and Ideas in the community. Analytics users can also view engagement data for ideas, comments and votes.

In the Ideas Details dashboard, click the point on the graph in the Ideas Engagement widget for the date you want to see the drill-
down view of Ideas, Comments, and Votes. 

A window appears that displays the number of ideas created during the selected period and their location in the Community, the number of ideas created during the previous period selected in the dashboard settings, and the percentage change for the number of posts created between these periods.

You can also view these metrics at the board level:

Similarly, you can see engagement data for comments and votes for ideas on the community. You can also view these metrics by board and by ideas. 

Learn more about viewing community engagement data.

Delete Scheduled Reports

You can delete the scheduled reports that you have created from the dashboard. 

Here’s an example of how you can delete a scheduled report:

Follow the tutorial on how to delete a scheduled report:

Learn more about scheduling reports

Duplicate templates

You can now duplicate existing templates so you can customize them to fit the needs of specific community places. For example, you might have multiple blogs using the Blog Dashboard template and you’d want a different banner image on each of these blog pages. With template duplication, you can do just that.

To duplicate a page template: 

  1. Go to Designer > Page Templates.
  2. Hover your cursor over the page template you want to duplicate and open the Settings (gear icon) menu.
  3. Click Duplicate.

     

     

  4. In the Duplicate Page Template window, complete the following fields:
    1. Name: Enter the name of the duplicate template. It is preceded by the name of the original template automatically.
    2. Use in these places: Open the place picker and select the specific places that will use this duplicated template.
    3. When editing, use sample content from: Open the place picker and select the place whose sample content you want to see when you’re editing the duplicated template.
  5. Click Duplicate.

After you’ve duplicated a template, you can edit and style it. For more information, see Duplicate templates to customize individual community places.

Reset banners to inherited defaults

In Aurora version 23.9, we introduced the global Header & Footer page template. The header portion of this template contains a banner widget that can be overridden on other page templates. With this current release, we are introducing a Reset banners to Inherited Styles button accessed from the Edit Banner panel for the banner widget on page templates that have styles different from the global Header & Footer. Click this button to reset the banner back to the global template’s banner.

Learn more about overriding and resetting the global banner.

Scoping on the Places widget

You can now scope the Places widget to a specific place in the community. You can scope to the community, a category, or a group; the widget then updates to include the child places of the place you chose.

To scope the Place widget to a specific place:

  1. When you’re adding a Places widget to a page template or editing an existing one, in the left panel, click inside the Scope field.
  2. Select the place to where the widget should be scoped.

See Places widget configuration for more information.

Sample content on Featured Content and Places widgets in Page Template edit mode

Now that template duplication is available, the content you add to the Featured Content and Featured Places widgets while editing a page template is only sample content. To publish actual featured content and featured places, you must add content and places to Featured Content and Featured Places widgets from the page in the community where you added the widget(s). This update enables you to add different featured content or places depending on the page in the community where the widget lives.

In Designer:

In the community:

For more information, see Feature content and places on a page, Featured Content widget configuration, and Featured Places widget configuration.

Search Before Post widget

The Search Before Post widget enables members to search for pre-existing ideas that are similar to their own idea that might have already been posted on the community. This prevents duplicate suggestions on your Ideas board. This widget is available only on the Ideas Dashboard template.

To add the widget to the Ideas Dashboard page template:

  1. Open the Account menu and click Designer.
  2. Click Page Templates.
  3. Hover your cursor over the Ideas Dashboard page template and click Edit.
  4. Click Add widget (plus icon) where you want to add the widget on the page.
  5. In the Add Widget panel, click Content.
  6. Click Search Before Post.
  7. Configure and reorganize the widget as desired.

See Search Before Post widget configuration for more information about this widget’s settings.

Events page templates and widgets

We’ve provided new page templates to enable you to customize your community members’ experience with the new Events feature. Refer to the following articles to learn more about how to use these page templates and associated widgets:

Event Dashboard page template

This page template is similar to all of the other content type dashboard templates (Forum, Blog, Knowledge Base, Ideas) you’ve already been using in your community. It is the landing page members see when they go to an Event board. By default, an Events widget and an Event Board Information widget are provided.

To access and update your Event Dashboard page template:

  1. Go to Designer > Page Templates.
  2. Hover your cursor over the Event Dashboard page template and click Edit.
  3. Organize your page and add sections and widgets as desired.
  4. Click Save and Publish.

Event page template

This page template is similar to the Forum Discussion, Blog Post, Knowledge Base Article, and Idea page templates you’ve already been using in your community. It is the page members see when viewing an event. The pre-existing event banner and event details widgets cannot be deleted. At this time, you cannot add other widgets on this template but you can reorganize sections.

To access and update your Event Dashboard page template:

  1. Go to Designer > Page Templates.
  2. Hover your cursor over the Event page template and click Edit.
  3. Organize your page as desired.
  4. Click Save and Publish.

Events widgets

The new Event Dashboard page template also provides two new Events widgets:

  • Events widget: Provides a list of events in the related Event board. Like other individual post widgets, you can select the desired list or card items to show on the widget. See Events widget configuration.
  • Event Information widget: Displays basic information about the related Event board. This widget is similar to other content type board widgets that are already available in the community—you can select which elements to include on the widget. See Event Information widget configuration.

Events support on widgets

With the release of Events, several widgets have been updated: Top Content, Recent Content, Featured Content, Places, Featured Places, and Related Content.

Some notable changes (depending on the widget you’re configuring):

  • In Place types to include menus, Events boards are now included.
  • The Places and Featured Places widgets can now contain Events boards.
  • The Top Content, Recent Content, Featured Content, and Related Content widgets can now contain events.

For general information on widgets, see Getting Started with Widgets.

Events icon color support in Theme

With the release of the new Events content type, you can now customize the color of the Events icon across the community. This icon appears on Events boards and other areas where individual events are listed.

To set the Events icon color:

  1. Go to Designer > Theme.
  2. In the left Theme panel, click Colors.
  3. Scroll down to the Content type icons.
  4. On Events, click Edit (pencil icon).
  5. Enter the hex code for the desired color. The default is orangish-red (#D13A1F).
  6. Click Save.

For more information about setting Theme colors, see Manage site colors.

Enable languages in your community (Coming Soon)

Note: This feature will be available in a future release.

From Designer, you can define which languages are used in your community. You can also set which language to use by default. English is set as the default language for all new communities.

To enable languages in your community:

  1. Open the Account menu and go to Designer > Community Text.
  2. In the row of Enabled languages, click Edit.
  3. Use the Add language drop-down menu to select languages you want to be available in your community.

    As you select languages, they appear in the Enabled languages list above. Click Remove beside a language in that list to remove languages you no longer need.

     

  4. (Optional) If you want to set a language other than English as the default, in the row of that language in the Enabled languages list, click Set as Default.

  5. Click Save.

See Enable languages in your community.

Enable text keys toggle in the community

In Designer, you can turn on an option to view community text strings as text keys instead of the normally displayed screen text. This enables you to identify the text key value and edit it in the text properties files accessible from Dev Tools.

Note: In a future release, admins will be able to edit text keys within the Aurora user interface.

When you turn on this option, it is enabled only for the currently signed-in community admin. Other admins (unless they also turn on the option) and community members don’t see an option in the community for toggling on and off text keys.

To view text keys in the community:

  1. Open the Account menu and go to Designer > Community Text.
  2. Turn on the Toggle text keys in the community option.

    The Currently enabled for [current username] text appears to let you know that the feature is turned on only for you while you browse the community.

  3. Go to a page in the community where you want to view the text keys.
  4. View text keys as necessary.

See View text keys in your community for more information.

SEO optimization: Configure community website name to display on Facebook

With this release, you can configure the website name to display when users post a community link on Facebook. This name is added to the Open Graph "og:site_name" property of the meta tag. 

From the SEO Settings (Settings > System > SEO area), admins and members with permission can configure the Website name to display when posting a community link on Facebook by specifying an appropriate URL (up to 200 characters).

Learn more about configuring SEO settings.

Configure groups invitation settings

With this release, admins can configure an option that enables members to send groups invitations either via community inbox (for members only) or email (for both members and non-members). You can configure this option at community, category, or group level.

To configure invitation settings at community level:

  1. Sign in to the community as an Admin.
  2. Go to Settings > Features > Inbox.
  3. Go to Invitations and in the Send invitations via drop-down menu, select the required option.
     

     

Similarly, you can set this option at category and group settings.

Learn more about group invitations.

Replace community tags

From time to time, the tags associated with community content might be irrelevant, misspelled, or redundant. You might want to replace these tags with appropriate ones to make more sense and easier to find relevant content.

From the Tags tab in the Manage Content dashboard, Admins, Moderators, and members with Manage Tags permission can replace the tags. After you replace a tag, the new tag is reflected in the posts that used the previous tag. 

While replacing a tag, if the tag is associated with posts that are part of boards supporting preset-only tags and the replacement tag is not part of the preset tags list, you cannot replace the tag in those posts. Members can view a list of these preset-only boards.

Admins can still replace the tags in these posts by selecting Replace tag in the posts from the above boards option:

This operation does not add the replacement tag to the list of preset tags in the respective boards.

To replace a tag:

  1. Sign in to your community as an Admin or Moderator.
  2. Open the Account menu and click Manage > Tags.
  3. In the row of the tag you want to replace, open the Options menu and click Replace.
  4. On the Replace Tag window, either enter the replacement tag name or select from an existing tag.

  5. Click Replace.

The new tag is reflected in the associated posts across the community.

Learn more about replacing community tags.

Remove community tags

From time to time, the tags associated with community content might be outdated, irrelevant, or mispelled. Also, if the content is associated with numerous tags, it can be challenging for members to find appropriate information. You might want to remove these tags to consolidate content and make it easier to find.

From the Tags tab in the Manage Content dashboard, Admins, Moderators, and members with Manage Tags permission can remove the tags associated with the posts.

While removing a tag:

  • If the tag is associated with posts in boards where tags are not required, the tag is removed from those posts.
  • If the tag is associated with posts in boards where tags are required, the tag is not removed from those posts. Admins can still remove the tag from these posts by selecting the Remove from boards where tags are mandatory option:
     
  • If the tag is associated with posts that are part of boards using preset-only tags and is part of the preset tags list in those boards, the tag is not removed from the preset tags list. While removing the tag, you can view the list of these preset-only boards:

To remove a tag:

  1. Sign in to your community as an Admin or Moderator.
  2. Open the Account menu and click Manage > Tags.
  3. In the row of the tag you want to remove, open the Options menu and click Remove.

  4. On the Remove Tag window, verify the changes and click Remove.

Learn more about removing community tags.

Developer Experience

Occasions (Events)

With this release, we are introducing the Occasions (Events) feature. 

Note: In the Developer Docs, “events” are referred to as “occasions,” as this is the term used with our APIs.

We have added tutorials to govern the Occasions feature.

Custom Pages

Aurora 23.10 adds new functionality around the creation and management of Custom Pages. Custom Pages are constructed through the integration of Custom Quilts and Page Descriptors.

  • Custom Quilts: These are JSON files generated for each new Custom Page.
  • Page Descriptors: These act as overrides to the default Page JSON files.

On the back end, these items can be modified either through GraphQL mutations or manually using your Community's git repository.

You can find detailed documentation covering custom Quilt overrides and Page Descriptors in the Developer Docs Portal.

Updated 5 months ago
Version 4.0
  • StanGromer You are spot on. Language packs are no longer required to be purchased and instead you can choose which languages to enable your community. 

  • Are language packs no longer a thing within Aurora? Previously we had to purchase each additional language, but there is no mention of that in the release notes or the language documentation?

  • jonesannak Some of the improvements we have planned for localization in Aurora that support your use cases are the ability to set languages are the node level and ability to configure a language drop down easily in the nav bar based on the languages you have enabled in your community.

     

  • I didn't even ask about that - I assumed it was just an oversight.
    That is FANTASTIC news.

  • Hearing that Aurora will include language options without the requirement to purchase language packs is interesting.  I'll be curious to hear whether there are other improvements coming related to translations - for example, we'd like to see better options for translating navigation menus/community structure.