Forum discussions can be escalated either manually or automatically  You can also escalate replies to forum discussions. Members with the View escalations permission can see the details about the escalation.

Manually escalate forum discussions to Salesforce

Members with either the Escalate a discussion to the CRM system and the Escalate one's own discussion to a CRM system permission can escalate discussions to Salesforce. Those with the Manage escalation settings and providers permission can also set the Escalate discussions settings for the forum board.

To manually escalate a discussion:

1. Open the Options menu for the discussion.
2. Click Escalate to Salesforce.
   
   A window opens where you can enter the details for the escalation.
   
   
3. Enter the Reason and Comments for the escalation. 
   
   
4. Click Escalate.

You receive confirmation that the discussion has escalated successfully. 

 

On the discussion page, you can see that the discussion was escalated along with details on who escalated it and when.

Escalate discussion replies

Members with either the Escalate a discussion to the CRM system or the Escalate one's own discussion to a CRM system permission can escalate discussions to Salesforce.

 

 

Automatically escalate discussions to Salesforce

You may want to automatically escalate discussions or replies within your community. This urgency could be due to issues raised by members with elevated roles or the need to promptly address and resolve cases within the community.

To address this, you can designate a board specifically for discussions and/or their replies to be escalated automatically. You can also set a waiting period for a response (either a reply or a solution), after which the discussion is escalated automatically.

Let’s understand these settings:

Scenario 1: 

If you want to automatically escalate a discussion based on the author’s role, set the Automatic escalation by role settings as shown below. 

 

In certain cases, you may not want to regulate escalations from specific members within the community. For instance, admins and moderators might post discussions solely for informational purposes rather than issues or cases requiring escalation. 

Follow the steps below to implement this control:

1. Click Edit next to the Automatic escalation by role setting.
   A window where you can set the roles opens.
   
2. You can do one of the following:
   
   • Select Exclude escalation of posts from the roles below. 

   In the following example, the roles Administrator and Moderator are selected. This ensures that discussions authored by members with these roles are not automatically escalated.

   

    

    

   • Select Only escalate the posts from the roles below.
     In the following example, a “CategoryExpert” role is selected. This ensures that only those discussions authored by members with these roles are automatically escalated.
   
3. Click Save.

Scenario 2: 

To prevent discussions from remaining unattended for extended periods and potentially leading to unresolved issues, you can turn on the Automatic escalations for unanswered discussions option. Configure the Wait time before escalating unanswered discussions settings to ensure timely escalation.

Click Edit to set the time in minutes to wait until the discussion is escalated, and click Save. In the example below, discussions in this board are escalated to Salesforce if they remain unanswered for 2 days.

Scenario 3: 

To prevent discussions from remaining unresolved (Mark as Solution) for extended periods, you can turn on the Automatic escalations for unsolved discussions option. Configure the Wait time before escalating discussions with no solutions settings to ensure timely escalation.

Click Edit to set the time in minutes to wait until the discussion is escalated and click Save. In the example below, discussions in this board are escalated to Salesforce if they remain unresolved for 2 days.

 

View escalation details 

On the discussion page, members with the View Escalations permission can see the details about the escalation.

Click View Details to view case details such as case number, when and by whom the discussion was escalated, the status of the case, and the last update date.