Aurora Community site structure hierarchy and terminology
This quick reference guide lays out the hierarchy and meaning of some of the site structure terminology in Khoros Community Aurora. Hierarchy Glossary Term Definition Blog Board that houses blog posts Blog post Individual post on a Blog board Board General term for lower-level Place that holds content; encompasses Blog, Event board, Forum, Knowledge Base, and Ideas board Category Highest-level Container in your community; can contain Groups and Boards Comment A top-level response to a post on a Board Container General term for higher-level Place that houses Boards; encompasses Category and Group Content Collective term for posts (for example, “Our community contains a lot of content about our products.”) Content Type General term for the style of content that coincides with the Board types: Blogs, Events, Forums, Knowledge Bases, Ideas Discussion Individual post on a Forum Event board Board that houses events Event Individual post on an Event board Forum Board that houses discussions Group Higher-level Container that enables community members to engage around a common theme or purpose; can contain Boards of one content type Ideas board Board that houses ideas Idea Individual post on an Ideas board Knowledge base Board that houses knowledge base articles Knowledge base article Individual post in a knowledge base Place General term that encompasses Containers and Boards Post General term for an individual piece of content if type is irrelevant; encompasses blog post, event, forum discussion, knowledge base article, idea (for example, “If you want to make a post in our community, sign in first.”) Reply A response to a comment Related topics: About Community site structure Community Structure Best PracticesAurora: Move, reorder, or delete containers or boards
You can move, reorder, or delete containers or boards from the Settings > Community Structure page. Move or reorder a container or board On the container or board you want to move, click Settings(gear icon). Click Move. On the Select New Location window, click the new location of the container or board you’re moving. Note: If there are a lot of possible locations, you can search for the desired one in the search bar. Click Continue. Drag the container or board to the desired position within the location you chose. Delete a container or board On the container or board you want to delete, click the gear icon. Click Delete. On the window that opens, confirm the deletion. Permissions The following permissions are required for the above tasks. By default, these are set toDenyfor all community membersexcept for those with the Admin role. To move categories, a member must have theMove categoriespermission. To move boards, a member must have theMove boardspermission. To delete categories, a member must have theDelete categoriespermission. To delete boards, a member must have theDelete boardspermission. To move groups, a member must have theMove groupspermission. To delete groups, a member must have theDelete groupspermission.Aurora: Change your community's name and SEO Information
If necessary, an admin can change the community’s name. Additionally, they can also SEO information. Open your account menu and go to Settings > Community Structure. In the structure tree, in the row of the community level, click the gear icon. On the Edit Community Info window, enter change the community name in the Community name field enter or change SEO related information in the SEO title and SEO description, ClickSave.About Content permissions
You can adjust permissions related to content at the community, container (category & group), and board level. Some permissions are set to Deny by default while others are set to Grant by default. At the container level and the board level, permission defaults and role permissions are inherited from the parent level. In those cases, the Inherit button is displayed in green to indicate that the permission was set to Grant at the parent level or red to indicate that the permission was set to Deny at the parent level. As an admin, you can manage these permissions. To manage content-related permission defaults at the community level: Note: To manage this permission at a lower level, go to the [Place] Permissions page and edit the permission defaults for that level. To manage this permission for a particular role, go to the [Place] Permissions page at the desired level of the community and edit the permissions of the individual roles. Go to the Roles and Permissions page for the community. Beside Community Permissions Defaults, select Edit. Review permissions in the following areas: Blogs Content Events Ideas Knowledge Bases Select Deny or Grant as required. Unless you have specified different permissions for certain roles or levels below the community level (a category, group, or board), these selections affect all members of the community. Content permissions While Forum permissions are granted by the Content permissions, Blogs, Event Boards, Ideas boards, and Knowledge Bases have distinct permission sections for content type-specific tasks. The Content permissions are provided for general content access and tasks and relate to all content types. Follow the links in the table below to learn more about the tasks granted by these permissions. Permission Default Related permissions in content type sections Read discussions and content Grant Blogs: Read posts and Read comments Ideas: Read ideas and comments Reply to discussions and content Grant Blogs: Comment on posts Events: Comment on events Ideas: Comment on ideas Knowledge Bases: Comment on articles Start discussions and new content Grant Blogs: Start new posts Events: Post new events Ideas: Post new ideas Knowledge Bases: Create, edit, publish, and manage articles Edit own posts Deny Blogs: Edit own published posts Events: Edit own events Ideas: Manage ideas and comments Knowledge Bases: Edit own published articles Edit any post Deny Blogs: Edit any published post Events: Edit all events Ideas: Manage ideas and comments Knowledge Bases: Edit any published article Move content Deny Blogs: Manage any posts and Manage own posts Delete own post Deny Blogs: Manage own posts Events: Delete own events Knowledge Bases: Delete own articles Delete any post Deny Blogs: Manage any posts Events: Delete all events Ideas: Manage ideas and comments Upload file attachments Deny Embed external content Grant Use simple HTML in posts Grant Use advanced HTML in posts Deny Use full HTML in posts Deny Make content read only Deny Post read-only content Deny Bypass moderation Deny Blogs: Bypass comment moderation Events: Bypass comment moderation Ideas: Bypass moderation Knowledge Bases: Bypass comment moderation Related topics: About Aurora Community site structure About Aurora Content TypesAbout Aurora Community site structure
One of the most important aspects of setting up your community is choosing which content types to include and how to organize them. Communities are structured hierarchically—they’re broken down into Places, which are divided into Containers and Boards. Containers consist of Categories and Groups, while Boards consist of Forums, Knowledge Bases, Blogs, Ideas, and Events. Typically, Categories and Groups are made up of Boards—these boards are the areas where community members can post and reply or comment on what they read. Categories can also be broken down into other Categories as necessary. Containers Boards Containers Containers are higher-level Places like Categories and Groups. Categories are areas that can house several types of Boards that are broken out into different types of content. Groups are similar to Categories, but they are designed for specific groups of Community members who want to collaborate on a particular subject or project. Create a Category Create a Group Create a Category Go to the Community Structurepage. Click Add(plus icon) at the level of the community where you want to add the category. On the window, enter a Name and ID. The ID displays in the URL for the category. Note: The ID must be a single word made of only letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores with no spaces. It cannot be changed later. Optionally, enter a Description and add an Avatar for the category. Click Create. For more information, see About Categories. Boards Create a Forum Create a Knowledge Base Create a Blog Create an Ideas board Create an Event board Boards are Places that are subsets of Containers. The types of boards available in your community are Forums, Knowledge Bases, Blogs, Ideas, and Events. Boards enable members to post content, write comments, and reply to other members’ comments. The process for creating a board is similar for all content types. To create a board: Go to the Community Structurepage. Click Add(plus icon) at the level of the community where you want to add the board. On the window, enter a Name and ID. The ID displays in the URL for the board. Note: The ID must be a single word made of only letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores with no spaces. It cannot be changed later. Optionally, enter a Description and add an Avatar for the board. In theTagsarea, specify the types of tags to use, add preset tags, and/or indicate whether you want to require tags for the board. Click Create. Related topics Community Structure Best Practices Community site structure hierarchy and terminology Manage Containers or Boards Container and Board permissionsAurora Community Structure Best Practices
When you first launch a community, you may think you need to create a structure sophisticated enough that it will accommodate all of your needs as the community grows. However, in this case, building in anticipation of growth might not be the best strategy. For instance, it might be tempting to create every possible category and board you might need, but this is counterproductive. The initial structure for the community should be appropriate for the expected volume of traffic. Essentially, this means you should start small and add containers and boards as needed over time. Ensure your structure includes topics and interests relevant to your members. As you begin building your community, focus on creating content that indexed by organic search (Google, Bing, etc.). Your goal is for the community to scale up and to build critical mass. You want between 5 and 10 new posts per day on each board to effectively attract members to keep coming back. When launching the community, most companies issue invitations via email to alert members to the community. About 10% of the people who see an invitation will visit the community. Within 6 months, you can expect between 30 and 40% of your target audience to visit the community at least once. Of those who visit, 10% will post at least once per month. Although the percentage remains steady at 10% per month, it’s not the same 10% each month. This means that you need 5,000 and 10,000 invitees within the first 6 months to support a single board. As a result, the fewer topics you have at launch, the easier it will be to achieve that essential feeling of activity. The way you organize your community depends to a large extent on its goals. A general purpose discussion community can be organized by whatever topics make sense. A support community is likely to be organized by products or product lines, depending on the products being supported. For example, if you’re supporting computer peripherals, you might have a category for each type of device, with forums or other boards for hardware, software, platforms, and connection. This community has a large number of categories but relatively few topics in each category. If you’re supporting cell phone users, you might have a category for features you offer, one for customer care issues, and a third for phones. This community has fewer categories but more boards per category. Related topics: About Community site structure Community site structure hierarchy and terminologyAurora: Granting access to boards and containers
You can add roles to specific boards or containers so that members who have been assigned those roles can access the containers or boards you want them to. To add a role to a specific place: Go to Settings > Community Structure. ClickSettings(gear icon) in the row of the container or board whose roles you want to edit, and then click Edit. On the settings screen for that place, click [Place] Permissions. To add more roles for this place, click Add Role. On the Add Role window, add a role and its description as desired. To edit members of an existing role, on the [Place] Permissions page, click the options menu of the desired role, and then click Edit. You can then click Add Members to search for members to add to the role. Related topics Community Structure Best Practices Manage Containers or Boards Assign roles to membersAurora: Setting inheritance
Setting inheritance applies settings at higher level places to lower level places in the community. Settings at the community level are automatically applied to other (lower) places in the community. This applies to most settings in the admin panel that exist at both higher and lower level places and provides the benefit of setting a template for each new place that gets added, which saves you from having to adjust every setting every time. How does it work? The community level is considered the highest place in the community, and all other places in the community (categories, boards, blogs, etc.) are considered children of the community node. They follow this hierarchy: Community > Category/Group > Board (Knowledge Base/Forum/Blog/Ideas/Event) The community node itself sets the default values for the community as a whole. Provided you make no changes to the settings for any other places in the community, they will use the value set at the community level. Categories can also set the default for their child places. If you decide you want a child place to have a different value for some setting than its parent, then you can simply adjust the setting for that specific place. When you’ve adjusted a setting for a child place, a PARENT OVERRIDE indicator is displayed next to that setting for the child place to indicate that it overrides the settings of its parent. Related topics: Permission descriptionsAurora: Search for a container or board
When managing your community structure (Settings > Community Structure), you may need to locate a specific container or board for your site so you can move it or edit its properties. To search for a container or board, enter the name of the place you want to locate in the Search bar and press Enter. After you’ve found the place you’re looking for, you can edit, move, and delete it as necessary by selecting an action from the Options menu: Related topics Move, reorder, edit, or delete Containers or Boards Container and Board permissionsAurora: About categories
Categories are the highest-level containers within your community. Depending on the business purpose for your community, your categories might reflect lines of business, product lines, or other high-level divisions. If necessary, you can nest categories within higher-level ones or add boards to the top level of the community. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to start with a few high-level categories so that new visitors (and all visitors are new at this point) can find the boards they want quickly. In addition to one or more categories for your initial boards, you might also want to create a Welcome board where you post the rules of the community. As your community gains traction, you can build out additional categories and boards as needed. Again, your goal should be to keep the structure simple so that community members and visitors can find the content they want. You can also move boards and categories to other parts of your community. You can nest categories under existing ones if you need further divisions within a category. You can also move categories to another location after their initial creation. Category Permission Defaults Setting category permission defaults enables you to grant the base permissions for all community members who can access the category. To manage category permissions: Go to Settings > Structure and hover your cursor over the row with the category whose permission defaults you want to set. Click the gear icon and then click Edit. On the Category Settings page, click Category Permissions. In the Category Permission Defaults section, click Edit. (Optional) To jump to a specific permission to manage, enter it in the Find a permission field. Set Deny or Grant access for the settings in each area. Note: Each permission entry displays a description and recommended deny/grant status, as shown in this example: Related topics: About Community site structure Create a new role at the category level Permission descriptions
