About Aurora Analytics
To have a successful community, you need to know what’s working and what needs improvement. Aurora provides a robust set of analytics so you can get actionable insights to drive traffic and member engagement. You can determine what kinds of content needs improvement, what your members steer away from, and what they want more of from your community. These metrics help you learn where your members come from, what type of content they engage with, and where to focus on to reach new people. Having clear data enables you to plan towards community goals and make informed decisions to change course when things aren’t working. Aurora Analytics provides visual dashboards and interactive reports to provide you with high-level and detailed data on how your community is performing. Note: Currently, users can see the metrics up to the previous day in Aurora Analytics.. Data is reported in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Accessing Aurora Analytics To access Aurora Analytics, open your Account menu and click Analytics. Note: Members must have an Admin or Analytics role to access Aurora Analytics From the Analytics page, you can access Dashboard and Reports. The Dashboard provides you with an “at-a-glance” view of the activities that best indicate the overall health of your community and member engagement across your community. You can customize Dashboard settings to your requirements and get the most out of your data analysis. Reports present you with key metrics on content, boards, categories, and members in a tabular format. Related topics: Accessing Analytics Dashboard Dashboard Settings Aurora Analytics Metric Definitions Aurora Analytics Reports Refer to the Khoros Communities Analytics Essentials course for training on Communities Analytics.About Aurora Moderation
It is important for your community to be a positive space where members feel welcome, safe, and engaged. To foster this environment, moderators constantly monitor community activity by reviewing content for appropriateness, based on the guidelines you’ve put in place for your community. Using the Moderation tab in the Manage Content dashboard, moderators can quickly review and process large volumes of member-generated content. Depending on how you’ve set up your moderation process, content can be reviewed either before or after it is published to the community. From the Moderation tab, you can moderate forum discussion posts and their replies, ideas and their comments, as well as comments on blogs, knowledge bases, and events. Also, you can view the posts or private messages that are rejected as spam, abuse, or for other reasons and take further action on these posts or private messages. Moderation process You can set the moderation mode at the board level. Required: Moderators must moderate content to make it available in the community. (This was previously known as pre-moderation in Communities Classic.) Selective: The content is published, but moderators can moderate it after publication. (This was previously known as post-moderation in Communities Classic.) Auto-approved: Content does not require moderation and is approved automatically. Learn more about configuring moderation modes for various content types. When members post content on the community, the content is immediately routed to the Moderation, based on the moderation settings for that board. Note: When a board is set to Required moderation and members post content on this board, a confirmation message is displayed on the post indicating that post will be published as soon as it is approved from moderators: View Moderation tab Members with elevated permissions (Admins and Moderators) can access the Moderation tab in the Manage Content dashboard. Note that you must enable content moderation at the community level to view the Moderation tab. Members will see the Spam, Abuse, and Moderation tabs. The Moderation tab is where you can review content. By default, the Moderation tab is displayed with the list of unmoderated posts, where the Moderation status is set to unmoderated. The Moderation tab lists: Title: title of the post, reply, or comment Author: authors of the posts and replies Date: the date on which the post or reply is sent for moderation. Status: the publication status (Published or Unpublished) of the posts and replies. Number of views, likes, and comments for each post, reply, or comment. Note: You can sort this list based on the Date. From the Moderation tab, moderators can evaluate the posts and replies. approve or reject posts and replies message authors about their content. ban members When approved, posts are published in the community or remain in the community based on the moderation settings at board level. They are then removed from the Moderation tab. When rejected, the posts are removed from the community. The posts that are rejected as spam can also be viewed in the Spam tab. Learn more about approving or rejecting posts sent for moderation. To view the rejected posts or private messages, go to Filters and set Moderation Status as Rejected. From the Moderation tab, you can: Open any post to view the content Search and filter posts Approve or reject posts Message members on moderation actions about their posts Review the posts or private messages that have been rejected as Spam, Abuse, or other reasons Ban members Refer to the Khoros Communities Moderation Essentials course for training on this feature.Aurora SEO: Regulate content crawling by search engines using robots.txt
When you publish content in the community, search engines (web robots or web crawlers) crawl these newly published pages to discover and gather information from them. After crawling the content, the search engines index these pages to provide relevant search results based on the search queries. It is important to instruct the web crawlers to crawl only the relevant pages and ignore the pages that don't require crawling activity. Using Robots Exclusion Protocol (a file called robots.txt), you can indicate the resources that need to be included or excluded from the crawling activity. When a new community is created, the Khoros platform configures the robots.txt file with the default rules for the community. The default rules include instructions, which are generic for all the communities. Admins and members with permissions can view the Default Rules in Robots.txt Editor (from Settings > System > SEO area). In the editor, you can also add Custom Rules that are appended after the default rules. Note: You cannot edit the default rules. How does Robots.txt work? You can find the robots.txt file in the root directory of your community by appending “robots.txt” at the end of the URL (https://site.com/robots.txt). The file includes the list of user agents (web robots), community URLs, and sitemaps with instructions indicating whether the user agents are allowed or disallowed to crawl the specified URLs. When the user-agents or web crawlers enter your website, they first read the robots.txt file and proceed further with the crawling activity based on the instructions added in the file. The user-agents gather information only from the community pages that are allowed and are blocked from the pages that are disallowed. Robots.txt syntax The robots.txt includes these keywords that are widely used to specify the instructions: User-agent: The name of the web crawler for which you are providing the instructions. Example: User-agent: testbot To provide instructions to all the user agents at a time, enter * (wildcard character). Example: User-agent: * Disallow: Command to indicate the user-agents not to crawl the specified URL. Note that the URL must begin with ‘/’ (forward slash character). Example: User-agent: testbot Disallow: /www.test1.com Allow: Command to indicate the user-agents that they can crawl the specified URL. Note that the URL must begin with ‘/’ (forward slash character). Example: User-agent: testbot Allow: /www.test2.com Sitemap: Indicates the location of any XML sitemaps associated with the URL. The Khoros platform automatically generates sitemaps for each community when it is created and adds them to the robots.txt file. Example: User-agent: testbot Sitemap: https://www.test.com/sitemap.xml The following is the sample format to allow or disallow a user-agent "testbot” to crawl the community pages: User-agent: testbot Disallow: /www.test.com Allow: /www.test1.com Sitemap: https://www.test.com/sitemap.xml Using the Robots.txt Editor The Robots.txt Editor enables you to add, edit, and remove custom rules to robots.txt. You can look for more information provided by Google and other crawlers handling rules in robots.txt. Let’s take an example where you want to add a custom rule to disallow a user-agent “testbot” from crawling a member profile page of the community. To add a custom rule: Sign in to the community as an Admin. Go to Settings > System > SEO. In the Robots.txt Editor, you can view the Default Rules and Custom Rules sections. In the Custom Rules section, click Edit. In the Edit window, enter the instructions and click Save. The rule appears in the Custom Rules area of the tab. You can edit or remove the existing Custom Rules by clicking the Edit option. The new custom rules get appended to the robots.txt file located in the root directory: After you edit the custom rules, you can validate the robots.txt via the Lighthouse tool. Learn more about robots.txt validation using lighthouse. Note: The Audit log records the member actions made in the robots.txt file.Aurora: Enable content moderation and set content moderation defaults
Community moderators review and process large volumes of member-generated content. Moderation is an important part of keeping a community a safe and engaging space for your members to participate. Depending on how you configure the moderation settings, content can also be auto-approved and skip the moderation process. The moderation process depends on the defaults you set for various boards. Admins can set these moderation defaults for forum discussions and replies, blog comments, ideas and their comments, event and event comments, media, and knowledge base comments at the community, category, and board levels. Auto-approved: The content is auto-approved and made public without going through moderation review unless flagged. Recommended for trusted areas that are self-regulated by a small group of members. Selective: The content is made public to the community without going through moderation. However, moderators can selectively review this content later, and based on the review, the content stays or is removed from the community. Required: The content must go through moderation for review, and based on the moderator's evaluation, the content is either published or removed from the community. By default, Selective moderation is set for all boards. Understanding the different moderation types Before configuring the content moderation defaults, you must understand the benefits and risks of each option: Auto-approved: Set Auto-approved for places that are designed for open discussions without any need for regulating the content posted by members. Use this option in places that are self-regulated by a small group of members who are accountable for their actions. However, we still recommend you implement the moderation process within the community to avoid spreading inappropriate information. Selective: Similar to Auto-approved, the Selective moderation process also encourages open communication among members in that they can publish content immediately without prior review. Moderators can still review the published content to ensure the posted content is appropriate and adheres to the community’s principles. Use this option in places where members expect fast-paced and live interaction without having to wait long for the moderation process to complete. However, when moderation is delayed, there is the potential risk of inappropriate content (abuse or spam) being posted that impacts readers and disrupts the community. Compared to the Required moderation process, this process is less effective in avoiding spam and abusive content. Required: Required moderation is the best way to combat spam and abusive content because the content is sent to the moderation before it’s made public in the community. This also protects your community’s reputation and creates a safe space for your members by ensuring the appropriate content is posted in the community. However, this process relies on additional resources to review the content, which may delay making the content public. This can disappoint members who want their content to be made public quickly. Set content moderation defaults at community level Sign in to the community as an Admin. Open the Account menu and go to Settings > Features. Select Moderation. The Moderation Types settings displays spam and content moderation settings. Here, you can set default moderation types for discussions, ideas, replies or comments on discussions, blog posts, knowledge base articles, events, and media. The screenshot below displays the Moderation Types, numbered for clarity. Select Edit for any of these options. A window to edit the moderation type opens. From here, you can: assign the moderation type for all members override this setting for specific roles with another moderation type value specify the roles that will bypass moderation The following is an example for moderating discussions and replies. The Community moderation type field for discussions and replies by all members fall under the Selective moderation type, and they are made public but go through moderation process. The Role-based Override field is set to Required for the roles selected in the Apply only to the following roles field. Discussions and replies by members with these roles are hidden until reviewed and approved by a moderator. The roles added to the Exclude Roles field automatically bypasses any moderation action. Similarly, you can set default statuses for other content types at the community level. Set content moderation defaults at category, group, or board levels The Moderation Types set at the community level are inherited to the category, group, and board levels. You can override these options at various levels as needed. Based on the inheritance, the settings applied at different levels are inherited to child places from their parent levels. For example, the content moderation defaults set at category or group levels are inherited to their child places. Learn more about setting inheritance. Let’s look at an example in which you want to set content moderation defaults at category level. To set content moderation defaults at category level: Open the Account menu and go to Settings > Community Structure. On the Community Structure page, select the category where you want to set the content moderation defaults. In the category settings, go to the Moderation section and set Content moderation types for content review as required. 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. Similarly, you can set content moderation defaults at the group and board levels. Based on these board-level settings, when members post content on the community, the content is immediately routed to the Moderation for review. When a board is set to Required moderation and members post content on this board, a confirmation message is displayed on the post indicating that post will be published as soon as it is approved from moderators: From the Moderation tab, moderators can review content for appropriateness. They can then approve or reject it, and also message authors of the posts. Learn more about moderating content. Note: it is not possible to set different moderation levels for comments(or replies) and main posts Grant permissions to moderate content Moderation permissions should be granted only to roles assigned to trusted individuals. To manage this permission: Navigate to Admin > Settings > Users > Roles and Permissions. In the row of the role for which you want to manage this permission, select the Options menu and then Edit. In the Permissions area, below Moderation, locate Moderate Content. Select Grant or Deny as required.About Aurora Notifications
When you receive an in-app notification, a dot appears over the Notifications bell icon in the header anywhere in the community. Click this icon to see a list of your notifications. You receive notifications for a variety of reasons around the community: New activity on content you follow (including Category, Board, Content, and Tag follows) Activity and updates on your content: Likes Solutions Mentions (Members and Content) Ranks Badges Related topics: Manage Follow and Notifications preferences for your account About Email Notifications
Aurora Product Coaching Session: Spam Management Best Practices
Khoros Communities platform offers several settings and features that allow you to mitigate Spam in your community. Join our Spam Management Best Practices coaching session to identify, filter and deal with spam effectively. Our coaching session will guide you through the practical tips and techniques to help combat spam and help maintain the hygiene of your community. Topics covered in the coaching session Overview of Aurora spam settings and functionality Manage Content dashboard related to spam management and its features Using roles and ranks to configure permissions to check spammers Content Filters Best practice tips Notes - Admin permissions are required to conduct the call. 👉Click here to Sign Up Related Resources Enable Spam Management Community Spam Management Review Posts Captured as Spam Khoros Academy: Communities Moderation Essentials Khoros Academy Instructor Led Training: Spam Management for Communities AuroraAurora: Review content reported by content filters
Community content filters identify inappropriate words used in community content and take appropriate actions on the content based on how you’ve configured the filters to behave. Any posts and replies, private messages, profile information, tags, and registration flow that are flagged by the content filters are sent to the Abuse tab, where you can periodically review and take actions on them. If you have been granted the appropriate permissions, you can view the content reported by content filters from the Abuse tab: The tab lists: Title: Title of the content reported by content filters Author: Member who created the content Date Reported: The date on which the content was reported Filter: The name of the content filter that reported the content Filter action: The filter action applied on the content. The filter actions can be Do not allow, Replace term, Check inline HTML and do not allow, and Take no action. Learn more about content filters. To review and filter reported content, view the below walkthrough: 10 STEPS 1. Sign in to the community as a Moderator. 2. Open the Account menu and go to Manage > Abuse. 3. From the Abuse tab, click Filters. 4. In Reported By, select Content Filter. 5. Now, you can view the list of content reported by content filters. 6. Using Actions, you can filter the content based on the content filter actions applied to them. Let's select Replaced. 7. Using Found In, you can filter based on content types. Let's select Blogs. 8. You can further filter the list based on Filter Name, Keyword, and Author. 9. The Abuse tab is updated based on the applied filters. 10. That's it. You're done. Here's an interactive tutorial https://www.iorad.com/player/2224500/Review-content-reported-by-content-filters Based on the content type and filter action, you can take these moderator actions: Content Type Filter Action Moderator actions on the content Forum discussions/Blog posts/Knowledge Base articles/Replies/Ideas/Events Replace term/None (Take no action) Edit Mark as Spam Confirm Abuse Ignore Report Ban Member Forum discussions/ Blog posts/Knowledge Base articles/Replies and Private Messages/Ideas/Events Blocked/HTML Blocked (Do not allow/Check Inline HTML and do not allow) Ignore Report Ban Member User Registration None (Take no action) Ignore Report Ban Member User Signups Blocked / HTML Blocked (Do not allow / Inline do not allow) Ignore Report Edit posts reported by content filters After reviewing the posts reported by content filters, you can edit the posts that are inappropriate and do not adhere to the community principles. While editing content, you must be careful not to modify the context of the content that the author of the post is trying to convey. To edit a post, open the Options menu on the post and click Edit. Mark posts reported by content filters as spam While reviewing the posts reported by content filters, you might find the content as spam. You can mark these posts as spam. After you mark the post as spam, the post is removed from the community and moved to the Spam management tab. Learn more about Spam management. From the Abuse tab, you can mark reported posts as spam in these ways: Open the Options menu on the post and click Mark as Spam. Click the post from the list to review and Mark as spam. Confirm posts reported by content filters as abuse After reviewing the reported posts, you can confirm them as abusive messages. When you confirm the abuse, the posts are removed from the community and this list, and are moved to the Moderation tab in the Rejected filter where moderators can review and take necessary actions. From the Abuse tab, you can confirm abuse in these ways: Open the Options menu and click Confirm Abuse. Click the post from the list to review and Confirm Abuse. Ignore content reported by content filters From the Abuse tab, you can ignore the content reported by content filters after reviewing them so that you or other moderators do not re-evaluate them. When you ignore a report, the content is removed from this list. From the Abuse tab, you can ignore a report in these ways: Open the Options menu and click Ignore Report Click the content from the list to review and Ignore. Ban members from the Community After reviewing the reported content, you can ban members who are abusive in nature. This helps to avoid malicious behaviors across the community. Learn more about banning members from the community. From the Abuse tab, you can ban members abuse in these ways: Open the Options menu and click Ban member. Click the post to review and Ban Member.About Aurora Email Notifications
As a community member, you receive email notifications for different types of activity across the community. To manage your email notification preferences, see Manage Follow and Notification preferences for your account. Email notification triggers Email notifications may be sent in a variety of situations. Some may require action while others may be purely informational. Below are descriptions of the notifications you may receive. More email notification types will be available in future releases. Community member notifications Content Workflow notifications Admin-only notifications Community member notifications Notification Description New Accepted Solution A post is marked as a solution on a topic a community member is following Accepted Solution Reminder Reminder to check answers on content and to mark applicable posts as solutions Answer Accepted as Solution A post is marked as a solution on a topic a community member created New Follow (Digest) Daily or weekly digest that provides updates from the community member’s followed content New Follow (Immediate) Immediate notification that provides updates based on the community member’s email notification settings Group Email Invitation Member or non-member is invited via email to join a Group Group Join Request Group owner is notified that someone has requested to join their closed Group Group Membership Accepted Community member is notified that they have been accepted into a Group Group Membership Denied Person is notified of being rejected entry into a Group. Group owners can add an optional description explaining the reason the person was rejected. Group Private Message Invitation Community member is invited to join a Group. They receive a private message invitation to join and an email notification for the new private message. New Private Message Community member receives a new private message in their Inbox Private Message Sent Admin is notified when a broadcast private message is delivered Private Community Invitation Person is invited to join the community by email and receives instructions on how to register via email New Like Community member receives a like on their content New Content Mention Community member’s content is mentioned by another user Member Mention Community member is mentioned by username by another person Email Address Change Confirmation Community member attempts to change their email address (non-SSO authentication) Forgot Password Community member begins the Forgot Password flow Confirm Registration When registered, community member confirms their email address in this notification to complete the registration process (non-SSO authentication) Email Verification Required to Publish Content Community member attempts to publish content when their email address is not verified Email Address Verification Community member requests the verification email to be resent Rank Change Community member achieves a new rank Event Email Invitation Member or non-member has been invited to an event Event Private Message Invitation Member or non-member is invited to an event. They receive a private message invitation and an email notification for the new private message. New Badge Community member is granted a new badge Content Workflow notifications Notification Description Edited Saved Draft Someone edited a saved draft in a place you follow. Submitted for Review Someone submitted a draft for review in a place you follow. Submitted for Publication Someone submitted a draft for publication in a place you follow. Recalled Draft Someone recalled a draft for publication in a place you follow. Schedule for Publication Someone scheduled a draft for publication in a place you follow. Return to Author Someone returned a draft to its author in a place you follow. Return for Review Someone returned a draft for review in a place you follow. Admin-only notifications Notification Description Abuse Report Notification Admin or moderator receives a report of abusive content, private messages, or member profiles. Related topics: About NotificationsAurora: Ban members from the community
Each member plays a crucial role in the community's growth and is responsible to behave appropriately to create a positive space where other members feel welcome, safe, and engaged. But in some cases, members act maliciously, violate the community guidelines, or are abusive in nature. To avoid such malicious behaviors in the community, Moderators and members with appropriate permissions can ban these members and prevent them from accessing the community. Before banning a member, consider their member history, not just a single action or post. You can temporarily or permanently ban members based on the impact caused. You can ban members using their profile information (username, user ID, and email address) and IP addresses. Use IP address bans as a last resort. IP addresses tend to be dynamic and if a banned member restarts their router, they can get out of the ban and another member may receive the ban. In the community, you can ban members in several ways: Create ban rule from the Manage Users dashboard Ban members from the Content Management dashboard Ban members from the members’ profile page Ban members from the content page Create Ban rule from the Manage Users dashboard Using a ban rule, you can ban single or multiple members from the community. From the Manage Users dashboard, you can create and view the list of ban rules in the community as shown below: To create a ban rule: Sign in to the community as an Admin or Moderator. Open the Account menu and go to Manage > Users. The Banned tab on the Manage Users page is displayed. Click Create Ban Rule. Specify any of the following fields: Username: Enter a member’s username. The entry can include * and ? wildcard characters to ban all members whose usernames match all or part of the username. Example 1: If you enter the username as “Jess*,” any member whose username begins with “Jess” followed by any character will be banned. Example 2: If you enter the username as “Je?s,” the "? " replaces only the single character. The usernames like "Jess," "Jeos," and other matching usernames will be banned. User ID: Enter member’s unique User ID. Email Address: Enter member’s email address. The entry can include * and ? wildcard characters to ban members whose email addresses match all or part of the email address. Example 1: Entering “*@test.com” bans members whose email address begins with any character followed by test.com. Example 2: Entering “Je?s@test.com” bans members with email addresses like “Jess@test.com,” “Jeos@test.com,” and other matching email addresses. IP Address: Enter member’s IP address. Note that other members who use the same IP address will also be banned. Match any of the above criteria: Select this checkbox to ban a member who meets any of the criteria listed above. Otherwise, the ban is in effect only if all criteria are met. In the Ban Actions drop-down menu, select the ban Duration. The duration can be temporary or permanent as required. To set a custom duration, select Custom from the drop-down menu and set the duration. (Optional) In Ban Reasons, specify the following reasons for the ban: Internal reason for ban: Only Admins and Moderators can see this reason. They can see this reason when they edit the ban rule. Public reason for ban: Enter the reason that the banned member can see when they fail to sign in to the community. Click Ban. The impacted members are banned and signed out from the community. Ban members from the Content Management dashboard On the Content Management dashboard, you can ban members from the Spam, Abuse, and Moderation tabs using the Options menu > Ban Member. Note that you can only ban one member at a time from the Content Management dashboard. Let’s say you saw malicious content on the Abuse tab and you want to ban the member who created the content. To ban the member: Sign in to your community as an Admin or Moderator. Open the Account menu and go to Manage > Moderation. Go to the Moderation tab where you can view the list of content reported as abuse. To ban a member, open the Options menu and click Ban Member. The Ban Member window opens where the member details are auto-populated: Add information to the fields and click Ban. The Member is banned and signed out from the community. Similarly, you can ban members from the Spam and Moderation tabs. Ban members from the member profile page To ban a member from the member’s profile page: Sign in to the community as an Admin. Go to the member’s profile page by clicking the member account you want to ban on the community. Open the Options menu and click Ban Member. The Ban Member window opens where the member details are auto-populated. Specify the fields and click Ban. The Member is banned and signed out from the community. To modify ban, open the Options menu and click Edit Ban. Ban members from the content page From the content page (forum discussions, blog posts, ideas, and knowledge base articles), you can ban the member who created the content as well as members who posted replies/comments to the content. To ban an author, go to the respective post, open the Options menu, and click Ban member. To ban a member from comments or replies section, go to the comment or reply posted by the member, open the Options menu, and click Ban Member.
