Community

End-user documentation

Community

Public and member community spaces for categories, groups, topics, replies, reactions, moderation, and knowledge sharing.

Purpose and What Problem This Solves

The Community module gives customers, members, and staff a structured place to ask questions, discuss topics, share answers, and participate in groups. It reduces repeated support questions and turns informal conversations into searchable knowledge.

Who normally uses this module

What You Can Do Here

• Create public categories for product support, announcements, learning, or member discussions.
• Host private or public groups for customers, tenants, residents, students, or interest areas.
• Moderate topics, posts, bans, and reports from one administrative surface.
• Let members react, reply, and follow conversations without relying on external social platforms.
• Surface community activity through widgets and public pages.

Core Concepts and Terms

Learn these words first. Most user mistakes happen when a beginner opens a form without knowing what the record represents.

Beginner Quick Start

Use this first-run path in a training database or with a supervised account before handling live records.

1. Define the community purpose and rules before opening public posting.
2. Create a small set of categories with names beginners can understand.
3. Assign moderators and agree on escalation paths for abuse, privacy, and urgent support.
4. Publish starter topics such as welcome notes, FAQ threads, and how-to guides.
5. Review the moderation queue daily during launch and adjust rules as patterns emerge.

Standard Operating Procedures

These SOPs describe the routine operating pattern. Your company policy may add approvals, attachments, or segregation-of-duties controls.

Launch a new discussion category

1. Confirm the category has an owner and a clear purpose.
2. Create the category with a beginner-friendly description and posting expectations.
3. Seed two or three starter topics so the space does not feel empty.
4. Monitor new posts for the first week and refine naming if users are confused.

Moderate a reported topic

1. Open the moderation queue and read the full conversation before acting.
2. Classify the issue as spam, abuse, privacy risk, duplicate, off-topic, or acceptable.
3. Edit, hide, close, or escalate the content according to policy.
4. Record the reason so future moderators understand the decision.

Run a healthy community routine

1. Check unanswered topics and route them to the right expert.
2. Highlight useful answers, merge duplicates, and close stale threads when appropriate.
3. Review active groups and membership requests.
4. Summarize recurring questions into documentation or knowledge base articles.

Industry Notes and Good Practice

• A healthy forum is designed, not just opened. Keep categories narrow enough that people know where to post.
• Moderation should be consistent, documented, and proportionate. Hidden rules create frustration.
• Use community patterns: welcome posts, pinned FAQs, clear codes of conduct, and visible escalation paths.
• Convert repeated questions into official documentation so the community becomes easier to search over time.

Controls, Data Quality, and Review Checklist

Use this checklist during onboarding, monthly review, and process audits.

• Every category has an owner and a short purpose statement.
• Moderation decisions are logged with a reason.
• Private groups are checked regularly for correct membership.
• Unanswered support-style topics are triaged within the promised response window.

Related ERPat areas

FAQ and Troubleshooting

Why is my topic not visible?

It may be waiting for moderation, hidden by a moderator, posted to a private group, or removed for policy reasons.

Should support tickets be handled in Community?

Use Community for reusable public knowledge. Use Helpdesk for private, account-specific, or SLA-bound support.

How many categories should we create?

Start small. Too many empty categories confuse beginners and split the conversation.

What makes a good topic title?

Use the problem or outcome in the title, not just words like Help or Question.

ERPat Community user guide. This static HTML page is documentation-only and does not change module routing, permissions, or runtime behavior.