Discussion Forums are a great way to get your members to engage with your website. They allow members to ask each other questions, offer each other insights and discuss issues relevant to them.

Create a page for the forum

The first thing you need to do is create a page to host your forum and add the Discussion Forum module. See the inner pages section for instructions on how to do this.

Set up forum categories

The next step is to decide what your topic categories will be. To start with we recommend limiting the number of topic categories, if there are empty topics people tend to not to add posts. Start with a few broad topic categories, then as the forum gets busier branch some topics out.

Click on the gear icon to open the Configuration and Settings menu.

In the menu on the left, click Lists > Forum Categories.

Click the New Forum Category button.

Enter the name of your category and a brief description, click Save.

On your website

When members go to the Discussion Forum page on your website they will see the list of topic categories.

Within the individual topic categories members are able to subscribe to an individual topic by clicking on the Subscribe button. When members subscribe to a topic they will be notified of any new posts.

Forum administration

Forum discussions can be managed from within the administration system.

From the menu on the left, select Forum Discussions.

You will then see a list of current forum topics.From this list you can view the topic, and if inappropriate post has been made, edit the topic.

View discussions

To view or edit a discussion click on the Actions button on the right.

View Discussion will display the original post and subsequent replies.

Edit topics

Individual posts can be edited by click on the edit icon in the top right.

Edit Topic will bring up a dialogue box that will allow you to edit the topic, and disable it if necessary.