Community forums in Freshdesk are organized into a 3-level hierarchy - Categories > Forums > Topics

  • Categories:
    At the top level, you have various community Categories within which you could have specific Forums. Each of these forums can have as many Topics of discussion as you need. 
  • Topics: 
    Topics or individual posts in your forums are the actual discussion threads. Based on the type of forum, users can upvote feature requests, questions, or problems inside a specific topic.
  • Forums:
    Collections of similar topics that help customers know exactly where to go to get a specific answer from the community. For example, you can have a specific forum to collect Feature Requests from your customers, another forum for the community to share tips and tricks, and a third forum where customers can talk about the problems they are facing and their workarounds.

    You can organize your forums into specific Categories. Categories are useful when you provide support across multiple products. You can choose to only show certain forum categories specific to a product in that product's portal.


Once you decide how you want to organize community discussions in your support portal, you can start creating new categories and forums.

Creating a new category


  1. Click Forums > Add Category.
  2. Enter the and add a brief description. (You can choose to have this visible on the required portals.)
  3. Click Save.

  4. You can now start adding specific forums inside this category.

Creating a new forum

Under each category, you can create a new forum to drive discussions in a specific direction. For example, you can have a forum dedicated to 'Tips and Tricks', or one for your customers to share their best practices.

  1. Choose the New Forum button within the required category.
  2. Enter the name and add a brief description.
  3. Select the forum type as Questions, Announcement, Ideas or Problems to reflect the type of topics to be discussed.
  4. Choose the forum visibility. The options are all, logged in users, only agents, or selected companies.
  5. If you want all new topics posted on this forum by your customers to be automatically converted to a ticket, click on the toggle button to enable Auto-Convert Topic to Tickets.
  6. Click Save.

Creating a new topic

Once you have created a forum, both agents and logged-in customers can start a topic (provided you have made the forum visible to customers). To start a new discussion topic, click on 'Start a Topic' from inside a forum.



Writing a new forum post:

  1. Click on the Forum where you want to add a new topic and select Start a Topic.
  2. Give an appropriate name for the topic, and the message you wish to post.
  3. Choose whether the post needs to be Sticky or Locked. You can also Monitor a topic if you wish to be notified of all the updates and changes done.
  4. You can attach a file if necessary.
  5. Once you are done, click Post Topic.
  6. The Reply button can then be used by agents and users to respond with their comments.

Your community forums in Freshdesk are organized with a 3 level hierarchy:


Categories > Forums > Topics


At the top level, you could have various community Categories, within which you could have specific Forums. Each of these forums can have as many Topics of discussion as you need. 

 

Topics or individual posts in your Forums are the actual discussion threads. Based on the type of forum, users can upvote feature requests, questions or problems inside a specific topic.
 

Forums are collections of similar topics, so customers know exactly where to go to get a specific answer from the community. For example, you can have a specific forum to collect Feature Requests from your customers, another forum for the community to share tips and tricks and a third forum where customers can talk about the problems they are facing and their work arounds.
 

Finally, you can organize your forums into specific Categories. In addition to helping you organize your community discussions better, Categories are useful when you are providing support across multiple products. You can choose to only show certain forum categories pertaining to a specific product in that product's portal.


Once you have decided how you want to organize community discussions in your support portal, you can start creating new categories and forums.
Quick guide to create a new Category



  • Click on the Forums tab in your Freshdesk account.
  • Click on the arrow icon next to the Add topic button and choose Add Category.
  • Give a title to this category and a brief description. You can choose to have this visible on the required portals.
  • Once you are done, click Save.

  • You can now start adding specific forums inside this category.


Creating a new Forum
Under each category, you can create a new forum to drive discussions in a specific direction. For example, you could have a forum dedicated to 'Tips and Tricks', or one for your customers to share their best practices.



Quick guide to create a new Forum:



  • Choose the New Forum button within the required category.

  • Give a name to the forum, a brief description about what the forum will be talking about.

  • Select the forum type as Questions, Announcement, Ideas or Problems to reflect the type of topics to be discussed.

  • Choose the forum visibility - all, logged in users, only agents or selected companies.

  • If you would like all new topics posted on this forum by your customers to be automatically converted to a ticket, click on the toggle button by the side of Auto-Convert Topic to Tickets.

  • Once you are done, click Save.


Creating a new topic

Once you have created a forum, both agents and logged in customers can start a topic (provided you have made the forum visible to customers). To start a new discussion topic, you can click on 'Start a Topic' from inside a forum.



Quick Guide to writing a new forum post:

  • Click on the Forum where you want to add a new topic and select Start a Topic.
  • Give an appropriate name for the topic, and the message you wish to post.
  • Choose whether the post needs to be Sticky or Locked. Also select to Monitor the topic if you wish to be notified of all the updates and changes done.
  • You can attach a file if necessary.
  • Once you are done, click Post Topic.
  • The 'Reply' button can then be used by agents and users to respond with their comments.