You are here: Social > Forums > Forums Dynamic Object

Forums Dynamic Object

You can make Forums available to Users directly on a LearnCenter page by using a dynamic object. The dynamic objects looks and behaves much like the Forums page visible only to Administrators on the ControlPanel. Users cannot add or edit Forums and their properties from this dynamic object, unless you grant them the appropriate User Permissions. On any LearnCenter page:

Click in the management control icons section. The page you are viewing opens in Edit Mode.
Click to modify an existing area of the page.

or

Click Insert New Area Here, select Free-Form (Text and Graphics) from the Area Type drop-down list, and click Create.
Place your cursor anywhere on the page, and click . The Dynamic Object window opens.
Click next to LearnCenter in the Object Types panel.
Click Forums. The Forums Wizard opens.

Click one of the following for Show Forum:

Embedded in page - to enable you to embed the Forum in any LearnCenter page. (Default)
Hyperlink - to enable you to create a hyperlink to navigate to the new Forums redesign.
Hyperlink (opens in a new window) - to enable you to create a hyperlink to navigate to the new Forum redesign. The link opens as a pop-up window.

Type the Hyperlink Text to specify what text to display for the hyperlink label if you selected either one of the Hyperlink options in the previous step.
Click one of the following for Display:

All Forums - to enable you to display all the Forums in the LearnCenter. (Default)
Specific Forum - to enable you to specify a specific Forum. If you selected Specific Forum, select a Forum from the drop-down list. If you select this option, click the Allow Users to navigate to other Forums check box to allow Users to navigate to other Forums from the current Forum they are viewing. Or, clear the check box if you do not want to allow Users to navigate to other Forums from the current Forum they are viewing.

Click Return Selected.

What Users See

The following is an example of an embedded Forum displaying all Forums in the LearnCenter.

The Forums Home section displays the LearnCenterstandard header. If the Forum is embedded as seen in the example above, the header does not display. The Forums Home section displays all the Forums that you indicated should be displayed in the LearnCenter. For a Forum to display in the dynamic object, you need to do two things:

You must click the Show this Forum in Lists check box in the Forum Editor page for that Forum.
You must select either All Forums or the Specific Forum name when you inserted the dynamic object on the page. (See the instructions above for details).

This dynamic object displays the Forums names and descriptions in the Title column. The name of each Forum is a hyperlink that, when clicked, opens the Forum.

The total number of Threads in the Forum and the total number of Messages also display. The Last Post column displays the name of the last person to post to a thread. Click the date and time link to open the Threads containing the last post.

Rolling your pointer over the Username in the Last Post Column displays a User Card if User Cards is active for this LearnCenter.

Clicking a Forum Name to all the threads in a Forum. The Forum page displays the LearnCenter standard header, unless, the Forum is embedded. Below the header is the standard breadcrumb navigation to help you move throughout the Forum.

If a Forum is moderated, only approved messages display. Non-moderated Forums display every message. Only original messages in a thread are listed here.Users can use this page to respond to posts and create new threads.

They can use the Display filter options to display Approved Messages and Unapproved Messages by Last month, Last 2 months, Last 3 months, Last 6 months, Last year, or All Activity. Use the Search field to search for specified text in the subject or message body.

The Message column lists the message subject, who posted the message and the date and time it was posted. In addition, you have the following three columns:

Replies - displays a list of the number of replies to the thread.
Views - displays the number of views of the thread. Each unique visit to view a Forum thread is tracked as a view. This includes page refreshes and Back button clicks in the browser.
Last Post - displays the last person to post to a thread. User Cards display when Users rest their pointers over the name link (if your LearnCenterhas the User Card functionality activated). Users can click the subject and the date and time links to open the thread.

Forum views and forwarded threads are stored in the database and are reportable. These statistics are helpful for Users when they browse a Forum to see which threads are the most popular. Statistics display the top 10 threads. All stats are displayed in order of greatest to least and cannot be sorted at this time. They are grouped into two categories: Users and messages. Messages display the most popular threads. Those are divided into the Popular Threads tabs as follows:

Replied - lists the most replied Forum threads.
Viewed - lists the most viewed Forum threads.
Emailed - lists the most forwarded Forum threads.

The Emailed tab displays any messages that were emailed or posted about this Forum. The subject link in the Replied and Viewed tabs redirect you to the Threads section. The statistics area also displays the most active Users in the Forum.

If Users rest their pointers on the Username hyperlink displays a pop-up window with User Card information, if User Cards is activated for the LearnCenter.

Users can perform many of the same actions here as you can on the Forums ControlPanel page. See Related Topics link below for instructions on adding new threads, replying to posts, inviting others to join threads, and setting up thread notifications.