As your Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) community grows, and more and more posts are contributed, you may occasionally need to change one post type to another (typically because a user created their post with the wrong type).
With the Change Post Type feature, this process is quick and easy, and in this article, we'll walk you through the process.
Required permissions
Users belonging to a Role with either of the permissions below can change a post's type.
Discussion > EditDiscussion > Delete
📝 NOTE: These permissions are set per Category, so they're required for each Category where a user needs to change post types. When editing a Role, all of your community's Categories are listed at the bottom of the page, and this is where you set permissions on a per-Category basis.
To learn more about accessing and managing your Roles and their permissions, check out the article below.
Change a Post Type
1. Navigate to the Recent Posts page or a post's details page.
2. Click the ellipsis (…) menu associated to the post you want to change and select Change Post Type.
3. Use the Post Type dropdown to select the type that you want to change the post to (the current type is displayed).
📝 NOTE: If you choose a Post Type that is not allowed in the selected Category, an error displays and you must select either a different Post Type or a different Category:
✔️ TIP: You can also move the post during this process by selecting a new Category. If you do, the available Post Types will be dictated by the Category that you select. When you move a post, you can include a redirect link to give users easy access to the post's new location.
4. When ready, click Change Type.
The post's type changes immediately and a confirmation message displays in the lower left:
⚠️ Additional information for communities with custom Post Types and Post Fields
If your community is using custom Post Types with custom Post Fields, the process outlined above includes additional steps and nuance regarding what to do with your Post Field data.
📝 NOTE: If you're not familiar with custom Post Types and Post Fields, familiarize yourself with this information before continuing.
Let's walk through each possible scenario.
Scenario 1: BOTH Post Types HAVE Post Fields
In this scenario, you need to decide which fields to map and which to delete.
- If both Post Types have shared fields (like Related Feature and Priority in the image below), Vanilla will automatically map them to one another. If you'd like, you can instead map them to another field by selecting a different value using the New Value dropdown.
- If the new Post Type has fewer Post Fields available than the original, you must delete some data. For example, if the original Post Type has five fields and the new one has three fields, you will need to delete two fields because that data has "nowhere to go." Select No mapping for the fields you want to delete.
Click Next to review your changes. Then, click Change Type to finalize the change.
Scenario 2: The ORIGINAL Post Type DOES NOT have Post Fields but the NEW Post Type DOES
In this scenario, you must fill out any required fields (denoted by a red asterisk) in the new Post Type so they have data; non-required fields in the new Post Type can be left blank or filled out, as needed.
- In the Validate Fields dialog, complete all required fields and decide whether to fill out non-required fields.
- Click Next to continue.
Review the changes and click Change Type to finalize them.
Scenario 3: The ORIGINAL Post Type HAS Post Fields but the NEW Post Type DOES NOT
In this scenario, the data from the original Post Type's fields has nowhere to go, and therefore must be deleted.
- No mapping is selected for each field, indicating it will be deleted.
- Click Next to continue.
Review the changes and click Change Type to finalize them.