Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) supports several post types.
📝 NOTE: All communities have Discussions and Comments by default, but others can be enabled (these vary by plan level). Check with your CSM to understand what types are available to you.
In this article, we'll focus on the Questions & Answers (Q&A) post type, which makes it easier for users to have their questions answered and helps users to quickly locate questions that need to be answered.
Enable Q&A
📝 NOTE: This addon is available to Corporate plans and higher.
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Addons > Addons.
- Click the Q&A toggle to enable it.
The Ask a Question option is now available in the New Post dropdown (refer to the image above).
Q&A features
You may be wondering why you should incorporate Q&A into your community instead of users just asking questions via a standard Discussion post. While users can technically ask questions via a Discussion post, the Q&A addon includes a few features that make it better suited to asking (and answering) questions. Let's look at these features now.
Dedicated Unanswered page
All unanswered questions are listed on a dedicated Unanswered page, accessible in the Quick Links area. This makes it much easier for users to find questions, which, in turn, makes it more likely they'll answer them.
📝 NOTE: While these questions are also listed on the Recent Discussions page, they're mixed in with all other post types, making them harder to find.
Accept/reject answers
For each response, the person who asked the question will be prompted to either accept or reject it as a suitable answer.
📝 NOTE: If all answers to a question are rejected, the question will return to the Unanswered page.
✔️ TIP: Admins and Moderators with the Curation > Manage permission can also accept/reject answers.
Best Answer indicator
An accepted answer will be flagged as the Best Answer, which will be pinned to the top of the comment list so other users can easily find it.
Change the status of an answer
Are there answers to questions that are no longer considered the Best Answer? Do you want to mark a more recent answer as the Best Answer? Perhaps the user who asked the question accidentally accepted the wrong answer.
Whatever the reason, Admins with the Curation > Manage permission can change the status of an answer (i.e., mark/unmark it as the Best Answer) at any time.
1. Locate the answer in question and select Q&A from its ellipsis (…) menu.
2. In the dialog, choose a different status and click OK.
Q&A statuses
Q&A posts can have one of three statuses:
- Question: The post has no answers or only rejected answers.
- Answered: The post has has tentatively answered or potentially answered responses that have not been marked accepted or rejected by the author (or admin).
- Accepted Answer: The post has has at least one accepted answer (i.e., an answer has been marked as accepted by the question's author or admin).
📝 NOTE: Reach out to Vanilla Support if you'd like to rename these statuses (e.g., change "Answered" to "Tentatively Answered" or "Potential Answer"). Here are a few examples of custom statuses:
Gamification and points
By default, users do not receive points for answering questions or having their answers accepted.
📝 NOTE: They do, however, get points for receiving badges associated with answering questions, if these badges are enabled:
You can, however, choose to give users points for answering questions, and/or for having their answer accepted.
Enable points
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Addons > Addons.
- Locate the Q&A addon and click the settings button.
- In the dialog, click to enable points, and in the fields that appear, set how many points to award for each action (or enter 0 to disable points for an action).
📝 NOTE: Changes are not retroactive. For example, if you gave users 2 points for each first answer, but then changed it to 4 points a few weeks later, users will not be retroactively awarded additional points.
Custom post types per Category
You can control which post types are available on a per-Category basis, allowing you to make specific Categories dedicated to only Q&A posts (or other post types).
- When creating or editing a Category, toggle ON the This category has custom permissions option to display the Discussion Types options.
- Check/uncheck the post types you want available for this Category.
- Click Save at the bottom of the page to apply your changes.
✔️ TIP: Admins and Moderators can change existing Discussions to Questions by selecting Q&A from the ellipsis menu. Then, select the Question radio button and click OK.
FAQ
Can I customize Q&A?
Verbiage can be customized by contacting your CSM.
The look and feel can be altered using CSS. A theme developer experienced in HTML and CSS should be able to do this for you, or you can engage Vanilla's Professional Services team to build you a theme that includes any Q&A customizations you need.
Can I change the New Post menu to Ask a Question?
Yes, simply reach out to Vanilla Support.
Will users receive notifications about Q&A?
Yes, these can be toggled in their notifications preferences. Alternatively, you can reach out to Vanilla Support to set sitewide defaults.
Additional Resources
