The Category Following feature allows all users to:
- Follow Categories, allowing them to choose whether to receive
- in-app and/or email notifications regarding new content in those Categories.
Following your favorite Categories allows you to easily know when new posts and comments are available via notifications, like updates to products you're interested in or announcements about upcoming events. Even if you don't want to receive notifications, all followed Categories are listed on the Manage Categories tab of your Followed Content page, providing easy access to them.
✔️ TIP: Over time, there may be posts within a Category that produce a high volume of engagement that you're not interested in, and this engagement can result in a similar high volume of notifications that flood your inbox. Rather than turning off these Category-based notifications completely, which would prevent you from receiving notifications from posts you are interested in, you can granularly mute individual posts. Check out this article to learn more.
Follow a Category
When viewing your community's Categories list page or an individual Category, click the Follow button to follow a Category and choose which notifications to receive from it (if any).
- This action also adds the Category to your profile's Followed Content page. Refer to the Followed Content page section below to learn more.
- You're free to update what notifications you'd like to receive from this Category, if any (more on this in the Notification preferences section below).
Notification preferences
Upon following a Category, or when managing your followed Categories on the Followed Content page, you can decide whether to receive notifications about its content via its Follow button (bell icon).
Let's review the notification options (reference the image above):
- Include in email digest: Check this box if you want content from a Category included in your email digest. Check out this article to learn more about the email digest.
- Notify me of new content: Check this box to set the following content preferences:
- Notify me of new comments: This refers specifically to comments (replies) made in posts.
- Notify me of new posts: This refers to all new posts in the Category, which includes discussions, questions, ideas, etc.
- Notify me of new or updated events: Decide whether to receive notifications about new or updated events associated with this Category. Learn more.
- Unfollow Category: If you’re already following a Category, you can click Unfollow Category at any time to disable all notifications and remove it from your list of Followed Categories.
Notification types
When setting your new content preferences, you can control the type of notification received via the the bell and/or email boxes.
- Check the bell icon boxes to receive near real-time popups directly in the app (at the bottom left of the screen) AND messages in your Notifications Panel.
- Check the email icon boxes to have emails sent to your personal inbox. Keep in mind this option sends a separate email for each new post/comment, which can result in numerous emails, so it's generally only recommended for Categories in which you're heavily invested or interested in.
✔️ TIP: In your personal inbox, these emails may end up in your Spam folder, so be sure to check there if you don't see them.
Followed Content page
Any Categories you've followed are added to your profile’s Followed Content page, on the Manage Categories tab, making it easy to:
- See which Categories you're currently following
- Update their notification options at any time using the bell icons
- Unfollow Categories you're no longer interested in
- You can sort your Followed Categories by Most Recently Followed, Oldest Followed, or Alphabetical.
Set your default notification preferences
You can set default notification preferences that will automatically be selected when following a Category; while you're still free to update these defaults at the time of following, this is a time-saving measure you can take, if desired.
To set default preferences:
- Navigate to your profile.
- Click the Notification Preferences link on the right side of the page.
- Scroll down to the Categories section to access three preferences:
- Notify me of new or updated events controls whether you receive notifications when a new event is added to a Category you follow or an existing event is updated.
- Notify me of new posts controls whether you receive notifications any time a new post is added to one of your followed Categories.
- Notify me of new comments controls whether you receive notifications any time a new comment is added to one of your followed Categories.
Set default Followed Categories for your users
Are there specific Categories you'd like all new users to automatically Follow by default, guaranteeing important community content is on their radar? If so, you can configure one or more default Followed Categories for your community.
📝 NOTES
- "New user" equates to users who have created an account and have logged in at least once.
- These default Followed Categories may also apply to existing users: if an existing user has 0 Followed Categories, they will inherit these defaults upon their next login; if an existing user has Followed at least one Category, they will not inherit these defaults.
Set your default Followed Categories
1. Access the Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings > Membership > User Preferences.
3. Click Edit Default Categories.
4. To add one or more Categories, click the dropdown and select them from the list. To remove a Category, click its trashcan icon.
5. For each of your default Categories, decide whether to also set default notification preferences for them. This will determine whether users receive notifications, and what type. Users are free to update these default preferences at any time.
📝 NOTE: Refer to the Notification preferences section of the article to learn more about these two options and the bell and email notification types.
6. Click Save to apply your changes.
Users' Unsubscribe option
By default, all notification emails have an Unsubscribe link at the bottom. Users can click it to be automatically unsubscribed from that notification.
A user who clicks the link is:
- immediately unsubscribed from the notification and
- taken to the Unsubscribe page.
The Unsubscribe page confirms for the user their unsubscribe action.
✔️ TIP: On the page, the user can undo the action to reverse the unsubscribe and continue receiving the notifications.
📝 NOTE: Unsubscribing is unique to the notification type that contained the link. Unsubscribing from one notification type in a category (e.g., Posts) does not affect other notifications in the same category (e.g., Comments) or notifications from any other categories. Refer to Other notifications in the same category, below.
Other notifications in the same category
A user who is subscribed to several notifications in one category (e.g., Posts, Groups, or Community Tasks), might be receiving multiple notifications for a single action. The user can manage those other notifications as well (as shown below).
- Other "notification subscriptions" in the same category are listed with boxes that can be unchecked to unsubscribe.
✔️ TIP: Users can also click either Manage All Notifications (upper right) or the text, notification preferences page, to access the Notification Preferences page in their profile.
Advanced Notifications (legacy feature)
Categories you were following prior to the launch of Followed Categories (when they were referred to as Advanced Notifications) should remain on your profile, but we do recommend double-checking your selections in your Notification Preferences.
Additional resources
Click the link below to access a video expanding on what you learned in this article.
