If enabled, Category Following allows all users to:
- Follow Categories
- Choose whether to receive in-app and/or email notifications regarding new content in those Categories
📝 NOTE: This feature replaces the legacy Advanced Notifications feature, which was limited to Admins and Moderators.
The importance of Category Following cannot be overstated: these notifications make it much easier for your users to stay updated about the content they find interesting, which in turn increases the overall level of engagement across your Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) community.
Enable Category Following
1. Access the Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings > Discussions > Categories.
3. Click the settings icon at the top of the page.
4. Slide the toggle to the right.
5. Click Save.
Follow a Category
When the Category Following feature is enabled, all users will see a bell icon at the top of each Category page.
📝 NOTE: By default, all Categories will be set to Unfollow, giving users the freedom to choose which ones they want to follow.
- To follow a Category, navigate to its page and click the bell icon > Follow Category.
- This action adds the Category to your Followed Content page, available from your profile. Refer to the Followed Content page section below to learn more.
- You'll then need to decide what type of notifications 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 bell icon.
- Notify of new posts: Check this to receive near real-time popups and messages in your notifications panel for new Category content.
📝 NOTE: Notify of new posts must be enabled to display the two options below.
- Notify of new comments: Check this to also receive notification popups and messages for new comments.
- Send notifications as emails: Check this to also have emails sent to your personal inbox. Keep in mind this option sends a separate email for each new discussion and comment (if comments are enabled); this option 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 it.
- Unfollow: 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.
Notes
- All Categories you follow are easily filterable on the
/categories page by setting the View: menu to Following.
- Followed Categories are indicated by a solid bell icon for easy visual reference.
Followed Content page
Any Categories you've followed are added to your profile’s Followed Content page, 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 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. Click the dropdown and select one or more Categories to add them to the default list, which is displayed below.
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.
6. Click Save to apply your changes.
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.
