As you start your online-community journey with Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla), you should take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with some of the basics of Vanilla communities.
š NOTE: Even if you have experience with an online community on a different platform, this information is valuable because it is specific to your Vanilla experience.
This article provides high-level introductory information about some of the most-used features of a Vanilla community. Additionally, it's your chance to become familiar with terms and nomenclature that you will encounter in Vanilla.
The Admin Dashboard
The Dashboard is the gateway for your Administrators and Moderators to manage various aspects of your Vanilla community.
- When you access the Dashboard, you're on the Analytics tab; there are three other tabs that you access to administer much of the behind-the-scenes workings of your Vanilla community site.
Analytics - This tab provides statistical information about community activity (users, discussions, page views, and comments). The data can be filtered to either a time period (Day, Month) or a custom date range.
- For more information, see:
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/521
Appearance - This tab is where you set community properties to reflect your unique brand identity. You also go here to apply a theme and design your page layouts.
- For more information, see:
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/170
Moderation - This tab has multiple configuration pages that you can use to manage your community users, messages, and rules of behavior. There are also spam and moderation queues that "quarantine" suspicious and questionable content that you can review and decide whether to allow it in the community.
- For more information, see:
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/342
Settings - This tab also has several configuration pages on which you can set and manage user roles and permissions; configure connection settings; manage your addons; and manage other community features, such as Reactions, Ideas, Posts, and Categories.
- For more information, check out the Vanilla Forums knowledge base.
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/documentation
User content
In a Vanilla community, users can generate a variety of content types (e.g., discussions, comments, and ideas). All of this user-generated content is referred to as aĀ Post.
All of the following are user-generatedĀ PostsĀ in Vanilla:
- Discussion: content thatĀ initiates the exchange of information; seeĀ Discussions & Comments.
- Question: aĀ request for information; seeĀ Questions & Answers.
- Comment: aĀ reply or follow up to a Discussion, or anĀ answer to a Question; seeĀ Discussions & Comments.
- Idea: a suggestion thatĀ provides informationĀ andĀ solicits feedbackĀ from other users; seeĀ Ideas.
- Poll: aĀ solicitation of community users' opinionsĀ about a topic or event in which users can also leave comments to expand the conversation; seeĀ Polls.
- Event: aĀ public announcementĀ of an upcoming event; seeĀ Events.
Categories
Categories are the high-level organizers of your community discussions (each discussion must be placed in a Category). Categories are accessible by clicking Categories in the main menu at the top of all community pages.
Managing a community's Categories involves, for example, creating and editing; setting display layout and list order; and assigning a type on the Manage Categories page in the Dashboard > Settings > Discussions > Categories.
- ļ»æFor more information, see:
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/8
User permissions
Roles are like high-level categories in which your community users are grouped. Each Role can be customized with a unique set of permissions that control what users with that Role can see (e.g., which content is accessible) and do (e.g., moderation abilities and administrator access) in your community.
ļ»æš NOTE: Every user must be assigned at least one Role.
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/39
Site themes, layouts, & editors
A theme is the best (and easiest!) way to customize your Vanilla community pages so that they reflect your specific branding: colors, fonts, images, etc. Vanilla offers you a variety of themes that are complemented by pre-designed, tried-&-tested layouts.
Choose a theme that suits your community and then customize it in Theme Editor. You can control numerous aspects of your community pages, such as:
- global styles,
- banners and titles,
- default colors and images,
- ...and you can add widgets!
Foundation & Layout Editor
Be sure to check out Vanilla's latest theme, Foundation, which has been built to ensure that your theme remains accessible, mobile friendly, and compatible with future enhancement ass we continue to improve and introduce new features!
Along with Foundation, Vanilla has recently released Layout Editor which introduces the ability for Admins to create custom page layouts. The easy-to-use editor means that your Admins have complete control over the layout of a page and its content, and the assortment of widgets simplifies adding static and dynamic content from your community.
Check out all these articles to learn about these great features!
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/theme-guide https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/279 https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/545
Addons
Addons (also called "plugins") are features that can be enabled in the community in order to enhance an existing feature or functionality or add a feature or functionality that doesn't currently exist.
Vanilla offers a wide range of addons that you can enable in order to manage trolling; mitigate spam; offer badges as rewards; and track who is online -- to name just a few!
- Get started by learning more in:
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/9
Gamification & rewards
Everyone likes to have their efforts acknowledged and rewarded. And doing this is especially important in a community; and especially when it comes to those who regularly contribute -- they are the lifeblood of the community.
Vanilla's GamificationĀ is a simple and effective way for you to reward community engagement and foster participation.Ā It features a points-based gamification system that incentivizes users to engage with others in the community because they receive points for doing so and for performing various actions.
- Learn about Gamification and how to start using it in your community:
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/341
Ranks
Ranks are an additional way to manage users in your community. Ranks differ from Roles and permissions in that they grant/remove specified community privileges. Ranks can be assigned automatically or manually.
š NOTE: A user can have only one rank at a time.
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/21
