How to export:

1. Go to Admin → Integrations → Export
2. Check the boxes for the data you want to include:
   • Community Topics
   • Topic Votes
   • Replies and Comments
   • Votes on Replies/Comments
   • Users (agents and end-users)
3. Click Save

The export process may take a few minutes. Once it's ready, you'll receive a zip file via email with the selected data in CSV format.

Notes:

• Export includes all content from all channels.
• Voting data includes user identifiers (email/name).
• Community and KB exports are combined in the same export tool.

Turning posting without signup on

Go to Settings > COMMUNITY > Settings.

Check the Posting w/o Signup option and Save.

This will allow users to submit topics without registration. They would only need to provide their email address.

What happens when a user posts without signup

As usual, the user can access the topic submission form through the search widget if none of the search results are satisfactory.

After filling in the form, they need to specify their email address and click Post to submit the topic.

The topic will be added to the community and an email with activation link will be sent to the user.

The user will also see a message after submission saying that they should click the link in the email to activate their account.

Posting without signup works for users who do not have an account or haven't activated their account yet (such users appear as "Invited" in your People page) in your Helprace. Once the user activates their account, they will be prompted for their password when submitting a topic.

The most recent posts are normally displayed on the home page. They are designed to look like quotes. All praise can in chronological order by clicking on the Praise link.

Agent collision detection keeps agents aware of topics being viewed or edited by someone else. This helps ensure multiple agents don't make changes to a topic at the same time and overwrite each other's work. Learn more

Settings

In Settings under the Praise section, you can do a number of things.

You can toggle Praise on the user portal, change how every post is listed and set commenting options.

Topics can be closed for commenting individually. Learn more

Users can search and submit problems using the feedback widget or user portal.

You can create categories and tags to organize problems.

Agent collision detection keeps agents aware of topics being viewed or edited by someone else. This helps ensure multiple agents don't make changes to an article at the same time and overwrite each others' work. Learn more

Settings

In Settings under the Problems channel, you can do a number of things.

You can toggle Problems on the user portal, change how every post is listed, set commenting and voting options.

When replying to a problem, agents can change its status - to "Solved", for example. Turning on "Lock Discussions" will close Solved problems for further comments.

Topics can also be closed for comments individually. Learn more

Users can search and submit ideas using the feedback widget or user portal.

You can create categories and tags to organize ideas.

Agent collision detection keeps agents aware of topics being viewed or edited by someone else. This helps ensure multiple agents don't make changes to an article at the same time and overwrite each other's work. Learn more

Settings

In Settings under the Ideas channel, you can do a number of things.

You can toggle Ideas on the user portal, change how ideas are shown, set commenting and voting options.

Here are the voting options available for ideas:

• User can give a positive vote (+1).
• User can vote either positive or negative (+1 or -1).
• User can vote on a scale from +1 to +3.
• User can vote on a scale from -3 to +3.

Indicate how many votes you'd like to assign to users (there is no limit by default). Learn more

When replying to an idea, agents can change its status to "Completed" or "Declined". Turning on "Lock Discussions" will close Solved problems for further comments.

Topics can also be closed for comments individually. Learn more

Users can search and submit questions using the feedback widget or user portal.

You can create categories and tags to organize questions.

Agent collision detection keeps agents aware of topics being viewed or edited by someone else. This helps ensure multiple agents don't make changes to an article at the same time and overwrite each other's work. Learn more

Settings

When you go to the Questions section in Settings, you can do a number of things.

You can toggle Questions on the user portal, change how questions are shown, set commenting and voting options.

Agent can mark a question as Answered when replying to it. Turning on "Lock Discussions" will close Solved problems for further comments.

Topics can also be closed for comments individually. Learn more

The most recent posts are normally displayed on the home page. There is an RSS feed that allows users to get notified about new updates. Users can see all updates in chronological order by clicking on the Updates link.

Collaboration

You can save your updates as unpublished (draft). This allows you to collaborate on your article privately. You can also change the publish date of your updates after the initial publishing.

Agent collision detection keeps agents aware of topics being viewed or edited by someone else. This helps ensure multiple agents don't make changes to an article at the same time and overwrite each others' work. Learn more

Settings

Under the Updates section in Settings you can do a number of things.

You can toggle Updates on the user portal, change how updates are shown and set commenting options.

Update posts can be closed for comments individually. Learn more

When editing a topic in the admin panel, click on the arrow next to the link button and select Link to topic

Start with typing a title of the topic you'd like to use. Select the topic with your mouse or keyboard.

Once you've selected the article, you'll see this dialog:

Clicking the article title opens it in a preview window, so you could ensure it's the right one.

You can change article by clicking the X and selecting a different article.

The Anchor option allows you to link to a desired area of the article (assuming there is an anchor).

This works for all community topics (questions, ideas, problems, praise), updates and knowledge base articles.

This list is generated automatically based on the original article's subject, content, tags and responses.

Therefore, it's possible to discover duplicate questions, ideas and problems submitted by your users.

Quick merging

So what do you do when you see dozens of duplicates? You can merge them all with just two clicks.

Here's how it's done:

1. Open up any community topic or article in the admin panel

2. Open the Related tab

3. If you recognize a topic or an article that is a duplicate of your current topic, click the merge button to the right of it.
   
   

This is quite useful when new topics are added by your users, which may uwittingly be duplicates.

By default, what's being viewed will be merged into what's in the list, but you can switch topics around in the merge window.

Learn more about merging: Merging duplicate community topics.

When you're voting for ideas via someone else, your previously set vote limits do not apply. Learn more about vote limits

Voting from user profile

You visit a user's profile and remember that they support a certain idea.

1.  Visit their profile.
2. Click on the ... button in the header.
3. Select Vote for Topic.
   
   

Voting from ticket view

You're working in   Tickets where a user has expressed support for a certain idea. This idea has already been suggested in the community and you think they didn't vote for it. You don't want to force them to participate in your community, but you wish to lodge their vote without leaving the ticket.

1. Click on the ⋮ button in the sidebar.
2. Select Vote for Topic.
   
   

Voting from topic view

You know that multiple users support a certain idea and you wish to keep track of their support. You can open that particular idea in the   Community and vote on behalf of these users one by one.

1. Find a desired topic
2. Click on the Voters tab under the topic content. You'll see a list of users who voted for it.
   
   

Voting from People page

You remember that a certain user supports an idea while viewing them in the   People page.

1. Click on the ⋮ button on the right of a user.
2. Select Vote for Topic.
   
   

In all cases you:

• Start typing a topic title or keyword and select it from the list of suggestions.
• If the selected user has already voted for that topic, you'll see a warning. You can go ahead and change their vote anyway.
• If you do not want to subscribe the user to updates on that topic, deselect "Add user to topic followers".

• Did a customer email you a critical workaround that may also help others?
• Did a user bring up a great idea by phone or email?
• Someone unsure how (or doesn't have the time) to ask a question in the community?

Here's how to do it:

When creating or editing a topic in the admin panel, you can see the author at the bottom.

By default, this is set automatically: if you created the topic, you'll be the author.

Click X beside the author. This lets you select a different user as the author.

This works for all community topics (questions, ideas, problems, praise), updates and knowledge base articles.

Tip: You may want to remove yourself as a follower of a topic if you post it on behalf of someone else.

Setting voting limits

1. Go to the  Settings > COMMUNITY > Ideas page in the Admin Panel.
2. Change the "Vote Limit per User" setting to set a desired limit. This applies to all users (but agents are not affected).
3. Set the vote limit to 0 if you wish to grant users unlimited votes.

Negative votes count against remaining votes.

If an idea is marked as completed, is declined or deleted, votes are returned to the user that voted on it.

Limits are applied to ideas only. Voting on other community channels, replies and KB articles isn't limited.

Voting as a user

When vote limits are enabled, users can see the number of votes remaining as they try to vote. Hovering on the vote icon shows a hint explaining why votes are limited.

Users can also check their remaining votes in their user profile (left panel).

When a user is out of votes, the voting button along with the hint is disabled.

Un-voting an idea returns the votes to the user.

Closing a topic for further comments does not affect comments and replies already added. You can delete these manually, if needed.

Agents can add comments and replies to a closed topic from the Admin Panel.

Closing a particular topic

Open a desired topic in the Admin Panel.

Click this button on the topic panel to close it to further comments and replies.

If you wish to re-open the topic, click the button once again.

Closing topics with certain statuses

It is possible to close topics with certain statuses to comments automatically, e.g. solved problems, declined ideas.

To enable this go to Settings page in the Admin Panel. There are individual settings for each applicable community channel:

• Questions
• Ideas
• Problems

Tick the Lock Closed option under Replies and Comments section. The option description will help you understand what topic statuses are affected (e.g. "Close topics with these statuses from further comments: Completed, Declined").

If a status of a particular topic is changed (e.g. Declined idea is changed to Under Review), commenting gets enabled again (unless it's been closed manually).

This option is disabled by default.

The Merge feature in Helprace lets you consolidate these topics into one.

How to merge topics

1. Open the topic you want to merge in the Admin Panel.
2. Select Merge from the ⋮ menu.
   
   
   
   
3. Select one of the suggested topics or search for a desired topic.
4. Once you've selected a destination topic, you can preview the merge.
   
   
   
   
5. The topic at the top merges into the topic at the bottom. Use the double-headed arrow ( ↕ ) button to swap them.
6. Click Change if you wish to select a different destination topic.
7. Merge only when you're ready. Once you hit the merge button, there's no going back!

What is merged

This is what happens when you merge topics together (let's say an "original topic" is merged to a "destination topic"):

• Title and content of the original topic turns into a reply in the destination topic.
• Files attached to the original topic get attached to the content of the destination topic.
  • If an attachment with the same filename already exists, the filename id will be appended to make it unique.
• Unique votes will be merged. If a user voted for both topics, the higher vote will be preserved.
• Replies will be merged.
• Comments will be merged.
• If a user followed one of the old topics, they will follow the merged one.

The original topic will be deleted and its URL will be redirecting to the destination topic.

We will explore sorting options for every user role as they are slightly different:

• Sorting options for the end-user
• Sorting and filtering options for the agent
• Sorting by default (owners and admins)

Sorting options for the end-user

Open up your User Portal. It is located at http://yourcompany.helprace.com

If you don't have any spaces set up, you can select one of the channels from the main menu on the left. Let's select Questions.

You will be taken to the channel page. In this case, questions are sorted by default by Frequently Asked.

The table below lists sorting options viewable to a registered user who's logged in:

Sorting and filtering options for the agent

When accessing the community via the User Portal, staff members have all sorting options available to them listed above.

When accessing the community via the admin panel, agents can sort topics via the lighting bolt button beside the search bar. There are additional filters that allow agents to address customer requests more efficiently:

• Items with a specific status. In the example below, Questions can be filtered by Unanswered or Answered.
• Items without any replies
• Items without staff replies
• Items you created, replied to or voted for

To access your community in the admin panel, click on the Community button in the header and then select a channel.

To learn more about participating in the community, see Posting in the community as an agent

Sorting by default (owners and admins)

Only logged-in owners and admins are able to change the default sorting characteristics in Helprace. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open your admin panel and click on the Settings tab at the top of the page
2. Click on Space Home Page under the General section.
   
   
   
   
3. Although these settings apply to the Space Home Page, the sorting characteristics you set for your channels will be in effect throughout your User Portal. The table below lists every channel's default sorting options:
   
   

   Channel	Default sorting by
   Updates	Hot
   	New
   Knowledge Base	None
   Questions	Hot
   	New
   	Frequently Asked
   	Answered
   Ideas	Hot
   	Top
   	New
   Problems	Hot
   	New
   	Common
   Praise	Hot
   	New

4. Once you've made your changes, click Save.

In this article, you'll learn how to post in your community as an agent from the Admin Panel.

Adding a new topic

1. Click on the + buttom to the left
2. Select   Topic
   
   

Topic options

There are many things you can do to a topic:

• post on behalf of user
• edit, move, delete, spam topic
• set status of topic
• add, view, edit, remove replies
• mark best reply
• close to replies
• add, view, edit, remove votes and voters
• add, view, edit, remove followers
• view related topics and merge into them
• view on portal, copy portal link

The same thing is available in Topic list view

And bulk actions:

• move to
• spam
• delete

You can also view the activity of all your topics as well by going to the Activity section. You can also enable the moderation option.

Editing an existing topic

Suppose you want to find requests that didn't receive a reply from a staff member yet. Your Helprace has a list of quick-reference filters beside the search bar marked by a lightning bolt. Here are the community filtering options.

Only staff members are able to mark replies as best. This pushes the most relevant and informative answer to the top of each thread. 

If customers can't find an answer, they are welcome to submit a request. Staff members can participate in the portal as well, having access to functions regular users do not.

This chart shows the user portal access privileges for various user roles:

Your community

The home page can be customized to suit your product offering or customer base. To learn more see Branding your Helprace

Browse topics

As an anonymous user, you are free to browse topics. Suppose we select Ideas. You are able to sort questions based on their importance or resolution stage (and set default sorting). These sorting features extend to other channels.

Start a topic

Depending on admin settings, users might be able to submit a topic with their email or need to register to post. You don't need to register to submit an email request.

Staff members can edit, delete and mark user content as best anywhere in Helprace. These functions are accessible in the portal and admin area.

1. Select your channel by clicking the tab on the search bar. Select Ask a Question.
   
   
   
   
2. Type in your search query and click Continue. One of the three things can happen:
   • If there's a match you'll see it. Clicking on a match will take you to that discussion.
   • If none of the matches are satisfactory, click Continue Posting.
   • If there's no match, you can post your question immediately.

Reply to a topic

1. Find a discussion of your choice.Click Reply and type in your response.
2. To comment on a reply, click on the grey speech bubble with Comment beside it and a text box will appear.

Only replies are counted in topic statistics. That is because replies are responses to topics whereas comments are responses to replies.

1. Point to Knowledge Base under the Community section.

2. Click on the ⋮ button and select Add Category.

   

3. You can also drag and drop your folders to change their order of appearance in Helprace.

4. To rename your category or delete it, hover over that category to see the ⋮ button.

5. Move your topic while editing it (click Save):

Move your topic while viewing it:

Move your topic while in list view:

Move items using bulk actions at the base of list view.

To add your own Questions, Ideas or Problems take a look at Posting in the Community as an agent.