Organizing your new community! Survey open until October 25, 2019.

Thanks Kyna, I'm really excited for the Community to get some attention. And I'm excited to hear that you're looking to integrate resources. I completed the survey, but I'd like to share my feedback publicly in case others want to piggyback off my ideas (or tell me I'm totally wrong - which happens from time to time!) 80% of the answers I need are already documented in a previous post. And, I would say 50% of the answers that new users are looking for are documented in the knowledge base. My biggest pet peeve is knowing the answer I need already exists, or likely exists, but requires too much time and effort to search. Largely because there are always too many results, many of which are not titled by the original user in a way that makes it clear what question or answer may lie within the post. A title like "Help with text mode" offers zero context as to what kind of problem is being asked or solved, without the reader having to open the post and read it to find out. That is a HUGE time waster to the point that I don't ever look at (or help with) those threads. If I could design the Community user experience from the ground up, I would completely separate the method of posting questions from that of replying to questions. Given that the knowledge base and Experience site are actually very well organized into specific and detailed categories, I would force Community posts to originate from an Experience article, so the posts related to that specific topic, along with their reply threads, can be searched and referenced in the same way. Posts would still be aggregated in the Community forum for users to participate in; but *new* posts would need to originate from an article. This would really help searching for existing posts/threads, by navigating to a support article and having an already-curated list of related Community posts to search through. (and, it would reduce the number of posts in which the answer is already documented in the knowledge base.) If that's not entirely clear, it's spelled out here: Part I: Post Origination - I need help understanding something. - My first stop resource is the knowledge base. E.g. "Managing Documents" or "Managing Custom Forms" - After reading the knowledge base article that best matches my need, I still don't have an answer. - At the end of the article is a link: "Didn't find the answer you're looking for? Look in Community!" - The link takes me to the list of Community posts related to the same knowledge base article I just read. - If I *still* don't find the answer I'm looking for, I can post a new question for the community to answer. - This is how all NEW posts would originate - it forces the user to consider the fact that their answer may already exist in the support article or existing Community post; and neatly buckets all Community conversations by the same logic that has already been well thought out for the Experience site (applies as well to new product announcements, beta conversations, blog posts, and other topics that are not support-related). Part II: Post Replies - I'm interested in helping others with their solutions, or what other companies are talking about in general. - I navigate directly to the Community, where all the posts are aggregated. - I can peruse the list of posts and participate in those conversations. - If I want to spark a new conversation, I navigate to to the Experience site article that most closely matches the topic I want to discuss, and generate the new post from that page. William English T-Mobile

Hi William, Thank you so much for taking the survey and sharing your feedback. You are not alone! Many other customers have shared similar feedback so we are working on a better way to organize the community (hence the survey) and finding exactly what types of topics and structure we need to utilize so everyone can find what they are looking for. I'm glad to hear that you like the topics as they are in the knowledge base, and we are definitely looking at aligning much, much more closely with those and also requiring a topic to be selected when a post is made. Stay tuned for more details as we move through the building process of this new site as there will be more opportunities to give feedback in the coming weeks and months! Kyna

I heartily concur with Bill's excellent suggestions. In addition...there is a nerdy adjunct of community who on occasion effectively "chat" in near real time, thanks to the double-edge sword of immediate email alerts. So while we're crystal balling, perhaps the next iteration of community could go a step further and enable real time chat, or (at least) tap into some other common chat platform, ideally in a way that would glean and catalog any nuggets deemed (by the chatters) as worth keeping. Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore

While I too agree with Bill's ideas, I do not want to neglect the local area groups which are great to schedule networking events or connect with other users near you. These need to remain available outside of any requirements to link to some topic on the Experience site or tie into any prerequisite topics in the broader general Community. I would also like a way to search back through topics I am following or somehow tag them to basically create my own sort of library within the Community. I often find discussions where I think I might need this again in the future and would like to be able to go back to that specific conversation. Michelle Bowden Fiserv ETG

Hi Michelle, We are definitely aware of the value of the different groups, including the regional ones and want to make sure we set things up to make them even more valuable than they are today! Thank you for your input! Kyna

As Michelle said, I like Bill's ideas also, but feel there still needs to be a way to post the random things that don't relate to an existing resource page. Those things that you're just not sure what they fall under, these would probably be rare even if you can't find exactly what you're looking for you can probably find something that it relates to. But I've also seen the occasional post for a job opening, that wouldn't relate to the available resources. Or the idea exchange promotion thread, I like having those all in one thread.