Discussion boards allow members to engage in textual interactions, share insights, collaborate on ideas, and ask questions. It is a hub for meaningful discussions and knowledge exchange among community members.

Community Member settings, such as forcing private responses, remain in the legacy platform at this time.

Choose an Activity Type

Click the + Create button in the top right corner of the Activities list screen to get started. You may also select the purple + button at the top of the left-hand navigation menu.
Click on the card representing Activity Type you wish to create.
Under the Activity Name section, enter the Name of the activity you wish to create, as known by your internal team.
Enter the Public Name for the Activity as it will be known to members.

Click Discussion Board.
Click the Next button.

Select an Audience

Choose the audience to target with your activity.

Choose an existing community from the Audience options.
- Choose all members of your community
- Choose specific Groups or community members.
  
  NOTE: your audience is locked in once you save this Audience section. Any changes to your audience will require a new activity.
Click Next to continue. Click Save to save your progress and remain on the same page.

Community Experience Settings

Category—Categories are most frequently used to organize community activities around functional themes such as Surveys, Discussions, Live Chats, or Albums. You can also create Categories to list different types of research methodologies.
Topic—Topics organize community activities around a topical area. You could list TV shows, vehicles, customer experience, and more.
Community Display—These checkboxes indicate where in the community pages you wish to display your Quick Question:
- Home
- Topics
- Categories
Availability—These settings indicate which device platforms you wish to make your activity available on.
- Mobile App
- Desktop/Web Browser

Community Experience Settings

Once all required fields are added to this section, click Save to save your progress and remain on the same page.

Upload Card Image—This image is displayed on the activity card in your community.
Upload Featured Image (Optional)—Featured activities are displayed on the homepage carousel in large format.
Featured Button Call-to-Action (Optional)—This text displays on the button when the Activity is added to the homepage carousel. You can customize this if you prefer. If you leave this blank, the button says "More".
Activity Card Description—Write a detailed description of your Activity. You will not be able to publish this Activity without completing this field.
Customize Card Background & Text Colors—The background and text colors of the activity card will be used only if no image is uploaded with the card. The colors will also be used in the feature carousel if this Activity is featured. When featured in the carousel, the image will smoothly transition from left to right to the background color, creating a seamless full-width element.

Card Preview

This section previews what your community survey Activity will look like to members in your community. There is a Web View if they visit the community from their computer, and a Mobile App View if they visit the Activity from the Fuel Cycle Mobile app.

Community Display Settings

Category—Categories are most frequently used to organize community activities around functional themes such as Surveys, Discussions, Live Chats, or Albums. You can also create Categories to list different types of research methodologies.
Author—This field identifies who created this Activity based on who logged in at the time.
Topic—Topics organize community activities around a topical area. You could list TV shows, vehicles, customer experience, and more.
Community Display
- Home
- Topics
- Categories
Accessibility
- Mobile App
- Desktop/Web browser

Landing Page

Content Blocks

The landing page is comprised of individual content blocks. Blocks can be added, edited, sorted, and removed. Community managers have wide latitude to create content for their communities with the tools available in Fuel Cycle.

Create a new block by clicking the ➕ button next to the appropriate type. Then, customize the block content and add it to the landing page.

Block types include:

Text Blocks allow you to include prompts, instructions, and other messaging.
File Blocks are used for including images, videos, or other file types from the Asset Library or your computer. You will also have the option to embed video/audio and GIF files, as well as clickable prototypes from external websites via their distribution links. Supported File Block file types:
- Images—jpeg, jpg, png, bmp, gif, ico
- Video—mp4, mov, qt, flv, f4v, wmv, asf, mpg, m2v, mp2, avi, webm, ogv, ogg, ram, rm, mxf, mts, mkv, r3d, flac, mj2
- Audio—aac, m4a, f4a, mp3
- Text—plain text, PDF, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations

Edit the name of any content block by clicking on the block title and replacing the text.

There are a few buttons associated with blocks to be aware of:

Research Engine Block Adjustments.jpg

① Click these dots and drag them up or down to reorder your blocks.

② Show or hide the details of this block.

③ Delete this block (confirm your choice after this by clicking the X button).

④ Choose your source file for this file block.

⑤ Add your text content to this text block using the rich text editor.

Comment and Media Settings

Enable Member Comments
Require Comment Approval—Moderators must review and approve member comments before other members can see the comments.
Enable Uninfluenced Comments—Members cannot see any previously submitted comments until they submit their own comments.
Allow Media —Allow Moderators/Clients/Members to add media to Albums or Comments. Further settings may be applied automatically.
The following settings may be added:
- Require File Approval
- Allow File Downloads
- Allow Comments on Album Uploads
- Allow Voting on File Uploads

Fuel Cycle servers will automatically transcribe video and audio uploads to comments within minutes.

Comment Settings

Please utilize the following settings to define the behavior of comments:

Enable Member Comments
Require Comment Approval—Moderators must review and approve the comment before other members can see the comment.
Force Private Response—Members will not see each other's comments; only moderators can see them.
Enable Uninfluenced Comments—Members do not see comments until they submit a comment.

Fuel Cycle servers will automatically transcribe video and audio uploads to comments within minutes.

Incentives

Enable personalized rewards for members in exchange for their participation. Incentives are initially disabled; enable Incentives by sliding the toggle to Enabled. Here are some settings available to you:

Customize Activity Points—Set specific points for different actions within this activity.
- Successfully completing a survey
- Disqualifying from the survey
- Uploading files
- Commenting on an uploaded file
- Commenting or replying to someone's comment
Define the Maximum Points a member can earn.

Once all required fields are entered, click Next to continue to the Publish step.

Publish

Review Summary

Take time to review your setup so far. Edit your Audience, Teams, and activity Configuration by clicking the pencil icon to the right of any of those sections.

Internal checks will determine if you can publish your activity. For instance, you can't publish if you have not added blocks to your Landing Page.

Set Status

Move your Activity from Draft to Scheduled to set dates and times for publishing and closing participation.

Move your Activity from Draft to Published to publish and start your survey collection immediately. You may still include a Close Date at this time.