Tools & Tips: Mark Questions as Answered
The value: When Question posts in Esri Community receive a response that effectively resolves the author’s need, the response should be marked as an Accepted Solution. Not only does this trigger a notification to the answer provider letting them know they successfully helped, but it also makes the post easier for others facing the same issue to find. Posts containing at least one Accepted Solution rank higher in Esri Community search results and stand out from others with a green checkmark in the post preview. Accepted Solutions are also positioned above other comments in the post thread, circumventing the need to track them down.
How to do it: Open your post and scroll down to the response that contains an answer to your question. Select the “Accept as Solution” button found on the post.
Image: Screenshot of Question Post with the “Accept as Solution” button on a response highlighted.
Keep in Mind: Though questions and answers may be exchanged in the comment threads of other Board types, only Question posts have the Accepted Solution feature.
It’s alright to mark more than one response as an Accepted Solution when more than one way to solve a problem is provided or when multiple responses collectively resolve a question by each providing important pieces of the answer.
Only the user who published the original question can mark responses on their post as Accepted Solutions, with exceptions. Esri staff and Esri Community MVPs can mark responses as Accepted Solutions on any user’s Question posts. As trusted, knowledgeable members, these two groups are empowered to perform this action after (1) identifying a response they believe reasonably answers the original question, and (2) they determine the post’s author has overlooked this step by either not performing the action themselves within a reasonable time frame (general best practice is 5 business days from response) or the post author has commented that the response helped but did not follow through on marking it as an accepted solution.
In the event there is a mistake on the part of an Esri staff member or Esri Community MVP, the post author may unmark the response as an Accepted Solution by selecting the response’s “Post Options” and clicking “Not the Solution.” It’s a good step to follow this action with a polite comment that the question still has not been answered.
