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Content Overview
Content Overview
All About Content
Content is organized into content boards (also know as Interaction Styles). Each board will contain one type of content. The board options are:
- Questions
- Blogs
- Documents
- Videos
- Events
- Ideas
Questions
A question is where the author is seeking a specific solution to a problem they are having. The questions functionality allows the author and administrators to mark the correct response to the question, allowing the author and others to find that solution faster.
When to use it: Use the Question content type when you are seeking a specific answer to help solve an issue or want to start a discussion.
Example: Re: Story Map Zoom Level
Additional resources:
- How to ask a question
- How to write a good question that will generate responses
- How to insert code in your post
- How to post a reply or comment
Blog Posts
Similar to documents, a blog post is intended to convey information to the community in the form of an article or story. It helps drives engagement through comments and allows readers to share their thoughts, opinions, or ask questions about the post. A good example of a blog post is the announcement of features for a product release or updates about an event.
When to use it: Use a blog content type when you are trying to share a news story, product update, opinion, or thought leadership.
When not to use it:
- Do NOT use blogs to only share a single link or if you want to collaborate on a topic.
- To quickly share links or start an open-ended conversation, use the Discussions content type (see above).
- If you want to share updates on information that you will be regularly updating, use collaborative Documents (see below).
Example: Hurricane Maria Mapping Project: We Need Your Help
Additional resources:
How to insert code in your post
Documents
Documents, similar to Google Docs, are native documents you write directly in the community and use to collaborate with multiple people.
When to use it: Examples of collaborative documents are when you need to create several versions to share and track meeting notes or create how-to guides, policy outlines, workflows, training materials, step-by-step how-to guides, etc.
When not to use it: Do not use Documents to share news/events updates, start open discussions or stand-alone questions. Use the other content types above for each respective need.
Example: Compress Geodatabase Tool
Additional resources:
How to create a document
How to insert code in your post
Private Messages
Creating a Private Message will allow you to send a personal message to another Esri Community Member. The message will then appear in the Member's inbox and they can reply. If their email notifications are turned on, they will also receive an email alerting that a message was sent to their Esri Community inbox.
When to use it: Messages can be used when sharing a space, group, or content type, links, or other information that is only going to a select few members in Esri Community.
When not to use it: Don't use messages to send out a blanket blast to others in the community. Remember to use the Esri Community Guidelines.
Additional resources:
How to connect and disconnect with members
How to use Private Messenger (PM)
How to search for community members
Videos
The videos can be inserted into questions, blogs, documents, ideas and event content types. The feature allows users to directly upload a video from their computer to the community as embedded into a post.
NOTE: Videos must be MP4, YouTube or Vimeo or another allowable URL source to be uploaded or embedded. Video size is unlimited. However, timeouts, loading issues and lag may occur with large videos over 1GB depending on a user's internet/network/browser.
When to use it: Videos are a great way to share information, entertain, or to provide a simple how-to in Esri Community. Remember to use videos from a reputable source that fall within the Esri Community Guidelines.
When not to use it:
Don't use video that does not come from a reputable source.
Do not use video to create a Esri Community specific how-to instruction. If creating a Esri Community specific how-to, please contact the Esri Community team at Esri Community@esri.com to discuss your how-to needs and how we can help.
Examples: How to Get Analytical Insights from your GIS
Additional resources:
How to create a video post
Ideas
When to use it: Post an Idea when you have confirmed that your idea has not already been submitted by another member. Read Submitting a New Idea for further steps. To submit a post, you must be a Esri Community member.
Please Note: Esri staff and distributors cannot submit an Idea to ArcGIS Ideas. Please read the Idea Submission Guidelines for more details on posting an Idea in ArcGIS Ideas.
When to not use it: Do not use ArcGIS Ideas for suggestions to improve the Esri Community, have a question rather than an Idea, or want to share a step-by-step process for using an Esri product or feature. Note: You can post Esri Community enhancements to the dedicated Esri Community Ideas board.
Also, only customers members can submit ideas. Esri Staff and distributors should use internal channels and Internal ArcGIS Ideas area of the community.
Example: Audit log for ArcGIS Online
Additional resources:
Content Creation Guidelines
Private vs Public Content
By default, content you create is public in the community and searchable. The power of Esri Community is that everyone in the community can benefit from the shared and collaborative content. However, in some cases, you may want to limit who sees content and who can collaborate on it. Or, you can choose to publish your content in a private group that limits content to approved members.
Monitoring Your Content
You'll automatically be subscribed to any content that you create, so you'll receive an update in your subscription feed whenever anyone responds to your content or, if it's a document, changes it.
Interact with Content
Comments or Reply:
This is the main way members interact with content, by replying to a post or adding a comment to a blog etc. This creates a dialog of sorts and begins the collaboration process.
How to post a reply or comment
How to reply to a post from email
Kudo:
The ability to Kudo content plays a key role in connecting with your colleagues, their work, and showing your support for something. From a blog post sharing a story to a document that really needed to be created, Kudoing is an effortless way to express a quick sentiment in the community.
Kudos aren’t only limited to new posts. It can be done for comments and status updates as well.
@Mention:
The @mention functionality allows you to link a person, or post in the community. This can be used when collaborating to connect existing content and places or bringing in someone to the collaboration.
- When @mentioning a person, the user is sent a notification in their Inbox. Depending on the person’s preferences, there may also be an email notification. Additionally, @mentioning people in content where they are already participating will generate two notifications: one for the @mention, the other for the update to the content.
- When you @mention post (content), it creates a quick hyperlink to the content mentioned.
Tags and Labels
A tag is a single keyword or phrase that describes the topic, theme, or subject of a post. You can add as many tags as you want, and so can other community members. For example, in a post about a mouse, you might add these tags: mouse, USB mouse, optical mouse, wireless, DPI.
Labels are used within a community to help categorize questions, blogs, ideas, documents that you write based on the themes or content in your post.
Unlike tags, labels are created by the Community Admin for consistency. When available, posts must have labels applied from a predefined list for the board in which the content appears. Tags are more freeform and can be created by authors.
Subscribe:
Should you encounter a piece of content (post), or a board that warrants watching it closely, you may choose to Subscribe to the post or board to be apprised of its changes and activity.
How to set subscriptions, notifications, and email settings
About the notification feed and real-time notifications
Bookmark:
Bookmarking enables you to easily return to relevant or important pieces of content without having to search for them. You can only bookmark content, not people or places. To bookmark a post, go to post options, bookmark. Then your bookmarks can be found on your profile page.
