CarePortal Collaboration Forum

Overview:

The CarePortal Collaboration Forum is a space where the CarePortal Field Team, GMS, and activated churches can share stories, discuss strategic best practices, ask questions, and connect with each other. The forum is meant to create a space for interaction and community. 

Intended Audience:

Everyone

This Article Covers:

• Navigating to the Collaboration Forum Homepage
• Creating a Post
• Commenting and Voting
• Collaboration
• Other Navigation
• Conclusion

Navigating to the Collaboration Forum Homepage

The forum can be found near the top right side of the Help Center (zendesk) homepage. To access the forum page click on "Collaboration Forum."

Once you click on the "Collaboration Forum" button you will be navigated to the forum homepage.

This homepage allows you to dive into specific topical folders (buckets) so that you are able to find what you are looking for with greater intentionality and so you can create your own posts with greater specificity. 

Note: You will see different features and categories depending on your role. 

Creating a Post

If you are wanting to post a new discussion topic, ask a question, or share a story all you have to do to get started is to click on "new post" which is located in the upper right section of the page. 

This will bring you to a new page where you will be able to fill out the title of your post, the body of what you are writing about, and allow you to select a topic category (bucket) from a drop down menu to choose which your post will be housed under. 

These topics are vital as they will direct what you produce in your post to a specific audience. Be intentional with your selection.

Note: You will see different Topic categories based on your role. 

Once you are confident in your title, details, and topic selection hit the "submit" button to post. 

Commenting and Voting

Once your post is submitted you will be able to monitor the comments and have your post and the comments voted on in terms of usefulness. This voting allows for the most popular posts and comments to be brought to the top of the section they are listed under. 

The arrow in the screenshot above is pointing out both the "follow/unfollow" button as well as the "up-vote" and "down-vote buttons." 

Collaboration

If you are curious to see what topics or questions are most recently being discussed, or want a quick way to view the activity on a certain forum you can scroll to the bottom of the Collaboration Forum homepage. 

This page shows real time updates as well as a preview of what the post is talking about. This preview can be seen underneath the title. This will allow you to find spaces where you can collaborate and communicate with other CarePortal staff and users from different locations. 

Other Navigations 

The Collaboration Forum homepage also allows you to choose how you view the different forum posts. Near the top left of the page is a category titled "Collaboration Forum Topics." If you click on that icon two view formats will populate- "show topics" or "show all posts." 

Note: The default view is set to "show topics."

If you select the "show all posts" view the homepage will redirect you to a different page that shows all posts in order of how recent they were created.

You are able to further customize how you view the different posts with the "sort by" drop down list. You are able to select from four total options: "newest post", "recent activity", "votes", and "comments."

If there is a situation where you cannot find what you are looking for there is an option in the upper right side of the page that allows you to search by using keywords. Once you enter in the general idea of what you are looking for and hit "enter" you will be brought to a new page that brings up posts as well as Help Center articles that are associated with what you searched for. 

If you are not wanting to browse Help Center articles and wish to limit your search to the collaboration forum be sure to select "browse Collaboration Forum" to narrow your search results. 

Conclusion

This Collaboration Forum is specifically designed for you to interact with other CarePortal Field Team members, the GMS, and activated churches. The more you interact with each other allows for greater discussion, which also allows for better use and understanding of the CarePortal platform overall.

Most importantly it is an incredible place to post and find stories of how CarePortal has impacted people for good, by the gospel of Jesus!

Happy posting!