Member properties and onboarding questions are important components of your community, and how you get to know your members and encourage connection.
Reminder: Users can see and engage with some components of your community before onboarding, or completing their profile, but must fill out all mandatory fields to message other members, chat in events, and connect over video in events, roundtables, and networking matches.
If you'd like to make profile completion mandatory to attend virtual events outright enable that requirement in Events→ Settings → 'Onboarding Required to Join Events'.
If enabled, members without complete or confirmed profiles will be prompted with the profile completion pop-up when joining virtual events.
Member Properties
Member properties are the building blocks of your members’ profiles and onboarding forms, and how you gather information from your community. You will build all the properties you want to gather from your members first, before creating your onboarding or profile questions.
There are no mandatory properties or profile prompts, but here are some fields or questions we’ve seen lead to great engagement and success in communities:
Pronouns
What I can help with (picklist)
What I want to learn (picklist)
What’s your superpower?
Tools I love
Currently, LinkedIn URL and Location are not customizable so reach out to the Gradual Team should you need to make changes to these properties.
Creating Property Types
Build all properties you want to gather from your members first, to establish the building blocks of your onboarding process and profile questions.
From your dashboard, you will navigate to Settings and to Member Properties
Add a property by selecting the + symbol beside the preferred Property Type from the left-hand side options
Property Types
There are five different types of properties or question types to choose from.
Single Select
This is used if you want the user to choose only one selection from the list of options as their answer.
The system will automatically limit them to one selection.
You can also provide an 'Other' option that will prompt an open text field for users to enter their response
Multi Select
This is used if you want the user to choose more than one selection from the list of options as their answer
Control the number of selections the user can make:
Unlimited
At least [#]
At most [#]
Range [#] to [#]
Exact number
You can also provide an 'Other' option that will prompt an open text field for users to enter their response
Single Line Text
This is used if you want the user to type a single line of text as their answer (max of 250 characters)
Paragraph
This is used if you want the user to type more than a single line of text as their answer (max of 1000 characters)
URL
This is used if you want the user to enter a URL or link as their answer
3. Name the Property the prompt or question you’ll use in onboarding (must be fewer than 250 characters). Add a subtitle if you'd like to provide more information or details on the question or prompt.
Any links added to the title or the subtitle text will hyperlink. The link will open in a new tab for the user.
4. If the property/ question is a single-select or multi-select type:
Add the options the user can select from if using a multi-select or single-select type
You can also provide an 'Other' option that will prompt an open text field for users to enter their response
Select the property style
Property Styles
The Single Select and Multi Select property and question types can show in a variety of styles.
Checkbox [Multi Select only]
Populates check boxes beside the options for the user to select multiple options from the list
Radio buttons [Single Select only]
Populates radio buttons beside the options for the user to select a single selection from the list
Auto-fit box
Populates the list of options in boxes that fit the size of the text for the user to select a single or multiple options
Auto-fill box
Populates the list of options in boxes that are uniform in size for the user to select a single or multiple options
Dropdown
Populates a dropdown list of options for the user to select a single or multiple options
5. Save your work
Editing Properties
If you need to change any of the text or style, you can edit the property by selecting the edit icon in the upper right of the block. If added to the Onboarding Form, any edits made at the Member Property level will be reflected in the onboarding form, too.
When making changes to the text of the property or question, or any of the options, the system will prompt you to review your changes. Ensure that the revised property aligns with the original to avoid risks from inconsistent member responses and then confirm, and save your changes.
If a member has selected the option you are changing, the system will NOT automatically change the member’s response to the new option and that question will change to unanswered on the member’s account, and in member exports.
If you want to map users' past answers to the new answers, reach out to the Gradual Team before making any changes.
It will not prompt them to complete their profile again, and will not limit them from video calls, chat engagement, or messaging other members (they will remain ‘Onboarded’).
If you want to reset all profiles to ‘incomplete’ and encourage members to complete the edited question, reach out to the Gradual Team.
You can sort the properties in the order you’d like them to appear by dragging and dropping the hamburger icon at the top of the block. This sorting will not affect the order of the onboarding form questions, though.
Deleting Properties
If any members have responded to the question in onboarding and then the property is deleted, the property will be archived and you can revert it when needed from the archived properties list on the left-hand side of the main Members Properties page.
If a property has received no responses from members in onboarding, deletion is permanent and that property will not appear in the Archived Properties section.
Onboarding Form
The Onboarding Form takes the information from the member properties and allows you to prompt profile questions to the members. Customize the order the questions are asked, their format if they’re required or optional, public or private to others, and if they are filterable from the People page.
Build your onboarding form and set profile question settings by following these steps.
Reminder: Users can see and engage with some components of your community before onboarding, or completing their profile, but must fill out all mandatory fields to message other members, chat in events, and connect over video in events, roundtables, and networking matches.
Onboarding required to join events
If you'd like to make profile completion mandatory to attend virtual events outright enable that requirement in Events→ Settings → 'Onboarding Required to Join Events':
If enabled, members without complete or confirmed profiles will be prompted with the profile completion pop-up when joining virtual events.