Following Content in the Forum

Follow boards and people in the Forum to build a more personalized feed and quickly return to the discussions that matter most to you.

The Following tab gives members a personalized Forum feed based on the boards, clubs, and people they follow. Members can also see new posts from their follows in the notification center and receive a Forum Digest with new activity from people and boards they follow, club forum boards they have access to, and posts they watch.

The Following tab includes posts from:

Club forum boards do not need to be followed separately. When a member joins a club, posts from that club’s forum boards are automatically included in their Following feed while they have access to the club.

Posts are shown in newest-first order.

If the same post matches more than one of these sources, it still appears only once in the feed.

The Following tab only shows posts the member already has access to view. This includes posts from secret clubs the member has joined. Following a board or person does not give access to restricted content. Members will only see posts they can normally access based on the community, board, club, space, and post visibility rules.

Pending review posts follow the same visibility rules used elsewhere in the Forum. Authors can see their own pending posts, and moderators can see pending posts they are responsible for reviewing.

Visitors who are not signed in do not see the Following tab.

To open the Following tab:

This opens a personalized feed of posts from the boards, clubs, and people the member follows.

If a logged-in member is not following any boards or people and has not joined any clubs with forum boards, the page shows an empty state with an Explore button. Selecting Explore opens the full boards list.

If the member already follows boards or people, or has joined clubs, but there are no matching posts yet, the page shows the standard empty state.

Members can follow a community forum board directly from the board page.

To follow a board:

The board will now be included in the member’s Following feed.

To stop following a board, open the board page and click Unfollow.

Club forum boards do not have a separate follow action. Joining the club is what adds that club’s forum posts to the Following feed.

Members can follow people from member profile pages.

To follow a person:

The person’s posts will now be included in the member’s Following feed when those posts are available to them.

To stop following someone, open their profile and click Unfollow.

If a followed person is no longer available in the community, their posts no longer appear in the Following feed.

Members can manage their saved Forum activity from the Watching & Following page.

This page includes three tabs:

The Following Boards tab shows the boards the member follows, including joined club boards that are currently available to them.

The Following People tab shows the people the member follows.

Selecting a board opens that board page. Selecting a person opens that member’s profile.

Signed-in members also see what they follow in the sidebar of the Forum home page, in two cards: Boards you follow and People you follow.

Each card lists up to five entries, most recently followed first, and See all opens the matching tab on the Watching & Following page. A card is hidden when the member is not following anything of that type.

Boards from clubs the member has joined appear in Boards you follow when the club has its forum enabled. If your community uses a different name for boards, the card title uses your name for them.

The cards appear only on the Forum home page, and only for signed-in members.

Dashboard admins can also use the Forum component in the Page Builder to display posts from the boards, clubs, and people each member follows.

To display followed content:

When Following is selected, the component displays matching posts from that member’s followed content, including forum posts from secret clubs they have joined. Members only see posts they already have access to view.

The Following tab in the notification center shows:

Selecting a notification opens the related Forum post. Members can also mark an unread notification as read without opening it by hovering over the notification and selecting the Mark as read icon.

To clear all unread notifications at once, select the Mark all as read icon in the top-right corner of the notification center and confirm Mark all as read. This marks notifications as read across all notification categories, not only the Following tab, and clears the unread notification indicator.

Marking notifications as read does not remove them from the notification center or from the member’s email notifications. New notifications will appear as unread as usual. New comments and replies on watched posts continue to appear in the Comments tab.

Marking all notifications as read also marks notifications in Pending Review as read, but it does not change the review status of the associated content. Items that require review remain pending until they are reviewed separately.

Members can receive a Forum Digest summarizing new Forum activity from:

The email organizes new activity into sections for people, boards, and watched posts. Sections without new activity are not shown.

This section lists recent posts from people the member follows. The email shows up to two people, with up to three recent post titles for each person. When there is activity from additional people, the email indicates that more updates are available.

This section includes community boards the member follows and eligible forum boards in clubs they belong to.

For club forum boards, which activity is included depends on the club’s access settings and how the member joined:

Members who were added to an Open club or an application-based Private club by an admin or through an integration do not receive that club’s forum activity in the digest.

These rules apply only when the club forum board is the reason the activity is included in the digest. A post can still appear if it qualifies in another way, such as when the member follows the post’s author or watches the post.

These rules apply to each club separately. If a member belongs to multiple clubs, content from each club is evaluated based on that club’s settings and how the member joined it.

Each board shows the number of new posts rather than individual post titles. The email shows up to two boards, prioritizing those with the most new activity.

This section shows recent comments and replies on posts the member watches. The email shows up to two watched posts, with up to two recent comments or replies for each post.

Selecting an item in the email opens the related person, board, post, or comment.

The Forum Digest includes new activity since the member’s previous digest, even if the activity has already been viewed or marked as read in the notification center.

The email subject is Your community forum digest at {Community Name}.

Activity is included only after the member starts following the person or board, starts watching the post, or joins the relevant club.

Members must be approved community members to receive the Forum Digest. Members who are pending approval or have not been approved do not receive the email. If a member is later approved, they can begin receiving Forum Digest emails from the next scheduled send, as long as the community and member email settings are enabled.

Activity is not included if:

Club forum activity is also evaluated using the club’s current access and joining settings when the digest is prepared. If these settings change, which club forum activity is included can change beginning with the next scheduled digest.

Posts waiting for moderator review are included after they are approved. If there is no new activity to include, no email is sent.

If the same post qualifies for more than one section of the email, it appears only once. For example, a post from someone the member follows that was also published in a board they follow is included with the person’s activity rather than repeated under the board.

Forum Digest emails also follow the community’s email sending limits. A member may not receive a scheduled digest if they have reached the applicable email limit or received another applicable email too recently.

Community administrators choose whether these emails are available. When enabled, Forum digest emails are sent weekly.

To manage the Forum Digest from your notification settings:

Turning Forum Digest off stops the digest email. It does not unfollow any people, boards, or posts, and it does not remove updates from the Following feed or notification center.

Members can also unsubscribe directly from a Forum Digest by selecting Unsubscribe in the email footer. This turns off Forum Digest for the community that sent the email.

After unsubscribing, members can select Subscribe again from the confirmation page to start receiving the Forum Digest again without signing in. They can also select Manage Preferences to review their email subscriptions.

For existing members, the Forum Digest preference carries over from their previous watched-post email preference. Members who had watched-post emails turned off will not automatically begin receiving the Forum Digest.

For new members, New activity from your follows is turned off by default. Members can turn it on at any time from their notification settings.

When email notifications are enabled, Forum digest emails are sent every Monday at 5:00 PM, based on the time zone configured in the dashboard.

The Following feed updates automatically as a member’s access changes.

Examples include:

Admins can also track board followers in the dashboard.

The community boards table includes a Followers column that shows the number of followers for each community board. This column can be sorted in ascending or descending order.

Dashboard admins can control whether members can receive Forum Digest emails about the people and boards they follow, eligible forum boards in clubs they belong to, and posts they watch. This setting is turned off by default.

Email Communications must be enabled for your community before Forum digest emails can be turned on. If Email Communications is not enabled, the setting is unavailable.

To enable Forum digest emails:

The Enable button is unavailable until you select the confirmation checkbox. If you click Cancel or close the confirmation window, Forum digest emails remain turned off.

Once enabled, the first Forum digest includes only qualifying Forum activity created after the feature was enabled. Activity from before that time is not included.

If Forum digest emails are turned off and later turned on again, the confirmation window will appear again.

This community setting controls whether Forum Digest is available to members. When it is turned on, each member’s Forum Digest preference determines whether they receive the email.

Enabling Forum digest emails is recorded in the community’s Audit Log.

These emails count toward the community’s email usage.