Changes to Community Functionality

[LiliMcDonald]

The next phase of our ongoing community renovations is quickly approaching! In November, we'll be performing the migration of the NI User Group Community onto the platform currently used to host the NI Discussion Forums. See the timeline here for more details.

This is a major change that will affect all users and we want to ensure everyone is prepared. Below we have provided some quick updates regarding changes to features and functionality within the NI Community.

User Profile

How does the migration affect my user profile?

• If you are currently active on the NI User Group Community, your account will automatically be generated in the NI Discussion Forums or merged with your existing account on the forums.
• Users who have been inactive for multiple years and never contributed content will need to log in to the community post-migration in order to regenerate their profile.
• Your avatar from the NI User Group Community will not be migrated over. If you do not already have an account on the forums, you will be given a default avatar. If you do have an account on the forums, you will keep the avatar you have now.
• Your sent and received private messages will not be migrated over.

Subscriptions, Bookmarks, and Email Notifications

How does the migration affect my subscriptions and bookmarks from the NI User Group Community?

• Subscriptions and bookmarks will not be migrated over.
• You will need to subscribe again to groups or content within groups for which you want to receive notifications. You can find a list of the groups you are a member of in the My Groups component on the community homepage.
• You will need to bookmark content which you would like to be available on the My Bookmarks page within the community.
  • You can find the bookmark option in the Options menu on any piece of content.
• If you had bookmarks saved to your web browser, the URLs will redirect to the new location.

How does the migration affect my email notifications?

• If you are did not previously have a forums account, you may want to setup your email notifications within the forums. To do this, go to My Settings > Subscriptions & Notifications > Notification Settings. You may also want to review your subscriptions and email format settings.

User Groups

How does the migration affect user groups?

• Groups will either be open (content is visible to the entire community) or closed (only group members may view content). During the migration, your group privacy options will be respected, and all of your members and content will be migrated over with your group.
• Groups will be segmented into different categories such as Local User Groups, Product User Groups, Special Interest Groups, and Partner Groups.
• Groups can be found via the community navigation. Group names cannot be searched for, but you can search for content within open groups or closed groups that you are a member of.
• Closed groups will not be accessible in the community navigation unless you are already a member.
• You can find groups that you're a member of in the My Groups component on the community homepage.
• GroupAdmins will be able to invite members directly from within the user group.
  • This function is currently not working as epexcted for closed groups, but will be available in our next release. Until then, you will need to send the user a direct link to the group and the user can then request to join.
• The group overview page layout will be standardized across all groups. The layout includes a component which features the group avatar and group description, and an HTML component that can be used for whatever content a Group Admin chooses to add.
  • GroupAdmins will need to recreate your group overview page (including your group avatar and description) after the migration is complete. Please take any screenshots or save any HTML that you may need prior to November 11th. If requested, we can provide a screenshot of the overview page and a copy of the HTML after the migration.
• Groups now only contain threaded topics. There are no documents, blogs, or projects within a group.
  • Any documents, blog posts, or content within a project will be converted into the topic format within the group during the migration.
• The URL to your group will redirect to the new location after the migration is complete.
• Links to projects will not redirect. You will be able to locate the content from projects within the user group that the project previously exisited within.
• New user group creation is limited to Community Managers. To avoid the duplication of groups, each group will pass through an approval process to certify that available groups are distinct and helpful in their own respective ways. Community Managers will work with you to identify the best fit for your group.

For more general information on user groups, see Using Groups in the NI Community.

If you have questions or feedback, please post here User Groups - Questions and Feedback.

Documents

How does the migration affect documents?

• Documents do not exist within user groups. Documents will be found in their respective areas such as Example Programs, Reference Designs, Sample Exercises, etc.
• For documents that previously existed within a user group, the documents will be migrated over and converted to topics within the user group.
• For documents that were not located within groups and that were not categorized, the documents will be moved them to an "Additional Documents" category within the community.
• There will be templates available to chose from when creating a new document.
• Saved drafts for documents are visible to any community user within the Documents Dashboard.
• Published documents can be edited and collaborated on by any community user.
  • There are options to restrict edits (anyone can edit but only the author can publish changes) or block edits (only the author can edit and publish changes) on documents.
• Some categories will require special permissions for creating or editing documents.
• Documents can have pre-defined labels added to act as a type of sub-categorization.
• Tags can be added after a document has been published.
• Documents being migrated over will display the original publish date but not the last edited date.
  • The last edited date will update once a document is edited post-migration.
• The version history available for a document will start with the most recently published version. Versions from before the migration will no longer be available.
• Personal documents and drafts will not be migrated over.

For more information on documents, see Using Documents in the NI Community.

If you have questions or feedback, please post here Documents - Questions and Feedback.

Example Programs

How does the migration affect example programs?

• If the documents were within a user group, the documents were brought over within that group and became discussion topics within the user group. For documents that were not located within groups and that were not categorized, we moved them to a "Additional Documents" section. Example Code located within the "Additional Documents" section are being reviewed and tagged by content curators.
• To ensure that the code submitted to the site via Code Exchange is of the highest quality, there will be an approval process after the document has been submitted for review. The document will be reviewed by tenured and expert NI employees, and you may receive feedback on your document prior to publication.

For more information, see Example Programs Submission Process.

If you have questions or feedback, please post here Example Programs - Questions and Feedback.

Blogs

How does the migration affect blogs?

• Blogs do not exist within user groups. Blogs can be found in their own area of the community.
• Blog post creation is limited to the authors assigned to a blog.
• Blog posts can have pre-defined labels added to act as a type of sub-categorization.
• New blog creation is limited to Community Managers. Requests for a new blog will go through an approval process to ensure that the available blogs will be regularly contributed to by dedicated authors.

For more information, see Using Blogs in the NI Community.

If you have questions or feedback, please post here Blogs - Questions and Feedback.

More announcements will be made over the upcoming weeks as we prepare for the migration. Please stay tuned and let us know if you have any questions.