Shannon's Suggestion: Community Replies

Shannon Emery · June 2018

Hi Community!

This week I swapped with Crystal to do a “Shannon’s Suggestion” post which is “Crystal Clear” but with an obvious twist. We do love alliteration on this team, don’t we?

We know many of you read our community posts via email so I’m discussing the instant forum subscription emails and how the reply options work.

After reading the post in your email, there are two options to reply to a post – “Reply On Site” and “Reply by Email.”

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If you click on “Reply On Site” you are directed to the post and can reply as you normally would in the Community.

If you click on “Reply by Email” it’s exactly like replying to an email and will include anything in your email templates such as email signatures.

If you are replying by email, I suggest removing information you don’t want to share such as email addresses or telephone numbers since once you hit send, the Community can see your reply.

You may even want to setup a specific Community reply signature when you use “Reply by Email.” I have one set for internal messages, external messages, and you guessed it, one for Community replies.

Not sure how to setup your signatures? Check out how to do it in Outlook and in Gmail.

Accidentally replied to a post with personal information in it? You can locate the “EDIT” button at the bottom of a Community post for two hours after replying. You can also reach out to your Community Managers and we can always help!

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Alright favorite Community, those are my suggestions for this week. Will I be back on regular Community Happenings duty next week? Will Crystal come back to make things clear for you? Keep reading to find out!

Shaun Field · June 2018

Thank you for the ah-ha moment of internal and external signatures. It's seems to obvious now that you say it, but I hadn't thought of it before. Of course, now I need to consider the community version as well!

Thanks! Shaun

Jessica Wade · June 2018

Thanks for the helpful tips!

Shannon Emery · June 2018

You're welcome, Shaun! I had that moment a few years back when I realized my fellow employees already know how to contact me and know our building's address, etc. Makes the emails shorter but still friendly.

Claudia Sauers · June 2018

I think the confusion for me was that "reply by email" makes me think I'm replying to the email they used when registering for the community or even possibly responding directly by message (which would also be a cool feature to add) . Again, I default to thinking it means the way the message is delivered rather than the format - thank you for posting this, it really cleared things up for me!

Sunshine Reinken Watson · June 2018

Thanks Shannon!

Brittany Ivey · June 2018

Very helpful! Thank you!

Barb Gill · June 2018

Thanks, Shannon. Helpful, as always.

Cindy Filler · June 2018

I like the option, but I get just the summary email once a day. I'm assuming this won't work in that case? I'd get too many emails if I didn't do the summary option.

Cathy Spencer · June 2018

Good suggestions, Shannon. Thank you very much

Leslie Isaksen · June 2018

Thanks for the info, Shannon!

Rachel Lamb · June 2018

Thanks for the clarification!

Shannon Emery · June 2018

That makes sense, Claudia, from how you see it. I am going to see if there's anything we might be able to suggest to the vendor for private messages where you may want to reply directly to that member's email. Not sure we can do that for posts but you never know about private messages.

Shannon Emery · June 2018

Hey Cindy! Absolutely correct - this is for instant notifications. For daily, you need to click on the post itself to respond.

Joanne Felci · June 2018

Thanks Shannon! Unfortunately for me, IT controls Outlook signatures and I cannot edit them, but I didn't know of the reply by email button.

I'm wondering what my alliteration would be? Joanne's Jargon Joanne's Jokes