Creating Message Boards
To set up a message boards, click on Message Boards under the "Administrative Functions" -> "Member's Area Functions" subheading on the main menu.
To add a board, click on "Add New Message Board". On the next page, enter a name and description. Each board you create would typically correspond to a category of discussion - a committee, an interest group, or other area that members might want to initiate discussion.
After creating a board, you might want to set up a few topics and alert your members to the existence of the message boards, in order to get the conversation started.
Board Name
The Board Name is used to identify the Board in the Board List.
Description
The Description is a brief explanation of the purpose of the Board. This will appear on the Board List and will help members understand the purpose of the board and help keep topics/discussions related to that Board.
Board Category
Board Categories are used to group Boards for an extra layer of hierarchy. This is not a required field and is only necessary for organizations that have a large number of Boards. To add a Board Category, simply enter the name of the category in the "Board Category" field in the Board settings. Please note that spelling and capitalization are important.
Limiting to Projects/Committees/Board Members
Often times, it will be useful to create a message board for the use of your board of directors or for a particular committee. When adding a message board, you'll notice a drop-down that will let you make the board limited to members of the selected project/committee. There is also a checkbox to limit the board to members of the board-of-directors (members with the board@checkbox
checked in the member database).
Require Moderator Approval
If a board is moderated, all topics and posts to the board are first approved by a moderator before they are displayed or emailed out.
Limit Response Emails to Topic Creator
When a Reply is made to a Topic, the system sends an email to the members who are "Opted-In" to that particular Board. In some cases it may be preferable to have reply messages go only to the person who created the topic. In such cases, this can be achieved by checking the "Limit response emails to topic creator" checkbox in the Board settings. Please note that when this option is checked, only the topics will be displayed on the MMS and replies will only be received by the member who created the topic.
Email-List Handle
It is possible to allow members to create and reply-to topics by email. This behavior is similar to a "LISTSERV™", but also integrates with the message boards. To enable this feature simply enter a "email-list handle" on the message board settings page. The "handle" must be alpha-numeric (consisting of letters a-z and numbers 0-9 only). Please note that handles are lower-case only. Handles will be used as part of an email address for sending and receiving emails related to the Board. For example if the handle is "abc123" then the email for the email-list would be "abc123@viethconsulting.com". For more information about the "Email-List" features of the message board, please see the corresponding help-section.
Organization Nickname
When emails are sent out by the message board system, they include the name of the organization as part of the Subject of the email. This is to help members easily identify the email. The system will use the name of the organization by default, however it may be desirable to use an alternate name or nickname for the sake of brevity or perhaps some other reason. To use this feature, simply enter the nickname in the "Organization Nickname" field in the Board settings. Please note that only alpha-numeric characters and spaces should be used -- that is upper and/or lower case A-Z, numbers 0-9, and spaces. Please do not use symbols.