Introduction to Questions

Quick Links

• Introduction
• Question Components 
• Creating a Question
• Editing a Question

Introduction

Questions are a great way to engage the members of your group. They can be used by administrators to reach all group members quickly. They can also be used by members to pose questions to their cohort. The Forum tab of your group collects all questions asked. With easy-to-use filters, questions can be narrowed down by Status, Type, Asker, and whether it has been answered. Questions are also connected to their Asker, making it easy for users to see all that they’ve asked.

Question Components

There are various components that make up a question. Users have the freedom to include as many or as few of these components as they wish. The Editing a Question section includes information about how to make these components visible or hidden.

Question

The question being posed to the group, in 140 characters or less.

Summary

A summary of or additional information about your question. The first few lines of your summary will display under your question on the group or forum landing page. It may include additional text, hyperlinks, images, and embedded video links.

Author Bio

Author Bio will allow readers to identify the Author of a Question, whose name will display in the byline at the top of the question, show in a bio at the bottom of the question, and appear in panels where the "include Author" option is selected.

Answers

Answers are opportunities for members of the group to respond to the question being posed. Answers are always enabled for Questions and cannot be hidden or disabled.

See More (Question Type)

Question Types are tags that allow users to classify the type of question being asked by purpose (i.e. general, how-to, clarification, etc.). Editors can select from a preset list of Question Types or they can enter a new value by typing into the field. When this feature is enabled, readers will be able to quickly navigate to other questions of the same type. 

Find More Questions About (Collections)

Collections are secondary, custom tags related to the subject matter of the question that you can apply to questions you’re asking. Editors can select from a preset list or add new options by typing into the field. When this feature is enabled, readers will be able to quickly navigate to other questions within the same collection. 

Creating a Question

Editors have the flexibility to create and thoroughly draft questions prior to publishing them. Additionally, settings can be adjusted both before and after publishing.

To begin, hover over the Forum tab and select Ask a Question.

The Ask a Question pop up will appear. Though there are multiple settings, only the Title and Question Type are required for question creation.

All of these settings can be edited before and after publishing if you wish to revisit them later.

Question

Required. A brief, clear question asked in 140 characters or less.

Question Type

Required. Question Types are tags that allow users to classify the type of question being asked by purpose (i.e. general, how-to, clarification, etc.). Editors can select from a preset list of Question Types or they can enter a new value by typing into the field. When this feature is enabled, readers will be able to quickly navigate to other questions of the same type. 

Visibility

Required, though this field will always default to Private. Visibility will allow editors to determine which types of users can see the question they’ve asked.

Visibility Details

Public Visibility:

• Viewable by anyone (including anonymous users)

• Can only be edited by members of the owning group with sufficient permissions

• Can be shared on social media or other platforms

• Can be published to any "public" or "collaborative" groups on MissionBox

• Cannot be published to any "private" groups

Protected Visibility

• Can only be viewed by members of the collaborative groups
• Can only be edited by members of the owning group with sufficient permissions
• Can be published to any other "collaborative" groups in the same community
• Cannot be published to any "public" or "private" groups
• Cannot be published to any groups outside community

Private Visibility

• Can only be viewed by members of the owning group
• Can only be edited by members of the owning group with sufficient permissions
• Cannot be published to any other groups

Urgent

By clicking into this box, you can flag your event as urgent. Flagging a Question as urgent will send a notice out to group members that urgent content has been published. It does not create a visual indicator on the content itself.

Add to Collection

Collections are secondary, custom tags related to the subject matter of the question that you can apply to questions you’re asking. Editors can select from a preset list or add new options by typing into the field. When this feature is enabled, readers will be able to quickly navigate to other questions within the same collection. 

After you click Create, the question will open in Edit Mode. Here, you can continue to craft your question and its settings. 

Editing a Question

Edit Mode allows the asker to edit the question further if need be. It also allows the asker an opportunity to manipulate the question settings. Settings may also be updated via the Question tab.

Edit Mode Features

When viewing a question, you can switch to Edit Mode by clicking on the orange Edit button on the bottom right corner of the screen.

Edit lock

While in Edit mode, a lock associated with your user account will prevent other users with edit access from making edits at the same time. The edit lock will release after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Autosave

Your work is auto-saved every 5 seconds while in Edit Mode.

• TIP: Use Ctrl+Z to undo mistakes made while in Edit Mode

Visible Components of a Question

Once in Edit mode, you can make all components available to display directly on the question by clicking the On/Off toggle that appears beside each.

• Author Bio
• Answers
  • Note: Answers are always enabled in Questions.
• See More (Question Type)
• Find More Questions About (Collections)

Ending Edit Mode

To exit Edit Mode and switch to Viewing Mode, you can click the Question Tab or the Done button on the bottom right corner of the screen.

Question Tab

The Question Tab is located above the body and beneath the Question title and summary.

Edit

Engages edit mode

Settings

Opens the Adjust Question Settings pop up.

• Question Type: Tags that allow users to classify the type of question being asked by purpose (i.e. general, how-to, clarification, etc.). Editors can select from a preset list of Question Types or they can enter a new value by typing into the field. When this feature is enabled, readers will be able to quickly navigate to other questions of the same type. 
• Visible Components: A quick snapshot of all components of the question. This window allows the user to quickly determine which components are visible. This can also be done in Edit Mode. See Visible Components of a Question.
• Visibility: Level of visibility you wish for this article to have, whether it be Public, Protected, or Private. See Visibility Details section for more information.
• Owning Group: The group to which this question belongs. Keep in mind that group ownership may impact Visibility.        
• Owner: The asker of this question.
• Urgent: By clicking into this box, you can flag your question as urgent. This will send a notice out to group members that urgent content has been published. It does not create a visual indicator on the content itself.

Change Status

Option to be developed.

Publish

Once you have completed your question, you can publish it so that it becomes available to the group. Until a question is published, it will not be featured in search results or on the group panel page.

Revert to Draft

After a question is published, you may choose to revert it back to draft mode. Once reverted, the question will no longer be featured in the group panel or in search. Any responses made while in publish mode will not be lost by reverting a question back to draft mode.

Archive

By archiving a question, you are removing it from being featured on the group landing page. Though it will not be automatically featured on the search page, you can edit the default search settings to include Archived questions. You can undo an archival by re-publishing the question or reverting it back to draft mode.

To learn more about the Search page features, click here.

Add to Collection

Collections are secondary, custom tags related to the subject matter of the question that you can apply to questions you’re asking. Editors can select from a preset list or add new options by typing into the field. When this feature is enabled, readers will be able to quickly navigate to other questions within the same collection.