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Creating Your First FuseTalk Forum
Platform: ColdFusion, .Net

UNDERSTANDING THE FUSETALK FORUM STRUCTURE
Prior to creating your first forum, it is important to understand a few basic principles of FuseTalk. Understanding these basic principles is the key to creating a proper FuseTalk environment for your corporation.

Global Administration Module
The Global Administration module is the component in which the Administrator creates the forum and establishes its security, configures system settings, and manages the global settings that affect all forums. In a typical FuseTalk environment, only a few individuals have access to the Global Administration module. Since FuseTalk can delegate the forum administration to the individual who has ownership of the forums, access to the Global administration module should be limited ideally to only those individuals who are responsible for the whole system.

What is a Forum?
A forum is a single collaborative "space" that has its own URL. A forum contains categories, which contains topics, which contains messages. To view an example of 1 forum please visit our sales forum (http://www.fusetalk.com/forum/)

FuseTalk has two different types of forums which global administrators can create: Stand-Alone and Global Forums.

Stand-Alone Forums: Stand-Alone Forums are individual discussion areas which can only be accessed by users who have been given rights to these forums. Each forum is its own separate entity and has its own sets of users.

Typical usage for Stand-Alone Forums:
  •  
    		•  ASP or ISP who wants to sell forums to their clients (each organization can have their own separate forum)
  •  
    		•  Educational Institute who wishes to have a forum for every class
  •  
    		•  Corporate Environment who wishes to offer departmental forums.

    Global Forums: Global Forums are discussions areas which can be accessed by any global users. Each forum belongs to the global forum community. They all share one set of users.

    Typical usage for Global Forums:
  •  
    		•  A community/portal of forums
  •  
    		•  A corporation which has multiple public forums (i.e. a forum for every product) and wants their clients to only register once.


    Diagram 1 – Stand-Alone and Global Forums


    What is a Discussion Category?
    Each forum can have an unlimited amount of categories and sub-categories. Discussion categories are containers in which topics and messages are contained. See the FuseTalk documentation to get an overview of the different types of categories which you can create.

    Types of Users
    FuseTalk has a few pre-defined types of users which are useful to understand. Below is a listing of them with a brief description of their use.

    Global Administrator: Global Administrators are users who have access to the Global Administration Module. They have access to change any system level settings, global settings which affect all forums, and manage all forums and users. Typically a Global Administrator is an individual who manages the forum community and understands FuseTalk.
    Forum Owner: Forum Owners are individuals who have been assigned to manage a forum. Forum owners have the rights to change any forum level settings which the Global Administrator have given them access to, create discussion categories for their forum, create moderators, and manage their own sets of users (Stand-Alone forum owners only).
    Moderator: Moderators are individuals who have been assigned to moderate a category within a forum. A moderator can be assigned to one or multiple categories and their permissions range from deleting messages/topics to banning individuals from accessing the forum.
    User: Users are individuals who have been given access to a forum or who have publicly registered to access the forum. They do not have any special privileges unless otherwise given by the Forum Owner. Users can become Moderators or Forum Owners.

    Diagram 2 – FuseTalk Forum Structure


    CREATING A FORUM
    Follow these steps in order to create your first forum.

    1. Login to the global administrator (http://www.mywebsite.com/fusetalkinstall/globaladmin)
    2. Select the Forums…Management…Add Forum menu option. The Add Forum wizard should appear on your screen in a popup window.


    Diagram 3 – FuseTalk Add Forum Wizard

    3. Name your forum. In the "Forum Name" text box, type in a name for your forum.
    4. Select the type of forum you wish to create (Stand-Alone Forum or Global Forum)
    5. Click on the ‘Next’ Button
    6. Assign you Forum Owner
  •  
    		•  If you have chosen a Stand-Alone Forum you have the option of either creating a new user to be your Forum Owner, or to select a user who has already been created. In our case, since this is our first forum you will need to create a new user. Ensure that the radio button besides “Create Forum Owner” is selected and enter the requested information.
  •  
    		•  If you have chosen a Global Forum you will need to assign a user which has already been created. In our case, since you might not have created a user already you can search and select the administrator user.

    NOTE: You can change the forum owner any time afterwards.

    7. Click on the ‘Next’ Button.
    8. During Step 3 you can enter general notes about the forum and limit the number of categories, users and topics. Leave the defaults and click on the ‘Finish’ button.

    Congratulations! You’ve successfully created your first forum.

    CONFIGURING AND ACCESSING YOUR FORUM
    Altering Forum Preferences
    Now that you’ve created your first forum, you may proceed to alter forum preferences in order to suit your needs. There are two different sections which you can modify forum settings. A Global Administrator can modify settings for each individual forum, and a Forum Owner can modify settings for his own forum. The following is a description of the steps you need to follow in order to access both sections.

    Modifying Settings from the Global Administrator
    1. Select the Forums…Management…Manage Forums menu option.
    2. Click on the update icon in the forum listing, beside your newly created forum ( ). The Update Forum window should appear.
    3. The Update Forum window has several tabs which contain many different options. Refer to the FuseTalk documentation in order to understand each feature. Changing these settings only affects this particular forum.

    Modifying Settings from the Forum Administrator
    1. Select the Forums…Management…Manage Forums menu option.
    2. Click on the view icon in the forum listing, beside your newly created forum (). A new window will appear which will contain your forum.


    Diagram 4 – Default View of a Newly Created Forum

    3. Enter the username and password of the forum owner in the left hand menu form and click on the ‘Login’ button.
    4. Click on the admin button () which will be located on the top navigation menu. The Forum Administration Module will now appear. This module is reserved for Forum Owners. From here you can manage your forum and setup your preferences. For a complete overview of the Forum Administration Module visit our livedocs website (http://livedocs.fusetalk.com/)


    CREATING YOUR FIRST TOPIC
    In order to post your first topic you must create a discussion category. Follow these steps to create a forum category

    Creating a Discussion Category
    1. Click on the admin button () which will be located on the top navigation menu
    2. Click on the ‘Categories’ menu option located on the left-hand menu. The Category Management section of the administration module will appear. In this section you can create, modify and delete categories from your forum.
    3. Click on the ‘Add Category’ button located on the top of the Category Management template. The Add Category window should appear.
    4. Enter a name for your new category.
    5. Click on the ‘Add Category’ button to add the category to your forum and close the Add Category window. You should now notice that you new category is located within the category listing.
    6. Click on the Edit icon below the name of you newly created category ( ). The Update Category window will now open.
    7. From within the Update Category window you will notice a drop down with the heading Category Status. Ensure that Post and Reply is selected from the drop down. (To read more about Category Statuses visit our livedocs website (http://livedocs.fusetalk.com/).
    8. Click on the ‘Update Category’ button.

    Creating a FuseTalk Topic
    1. Click on the home icon located on the top navigation bar of your forum. You will be taken to the home page of the forum.
    2. Click on the category which you created in the previous step. You will be taken to the discussion category section.
    3. Click on the new topic icon located on the top navigation bar of your forum. A New Topic window will appear.
    4. Enter a subject and text in the body section of your topic.
    5. Click on the ‘Post Message’ button. The window will now close and will refresh the categories template. You will now see a link to your newly created topic.
    6. Click on your topic. You will be taken to the messages page.

    We hope that this document has given you the necessary guidance in order for you to start using FuseTalk in an effective manner. Although you should now be able to create a forum, categories and topics, there is much more to FuseTalk. Please visit our tutorial section and our live documentation, or contact any of our support representatives for help.

    To discuss this article or to ask questions please visit our forums.