Collaboration is the goal here at PTC Community. When you look around the community you'll discover a wide variety of conversations and number of opportunities for product idea exchange. The following guidelines can help you get started with creating and participating in discussions.
Starting a new Discussion
Discussions are a quick way to get an answer to a question or feedback on a problem you're trying to solve. You can attach a file, insert an image, video, or code example into a discussion to better explain your question or idea.
From within a community or group
To start a new discussion from within a space simply navigate to the product community or group you'd like to contribute to and select "Start a discussion" under "Actions".
Once you've crafted your discussion title and message body you can add tags and a category to your message. When finished all you'll need to do is select the "Post" button.
From the Activity page
You can also create a new discussion by visiting the Activity page and select "Discussions" from the Create menu at the top of the page.
From here you'll be brought to the "Start a discussion" page. Once you've created your message you'll need to select a Place (product community or group) to add your discussion to by typing in a place name and selecting from the dropdown menu, or choose a location by selecting "Browse places"
Once you've selected an appropriate place for your discussion you can add tags and a category to your message. When finished all you'll need to do is select the "Post" button.
Discussions Best Practices
- By default all new discussions are marked as "Questions" so that others can provide you with feedback or answers to your problem. If you don't initially mark the discussion as a question, you'll have 15 minutes to change your mind after you post. Within that time, you'll see a link to change your mind in the discussion post. Likewise, you're also able to disable marking the discussion as a "Question" if your message just introduces a general topic.
- If you want to edit a discussion you've created you'll see "Edit" within the "Actions" menu in the right sidebar. Note: You are only able to edit a discussion before any other members have replied. Once a member replies to your discussion this feature is disabled to prevent a bait-and-switch scenario.
- If someone replies to your question with useful information that solves your problem it's good practice to mark their reply as Correct. That way others members who have the same question can quickly see which replies are the most useful.
- It's also a good practice to appropriate categorize and tag discussions so that others can search for and benefit from them later.
Choosing Where to Publish a Discussion
When you're ready to post the discussion, you'll need to decide how and where to make it visible. Carefully choosing a product community or group will make the discussion more visible to people who follow the place where you publish it. For example, publishing a question about Creo within the correct product community can ensure that the question is displayed in a stream for users who follow that space. Keep in mind that publishing in a members-only group limits participation to people who are members of the group. If you want community users to be able to search for and stumble across your discussion you'll want to avoid publishing it in a private group. On the other hand, if you need a discussion to be confidential, a private group could be exactly the right place. You can also choose to publish your discussion only to specific people.
Replying to a discussion
You can Reply to an individual message in a thread or to the original question by clicking "Reply" at the bottom of each post.
To see the full editing options, select the "Use advanced editor" link located in the top-right corner of the reply box. When you're finished crafting your message you just need to select "Add Reply" to post your message. Once you posted your reply everyone reading or following the discussion will see your response.