Skip to main content
Yoeri
Yoeri
Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
February 22, 2019

Parent categories – Launching April 2, 2019

  • February 22, 2019
  • 26 replies
  • 1243 views
Parent categories – Launching April 2, 2019
In the past months we have released a number of improvements which help you guide your users to the most relevant content. We believe that our next improvement will also be a major step forward in making access to the most relevant content much easier and more efficient.

By introducing parent categories as a clickable page, you will soon be able to offer users a new area which includes all content from all categories in one overview. Difficult to explain, so maybe it’s better to define what we mean with (parent) categories and give some examples to avoid any confusion.

Category, Forum, Board

When a user creates a topic he needs to select a place where it will be posted. You might have different names for this place (category, forum, subforum, board, section, etc), but for clarity we are calling it a category. To make sure we’re all speaking the same language we have created a visual that explains what we at inSided refer to as parent categories and normal categories.

Various examples on where (parent) categories are displayed in the platform

Why are we doing this?

We see that specifically larger, mature communities with many categories would like to offer their (super)users a better experience while navigating the community. A parent category usually includes many related categories which all cover a product or a specific field of interest. Instead of having them change categories just to be up-to-date with the hottest discussions and latest questions, a separate parent category page with all content combined makes more sense.

But this does not just provide value for large or established communities, it’s valuable for all shapes and sizes.. You as a community Manager are now able to structure content better, lowering the barrier between different categories in a knowledge base, improving the overall browsing experience.

Last but not least: integrations. Why share a link to the entire community on a product page, when a link now can also present all FAQs, discussions and ideas in a single page? We would recommend you to start reviewing your integration plan to maximize the added value for your users.

What will change?

Throughout the platform changes will be made to facilitate and show this new parent category:

  • Parent categories become a destination page that users can visit
  • Parent categories will become clickable in the navigation (menu dropdown and homepage category stream)
  • Parent categories will be listed in the topic streams
  • Parent categories will be listed in the breadcrumbs
  • Naming in Control

FAQ


Q: What will this new parent category page look like?
A: Example of a parent category page "Community Management" with multiple categories “Getting started, Moderation tips & tricks etc.”


Q: Which elements are shown?
A: Hero banner with title and description
Categories as navigation cards
Topic list displaying topics from all categories sorted by recent activity
General sidebar

Q: Do I need to enable this new page for my users?
A: No, the moment we enable this parent category page it’s always accessible for your users through the homepage, menu, breadcrumbs or direct URL.

Q: Do I need to prepare anything?
If you want to display a banner/image on top of the parent category page you have to provide one in the Control environment.

Q: When will this be enabled on my production environment?
April 2, 2019


Test on staging

Although we're still working on this functionality we enabled the parent category page on your staging environment already. There you can see and test all the changes mentioned above yourself, right now.

We're looking forward to see the new categories in your platform. If you have any feedback or spot something unusual please let us know.

    26 replies

    Lotte Cohen
    Gainsight Employee ⭐️
    Lotte Cohen
    Gainsight Employee ⭐️
    February 22, 2019
    @Kaouther we discussed this earlier in our conversations so great this is being launched soon 🙂
      C
      Claudia.Willunat
      Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️
      February 25, 2019
      Hi,

      I am trying to update the Category banner but it only saves the banner after the second time of uploading.
      Steps i take are
      Select Forum structure > select edit on the Category > upload the picture> Apply > save all change
      The UI goes back to the Forum structure screen but the pictures is not available.

      I repeat the process and the picture appears.

      Maybe something to look into?
        bjoern_schulze
        bjoern_schulze
        Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
        February 25, 2019
        Thanks for the introduction to the new feature! I've been testing it on our Staging Environment for a few minutes and it seems to be doing what it's supposed to. :)

        I have some initial questions / comments:

        Description:
        In order to save valuable "real estate" (height) on our homepage we were opting to not have a description text for parent categories. With the new landing pages for parent categories we now face the problem that we still don't want to have a description text on the homepage but want to show a description text on the landing page.
        Are there any plans to give us an option to hide the description on the homepage?

        Sticky posts:
        On the landing page for parent categories the sticky posts of all categories are listed. We've opted to have two (max. three) sticky posts per category in order to not move the dynamic activity stream too far down. But with multiple categories per parent category and multiple sticky posts per category, the landing page now consists of a long list of "static" content on top of the activity stream.
        How will the new "Sticky posts" function address this issue?

        Long category names vs. navigation on landing page:


        If the category name is longer, then the navigation on the landing page can look a little "off". I'd suggest adding some "margin-right" to the category name.
          bjoern_schulze
          bjoern_schulze
          Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
          February 25, 2019
          Hi,

          I am trying to update the Category banner but it only saves the banner after the second time of uploading.
          Steps i take are
          Select Forum structure > select edit on the Category > upload the picture> Apply > save all change
          The UI goes back to the Forum structure screen but the pictures is not available.

          I repeat the process and the picture appears.

          Maybe something to look into?
          This behaviour isn't limited to the parent category banner (and icon), unfortunately. I've come across the same issue within the categories. My guess is that the image upload isn't fully completed at the time you (and I) click on "Save changes" (even though the image preview is already displaying), so we have to do it again. When I deliberately waited a few seconds longer before I clicked "Save changes", I've never had this issue.
            C
            Claudia.Willunat
            Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️
            February 25, 2019
            Hi Bjoern,

            Many thanks for that, I never notice it anywhere else but might be just luck I will wait a bit longer the next time.

            Thanks, Claudia
              C
              Claudia.Willunat
              Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️
              February 25, 2019
              Hi,
              one more question, we have 4 sub-forums and looking in staging it add 3 on the first row and 1 on the second row, is their a function to move the 3 sub-forum to the second row so that we have 2 sub-forums on each row?

              That would look better?.
              bjoern_schulze
              bjoern_schulze
              Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
              February 25, 2019

              What will change?

              [...]
              • Parent categories will be listed in the breadcrumbs

              Based on this bullet point I expected the breadcrumb on all category pages and all content pages to have the new parent category included. But it's not there.
              Yoeri
              YoeriAuthor
              Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
              February 25, 2019
              Great to see that you're testing our latest functionality, it's nice to see your feedback and questions 👍

              Are there any plans to give us an option to hide the description on the homepage?

              Can you provide an example which description you're referring to? Parent category descriptions will only be shown on the homepage if you provide them in Control.

              The landing page now consists of a long list of "static" content on top of the activity stream.

              Thanks for reporting this, we planned to not show sticky topics on Parent category pages for the exact reason that you explained (long list of static content). I'll let the dev team look into this.

              If the category name is longer, then the navigation on the landing page can look a little "off"

              We'll fix this.

              I expected the breadcrumb on all category pages and all content pages to have the new parent category included.

              It will be very soon. We're working on this as we speak.

              I am trying to update the Category banner but it only saves the banner after the second time of uploading.

              This is unexpected behaviour, it should save after the first attempt already. We'll investigate this.

              is their a function to move the 3 sub-forum to the second row so that we have 2 sub-forums on each row?

              There is a responsive system in place that will resize and position the categories in the right row and order. We'll look into your request of 2 rows of 2 categories.

              If you have more feedback let us know 🙂
              Group Product Manager, Customer Communities
                bjoern_schulze
                bjoern_schulze
                Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
                February 26, 2019
                Can you provide an example which description you're referring to? Parent category descriptions will only be shown on the homepage if you provide them in Control.

                I'm referring to new newly activated description for parent categories. Here on inSpired you have the parent category "Welcome" with the description "Get started on the inSided Help Center".
                This description is displayed on the homepage. And it will also be displayed on the new landing page for parent categories.

                My concern is: We don't want to show the description text on the homepage, because of "real estate" reasons (we want to limit the height of the website in order to show our users relevant content without having to scroll endless times). But we want to show the description text on the new landing page, because of user-friendliness and SEO. With the current solution, this isn't possible to do.
                Florian
                Florian
                Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
                February 26, 2019
                Q: When will this be enabled on my production environment?
                We expect to enable this early March

                @Yoeri As this is not optional, do you have a clearer roll-out date for this?
                Simple reason is that we need to allocate some resources to make these pages look nice at day of launch.

                Thanks!
                  Show more replies
                  Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement