Tools are an essential part of your online engagement strategy. They allow your community to engage directly with projects and allow you the freedom to consult openly with your participants. Tools display in tab containers below your project description so you can implement as many as you need to.
There are nine tools to choose from:
Forums: create open discussions for your community to engage with you and each other
Map: allow your participants to identify and comment on places
Ideas: propose questions and gather ideas from your community
Stories: enable your community to submit their experiences using text, images, and videos
Guestbook: let your community comment on issues without prompting debate
Questions: create a space for your participants to ask you questions
News feed: keep your community informed about the project by creating news articles
Surveys: create detailed surveys to collect large amounts of information
Quick polls: ask quick and easy questions to measure sentiment and preferences. You can also use this tool as a widget.
When selecting your tools, we recommend only using the tools appropriate for your project. Think about the purpose of your tool and what kind of data you want to collect.
Add a tool to your project
To add a tool:
On your project page, scroll below your project description, and select Add tool. If you have existing tools, they’ll be listed here in a tab structure.
Select your tool from the list, Add a title, and select Create. Your chosen title will also create a Permalink; you can edit this if necessary.
Configure your tool’s details and settings, then Save.
Preview and test your tool – any submissions you make in draft mode won’t be saved.
You can Edit the tool anytime, but we recommend only making small changes to fix errors. If you need to make major edits to tools, take the time to consider how these will affect your reporting.
You can use the pen icon next to the tool's name in the tool tab to change it.
Publish your tool if it's ready to go live, or Schedule it to publish if you’re still drafting.
Your tools will display on your project in the same order you view them in the admin; drag and drop them in the tool tabs to change their order. Once a tool is published, you have these options:
Unpublish your tool to take it back to draft status for significant changes or if you want to hide it from participants.
Archive your tool to stop receiving submissions. This will close the tool to participants, but still allow them to see submissions to open tools.
Delete your tool to remove it from your project completely. A tool can’t be deleted if there are any submissions; you cannot recover it once deleted.
All tools have their own configuration options; you can find detailed instructions for each in the Tools collection of this help desk.