Community
A place for your buyers to talk — to you and to each other. You create topics, decide who gets into each one, and moderate what happens inside.
Where to find it
Sidebar → COMMERCE → Community.
Topics
A topic is one discussion thread. The table lists each with its description, who has access, when it was created, and how active it is.
Create one with New Topic. A topic needs:
- Name — what buyers see, e.g. "General Discussion".
- Description — what the topic is for. Worth writing; it's the difference between a topic people post in and one they don't.
- Access Type — who gets in (see below).
- Select Product — only when access is limited to a product's buyers.
- Tags — for your own organising.
Who can see a topic
Access is the decision that matters most:
- All Customers — anyone who has bought anything from you.
- Active Members — only people with a live membership or subscription. Access ends when theirs does.
- Product Purchasers — only buyers of one specific product. Pick the product when you choose this.
Moderating
Each topic can be Pinned (held at the top), Locked (readable, no new replies), Edited, or Deleted. Lock a topic when a conversation has run its course but is still worth reading — deleting throws the history away.
Activity, at a glance
Topics are badged by how alive they are:
- Active — recent conversation.
- Quiet — some activity, slowing down.
- Cold — nothing happening for a while.
Cold topics are usually a prompt to either seed a conversation or lock the topic.
What happens — and what doesn't
- Access is checked live, not at join time — when someone's membership lapses, an Active-Members topic closes to them.
- Locking preserves everything already posted; deleting does not.
- Community is for buyers. It isn't a support queue — one-to-one questions belong in the Support Inbox.
Who can see a community topic?
Whoever the topic's Access Type allows: all customers, only active members, or only buyers of a specific product. Access is checked live, so a lapsed membership loses access automatically.
What's the difference between locking and deleting a topic?
Locking keeps the conversation readable but stops new replies. Deleting removes it and its history. Lock when a discussion is finished but still useful.
Why is a topic marked Cold?
Nothing has happened in it for a while. Either seed a new conversation or lock it — a wall of dead topics makes the whole community look abandoned.
Every field on this screen
Every control here, read straight from the live app.
| Field | Type | What it accepts | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access Type | Dropdown | — | |
| Search topics | Text | — |
2 fields, read from the live app. Which ones you see depends on the product type and your plan.
What this screen looks like in every state
| State | When you'll see it | What you see, and what to do |
|---|---|---|
| Loading | The screen is fetching your data | A skeleton in the shape of the finished page. It should be brief — if it persists, the load has failed rather than stalled. |
| Error | The data couldn't be loaded | A message with a retry. Retry first: most of these are a dropped request, not a broken store. If it repeats, the outage is upstream and reloading won't help. |
| No access | Your role doesn't include this screen | A permission notice instead of the page. An owner or admin can grant access under Settings → Team. |
When something goes wrong
These are the messages this screen can show you, and what each one means.
| If you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| Failed to create topic | The change didn't save. Retry — if it keeps failing, the request isn't reaching the server. |
| Failed to delete topic | The change didn't save. Retry — if it keeps failing, the request isn't reaching the server. |
| Failed to update topic | The change didn't save. Retry — if it keeps failing, the request isn't reaching the server. |
| Topic name is required | A required field is blank. Fill it in and save again. |