Early in March we will be introducing a change to SpeakInConfidence to add an anonymous forum. This feature allows multiple people to contribute to the same dialogue, including multiple managers. All Forum threads are open for everyone that is registered to see and contribute to.

Managers are able to choose whether they reveal their identity when publishing to a forum thread and administrators are able to remove dialogues they deem unsuitable. The same rules around user anonymity remain as does the report abuse feature.

This means that the system will now have three different modes of operation as follows:

1. one-to-one anonymous dialogues
2. one-to-one anonymous dialogues with the option to also publish for all to see
3. one-to-one anonymous dialogues as well as an open, but anonymous, forum.

This new feature is entirely opt-in. When we go live you will be set to the option that you already have, i.e either 1 or 2 from above.

The rest of this page answers some of the commonly asked questions and will help you to get started with Forums.

1. How do I enable Forums?

Any administrator can go to the Settings page in the Account section and turn Forums on. They are enabled immediately that you press Save. You will see the change in the Inbox as a new tab called “Forums” will be displayed.

See here for step-by-step instructions.

2. How does a user start a dialogue in the Forum?

The user starts a dialogue in exactly the same way but now chooses the “Publish to Forum” option.

See here for step-by-step instructions.

3. How do other users contribute to a Forum Dialogue?

They go to the Forums tab and click on the Dialogue they want to contribute to and add a comment as normal.

See here for step-by-step instructions.

4. Can a manager start a dialogue in the Forum?

Yes and if they do they are acting as a user and so will be anonymous.

5. Can a manager hide their identity in the Forum?

If a manager starts a Dialogue then they will be treated as a user and remain anonymous. If, however, a Manager comments on a Forum Dialogue they will be asked if they wish to hide their identity and remain anonymous.

See here for more details.

6. Can I change the categories in the Forum?

Categories are the same for one-to-one dialogues and if you change them the change will apply to both one-to-one and Forums.

Note if you delete a category the forum remains, users just cannot start a new dialogue in this category.

See here for step-by-step instructions.

7. What happens to any existing published dialogues?

When you turn on Forums the option to publish is removed and any existing publish dialogues are unpublished.

Have other questions? Please get in touch at help@workinconfidence.com