CM Answers (CMA) - Use Case - Creating a Tourism Forum From Scratch

Use Case - Creating a Tourism Forum

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Note: This guide covers features from the Pro version of Answers - This document uses version 4.4.0

Video Use-Case

Introduction

The CM Answers Plugin creates a simple yet powerful Questions and Answers forum that is intuitive to use, easy to manage, and similar in style to the very popular forum StackOverflow.

Tourism Forum Use Case Front-End

Use Case Assumptions

In this example use case guide, we'll cover how to create a tourism forum from bottom up. You can apply the same idea to the topic of your site, be it finances or kid toys.

We consider that you have already bought the plugin, but not installed it. 

It follows:

Installing The Plugin

The process is the same for all CM plugins.

  • Download the plugin from your customer dashboard
  • Log in to WordPress and navigate to the WordPress Admin  → Plugins settings.
  • Click on Add New
  • Activate it and add the license

Learn more: Getting Started - Installation And First Steps

Creating Your First Forum

With the plugin ready to go, it's time to start creating content.

Category "London"

Let's use categories to divide our forum in different parts. Head to CM Answers Pro → Categories.

The example below shows how to create the category named London (1), with description (2), accessible to all users including guests (3), and two custom questions (4). We'll see all of this in action soon.

Learn more: Getting Started - General Plugin Settings

Adding Forum to Site

When the plugin is activated, it automatically creates a page at your.domain)/answers/.

TIP: Shortcut

You can find a shortcut to the page in the upper part of the Settings screen.

The category London will have its address too:  (your.domain)//answers/categories/london/.

I Want a Different Page!

You can place it in another part of your site in different ways.

TIP: Showing Forum About Multiple Cities

Let's say we want to show a forum about the cities London, Oxford and Manchester while limiting the number of questions to 7/page:

  • Create the categories for Oxford and Manchester. Take a note of their slug
  • Create a new WordPress page
  • Add the shortcode [cma-questions cat="london,oxford,manchester" limit="7"] to the page

Shortcodes - Using Shortcodes

Showing List of Cities

Apply the shortcode  ;[cma-categories-list] to show all categories. In the example below, Introductions is a subcategory of General, while Best pubs is a subcategory of London.

How Can Users Add a Question (Frontend)

When entering a forum the user will see the Ask a Question form. Let's check the London example:

They will write the question title (1), the complete question including images and HTTP (2), answer the custom questions (3), subscribe for notifications of answers (4) and then post the question (5)

How Can Users Answer (Frontend)

Let's check the same question as example:

They will write the answer (1), subscribe to new answers (2), mark or not the thread as resolved (3), and then post the answer (5)


User Area and User Shortcodes

Every user receives a dashboard automatically. Learn more:  Users - User Dashboard and Profile Page

Learn more Users - User Dashboard and Profile Page

User Area Shortcodes

Check some useful shortcodes

  • [cma-my-questions] - Shows questions published by the current user
  • [cma-my-answers] - Shows answers published by the current user
  • [cma-followed] - Shows threads followed by the current user
  • [cma-delete] - Allows users to delete all their content

Learn more: Shortcodes - Using Shortcodes

Adapting Forum Look and Feel

We have a functioning forum already! Time to match it to your site.

Some things you can do: 

TIP: Turn On Ajax For Seamless Transitions

Head to Settings → General tab and check the option Enable AJAX call on filters. Learn more Settings - Ajax and Non-Ajax Display

Limiting Forum To Logged In Users

Let's make our tourism forum private, only accessible to logged in users!

Click on  Access and Moderation tab. Check the Who can view questions and change it from Everyone to Logged in users.

Learn more: Settings - Access Control

Moderating Questions

Now, let's make sure the content is high-quality and moderate all questions, answers and comments.

In the same Access and Moderation tab, turn off all Auto-approve.

Now, the admin will have to approve every content. To do so, check the question list and then click Approve.

Enabling And Using Notifications For Questions And Answers

Email notifications are useful to get your users up to speed.

How Users Can Follow Questions and Answers

First, make sure the option is enabled under Notifications tab → Other. You can turn thread following (for questions) and category following.

Now, when posting a question or answer, they will see a toggle "Notify me". If they check it, they will receive email updates. Learn more: Notifications - User Notifications

TIP: All Followed Questions In The Same Place

The shortcode [cma-followed] shows all the question the current user is following.

Learn more: Notifications - User Notifications

How The Admin Can Follow Questions

Also, let's make sure the admin is notified about new questions.

You can change all email templates from the settings.  Learn more: Notifications - Admin Notifications and Email Templates

Translating Interface

If your site is not in English, that's ok. You can translate the Front-End text (also called labels).

Head to Settings → Labels and edit all relevant text.

Learn more: Settings - Labels

Result


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