Before you start#
A channel is a heavy weight mechanism of organizing information and participation - it creates a unique microsite on your network that it available at its own URL with its posts, subscribers, feed, engagement widgets, info cards etc. Mandatory reading: An innovative new network model. Channels are also interconnected to other channels, Network Heroes etc.
It is not a light weight category tag (like wordpress) or a hashtag (like Twitter) etc.
Hence it is important to note that channels cannot be deleted. A channel if deleted would potentially orphan a vast amount of attached and cross-linked info and content.
As a network owner or admin, before starting out, consider carefully the channel structure that you would like to use for the future and only then start creating channels.
If you do have the need to delete a channel, consider renaming the channel instead (and editing its info accordingly). This mechanism should also be used sparingly due to the confusion that would result for the end user (network member).
Since all content is served via a global CDN, this also impacts all existing content that may be out of sync with the latest channel info until the cached content is invalidated.
Adding a channel#
A new channel can be added using this quick interface and then configured completely in a latter step.
TOP channels optionally can have geo meta attached with them, and hence can exist at a level of administrative territories. Eg a network could have a topic channel that deals with local housing at the level of cities (one for San Francisco and another for Bangalore), a topic for housing legislation at the level of each state and so on.
The number of channels that you can add are limited by your plan.
Support channel
When creating a Topic channel, it can be setup as a special support channel.
Access control
Topic channels are Public by default and can be optionally be access controlled - one can choose to make the channel Restricted, Protected or Private, with increasing levels of restrictions and complexity. Read the extended help article on Channel access control.
Configuring an existing channel#
Existing channels are listed according to the channel type - Topics, Organizations and Personas.
An existing channel can be configured using the Configure button. This opens up a new dashboard with various configuration options.
Deleting a channel#
See channel settings.
