Prefixes For Support Forums

Dev4Press support forums are using GD Topic Prefix Pro for bbPress to improve topics organization, status and type of content tracking. This tutorial will explain how we have set GD Topic Prefix Pro to work with support forums.

Groups and Prefixes

The next image shows all groups on Dev4Press Support Forums, with the list of prefixes included. Note that some prefixes appear in multiple groups.

All support related forums are set to use Status and Type groups. Some forums use Public and Suggetions groups.

Permissions

Regular users posting topics in support forums are not allowed to set or change prefixes. When the new topic is created, by default Type group sets Question prefix for every new topic. Status group prefix is not set by default.

Setting Prefixes

Only keymaster and moderators can assign or change prefixes for support groups. This is the outline of the process we use:

1. New topic is added by the forum member, and by default is marked with Question prefix.
2. Moderator reads the topic, and if the reply is made immediately, the reply is used to change the Type group from Question to something else. When it comes to Status, it is now assigned to one of the applicable prefixes. If the topic is classified as Bug, Status will be set to Awaiting Feedback or In Progress or Confirmed.
3. Working more on the topic, and moderator can again change the topic to reflect current status of the topic.

Additional Practices

We are extensively using GD Forum Manager for bbPress plugin to quickly update the prefixes from any page where the manager can be integrated. Check out the tutorial about other plugins to integrate with prefixes.