Onboarding

CHAPTER 01Getting Started

What IBM Community is

IBM Community (community.ibm.com) is the global platform where customers, partners, developers, practitioners, and IBM teams connect, ask questions, share knowledge, attend events, and access resources across IBM technologies. It is an always-on, contribution-driven environment — think ongoing stewardship, not one-off publishing.

Everything lives inside topic groups (organized around products and technologies) and user groups (volunteer-run special-interest groups). Each group typically contains its own discussions, blogs, events, library, and member list.

Touring a group

Discussions — forum threads for Q&A, troubleshooting, and best-practice exchange.

Blogs — longer-form articles, technical content, product updates, announcements.

Library — documents, decks, recordings, and reusable assets.

Events — webinars, AMAs, and user-group programming with built-in registration.

Members — the group's member directory and management tools.

Settings / Admin Panel — group preferences, permissions, and details (admins only).

Set up your profile (do this first)

Sign in at community.ibm.com and open your profile.

Add a photo, bio, and current job title. All admins are expected to have a complete profile with photo — it's the standard you'll be encouraging members to follow.

Under topic interests, select the areas you support (SkillsBuild members should select IBM SkillsBuild).

Open email notification settings and set your digest frequency (see Chapter 09).

Join the Topic Group Admins group if you administer a group.

The operating model: IBM owns, Higher Logic supports

How the platform is structured behind the scenes

IBM Community tenant
└── Microsite / site experience
    └── Parent or global community
        └── Nested child communities or groups
            ├── Discussions / Threads
            ├── Q&A questions
            ├── Blogs
            ├── Events / calendar
            ├── Libraries / resources
            └── Members

Cross-cutting controls: Community Types · Join/View permissions
Security Groups · Roles · Moderation · Automation Rules
Email · Reports · CMS pages/widgets

Nesting is not just navigation. It affects who can view or join a child community, how membership is inherited, which settings are available, and how the space appears in reports and widgets. The repeatable pattern: one branded microsite where justified → associated parent community → child groups under it, each inheriting a Community Type → parent-member access when the child should be limited to the parent's members → permission overrides only with a documented business reason → time-bound cohorts on a lifecycle plan so they can be archived.

Before requesting a new space, be ready to answer

Is it a new microsite, parent community, nested group, or just a page/widget update?

Audience and purpose? Who owns it after launch?

Public, authenticated, members-only, invitation-only, or request-to-join?

Which features: Discussions, Q&A, Library, Calendar, Website, Subcommunities?

Which Community Type? Any Security Group or automation rule needed?

Launch date, success measure, and archive/retirement plan?

CHAPTER 02Roles & Permissions

The IBM Community role model

Members — read, post, and engage.

Moderators — approve/reject posts in their scope.

Community / Group Admins — manage one or more assigned groups: settings, membership, moderation, events, communications, libraries, tags, and group-level reporting.

Site Admins — manage microsite-level experience: layout, theme, imagery, CMS content (unless locked down by a Super Admin).

Super Admins — HL team and IBM Community Managers. Tenant-wide control: all communities, pages, tools, automation rules, security groups, moderation, and reporting.

Public, authenticated, and member access

Higher Logic uses three primary access levels. Each level includes the access available to the level before it.

Who can do what — the IBM permission matrix

Permissions are layered: who → where → what

Always ask two questions: "Can this person enter the space?" and "What are they allowed to do once inside?" Every permission decision combines three layers:

Who — users and Security Groups.

Where — site, Community Type, community, discussion, library, blog, page, or widget.

What — view, join, post, reply, moderate, manage, publish, edit.

Permission rules worth memorizing

A user must be able to see a community in order to join it.

Public is a visibility setting — it is not the same as authenticated membership.

Nested communities can use parent-member access (limited to members of the immediate parent).

Security Groups control member status and granular access; threads can carry Additional View Permissions for selected Security Groups — use cautiously.

Community libraries usually inherit community (or associated-thread) visibility; stand-alone libraries have their own view and upload/edit permissions.

Changing a Community Type does not retrofit prior settings and permissions to an existing community.

Blogging rights and event-admin rights are separate scopes — an admin isn't automatically a blogger, and a blogger needs no admin access.

Requesting admin rights (IBM process)

Super Admin: obtain approval from the leadership team (Sarah Cogley) first.

Send a request with a screenshot of the approval, including: reason for the rights, the team you work for/with, and your job title (update it in your community profile too).

Community/Group Admin: same request shape — reason, what you'll be doing, and team information.

Complete your profile with a photo before or immediately after rights are granted.

CHAPTER 03Discussions & Q&A

Discussions are the heartbeat of every topic group: peer-to-peer questions, troubleshooting, and best-practice exchange. As an admin your job is to keep threads current, answered, and in the right place — and to help members understand where to post.

Choosing the right content type

When both Discussions and Q&A are enabled, the interface may label the area Threads.

Posting and replying (members)

Open the group → Discussions tab → Post New Message (or reply within a thread).

Write a specific subject line — it becomes the email subject in every member's digest.

Tag the post so it's discoverable (all users can tag their own content).

Members can edit their own posts after publishing.

Strong question anatomy: problem in the subject line · product/feature and environment · what was tried · expected vs. actual result · error text · only attachments safe to share publicly.

Thread actions (admins) — know the difference

Managing threads (admins)

Edit posts by others within any group you administer (fix formatting, broken links, accidental personal data). Deleting posts is Super Admin only — request via Chapter 12.

Answer or route unanswered questions. Aim for no question sitting unanswered more than a few business days: answer it, @-mention someone who can, or move the conversation to the right group.

Tag others' content in your groups to improve search and curation (admin-only tag groups are Super Admin).

Flagged content lands in your moderation queue — see Chapter 10.

CHAPTER 04Blogging

Blogs carry the community's longer-form content: thought leadership, technical how-tos, product updates, and announcements. IBM Community runs a blogging program with an approval gate for external authors.

Who can blog — the IBM program rules

Publishing a blog post

From the group (or your profile), select Add a blog / Create Blog Post.

Write the post; add images and links; keep the title under ~65 characters for clean display in feeds and digests.

Tag the post and choose the publishing group so it surfaces in the right community.

Publish. Authors can edit their own posts afterward.

Before publishing or approving a blog, check

Is the author authorized for the blog program?

Does the post provide useful IBM Community value, relevant to the selected audience and community?

Is it original or properly attributed — informative rather than generic marketing copy?

Are links, images, data, and attachments safe and appropriate?

Does it need IBM stakeholder review before publication?

CHAPTER 05Events

Events power webinars, AMAs, conference sessions, and user-group programming, with registration and follow-up built into the platform. Group Admins can create and edit events in their own groups.

The IBM webinar model — who does what

Creating an event

Open your group → Events → Create Event (Event Manager).

Enter title, date/time (mind time zones), description, and the join link from your own webinar tool.

Choose event type (in-person, virtual, or hybrid) and set registration options.

Configure reminder emails to registrants.

Save and publish. Verify the event appears on the group calendar and the site-wide events view.

The event engagement loop — an event isn't done when the session ends

Intake — define goal, audience, owner, speaker, date, format, and required approvals.

Setup — event page, registration path, description, community association (steps above).

Promotion — group announcement, content feed, email; for high-priority events, a homepage promo or hero-banner request (Chapter 08 — mind the Thursday deadline).

Participation — support the presenter, registration questions, live moderation.

Follow-up — publish the replay, slides, and assets to the group Library (Chapter 06).

Continue the conversation — link the replay to a follow-up discussion or Q&A thread.

Measure — review registration, attendance, engagement, replay use, and follow-up activity.

Event permissions are scope-based: Community Admins create/edit events only in communities where they hold admin scope; Super Admins work tenant-wide.

CHAPTER 06Library

Libraries house documents, decks, recordings, and supporting assets — the community's reusable knowledge. They're heavily used for onboarding and self-serve learning, so structure matters as much as content.

Creating a library entry (members)

Open the group → Library → Create Entry.

Give it a descriptive title and a short abstract (this is what search and digests display).

Upload the file(s) — documents, decks, recordings — and tag the entry.

Publish into the right folder. Members can edit their own entries later.

Maintaining the library (admins)

Structure folders deliberately — admins can order and re-structure library folders. A flat pile of 200 files helps no one; folder by purpose (Getting Started / Event Recordings / Templates).

Edit or remove stale entries in your groups (modify/delete others' entries is a Group Admin power; comments on entries are Super Admin only).

Post every event recording within a few days of the event — recordings are among the most-consumed library content.

Library items in moderated groups flow through the moderation queue (Chapter 10).

Library hygiene checklist

Descriptive title + short summary (this is what search and digests display).

Correct community and folder; tags or related links where helpful.

File confirmed safe for the intended audience — never confidential material.

An owner and a review date assigned to every entry.

Stale material removed or archived on the area's lifecycle plan.

CHAPTER 07Members & Profiles

Managing group membership (Group Admins)

Invite members — Group Admins invite (rather than directly add) community members by default; some community types allow direct adds. You can also enable the "Member invitations" checkbox in group settings so members can invite peers.

Update join and view permissions in group settings to control who can enter and see the group.

Remove or restrict members of your group when needed.

Find people via the member directory — search by name, company, or profile criteria.

Ribbons & badges (recognition)

Ribbons and badges recognize member achievement and display on profiles, directories, and discussions. Badges = gamification/achievements; ribbons = identifiers (e.g., "IBM Champion"). They're earned automatically via automation rules or awarded manually by Super Admins.

To request a custom ribbon or badge, provide: name (shows on the profile), description (purpose + how it's earned), display locations (profile; directory & discussions for ribbons), whether it shows grayed-out as attainable, a category, and an optional URL. Image specs: ribbons 200×40 px · badges 200×200 px.

Gamification

Badges for milestones · points for contributions · leaderboards for top contributors. No tangible rewards — recognition is the currency.

CHAPTER 08Widgets & Site Content

Widgets are the building blocks of community pages — feeds, search, promos, featured content. On IBM Community, site-level widget and CMS changes are Super Admin / HL work, so this chapter is mostly a spec sheet for requests: give the team exactly these assets in these dimensions and your update ships without back-and-forth.

Hero banner (logged-out homepage)

The first impression for every visitor. Submit:

Champions Spotlight & News tiles

Custom HTML tiles (content can't be auto-tagged into these sections). For each tile provide: headline (5 words max), description (160 characters max), CTA button text + link, promotion dates, and a photo at 1000×450 px.

Featured Card widget

Single-card banner layout: 4:1 — at least 1200×300 px

Single-card split/hero layout: 2:1 — at least 1200×600 px

Multi-card layout: 2:1 — at least 1200×600 px per card

Additional HTML banner

613×203 px, exported at 2× resolution for high-density screens.

Digest banners (discussion ads)

Configured under Community → Discussions → Discussion Ads; they appear at the top of Real-Time and Daily Digest emails. Max size: 728×90 px. See Chapter 09.

CHAPTER 09Email & Digests

IBM Community email is a system of different message types, not one mailbox:

Digest settings (what to tell members)

Profile → email/community notification settings.

Per group, choose Real Time, Daily Digest, or No Email; a Consolidated Digest can combine multiple groups into one daily or weekly email.

Automation: what to automate, what to keep human

Digest banners

Admins can promote content at the top of digest emails via Community → Discussions → Discussion Ads — max 728×90 px.

CHAPTER 10Moderation

Moderation is the most important human-led admin function — subtle spam, risky content, off-topic posts, and gray-area judgment calls need people, not automation.

The three moderation modes

Moderation can apply to discussions, Q&A, blogs, libraries, and other configured content. Watch words can auto-flag or replace configured terms — but they never replace human review.

The moderation decision sequence

Identify the content type and owning community.

Check why it entered moderation: community setting, individual-user setting, watch word, first-post control, spam signal, or another rule.

Check whether the author is authorized for the action — especially blogging.

Check relevance, clarity, duplication, promotional intent, suspicious links, and policy concerns.

Decide: approve (err toward approving — slow queues kill contribution momentum), reject (and tell the author why), edit for clarity, move, close, redirect — or escalate.

Document the decision when the case is sensitive, repeated, or likely to recur.

Notify or respond to the member when that improves clarity and trust.

Community rules (Global Terms)

Members must be able to find the current Global Terms — and any page-specific or module terms — before participating. Rules should cover expected behavior, prohibited behavior, how inappropriate content is handled, and how to report concerns. Don't change rules casually: a Global Terms change normally affects only new users unless the acceptance requirement is reset, and applying or removing page-specific terms requires Higher Logic Support.

CHAPTER 11Programs: User Groups & Champions

User Groups

Volunteer-run special-interest groups (250+ across 30+ countries) open to customers, IBMers, and business partners. Creating one requires an application. IBM supports them with light catering, IBM facility access (offices, Innovation Studios), speaker matchmaking, TechZone labs, branded giveaways, promotion support, and the monthly/bi-monthly Leaders & Liaisons call.

IBM Champions

The advocate program: 1,400+ Champions across 66+ countries (2025). Pathway: earn Rising Champion advocacy badges (blogging, presenting, mentoring, UG leadership) → self-nominate or be referred → annual review and announcement. Benefits include VIP conference perks, early briefings under NDA, learning discounts, Credly badges, and community spotlights. Champions have a public group and a private group (active Champions only).

Point members to these programs when they're already contributing heavily — recognition pathways are your best retention tool.

CHAPTER 12Getting Help — Who to Contact, in Order

The full routing map

Filing a support case in HUG

Sign in at hug.higherlogic.com with your Higher Logic account.

Click Support (upper right) → on My Cases, select Create a Case.

Select your platform; optionally add emails to notify; write a clear subject line.

Review the suggested KB articles — your answer may already exist.

Select the business-impact level, then provide: the issue's location (URL, page code, control name), steps to replicate, browser details, and test credentials / screenshots / logs. Optionally request a callback.

Submit — you'll land on My Cases to track status.

Learning resources on HUG

HUG Education Library — sign in → Learning → HUG Education Library (training videos and how-tos).

Knowledge Base Updates blog — follow it to hear about new/changed Thrive documentation.

Known Issues page — check before filing a case; your bug may already be tracked with a workaround.

Academy — monthly webinars and the e-learning portal.

Submit a HUG idea — feature requests go through HUG's idea process, not support cases.