Your consultations

During consultations, communities can interactively exchange ideas on specific topics and collaboratively develop projects. They follow a top-down process, which means that they can only be launched by administrators, setting them apart from propositions and discussions (read up on them here). Administrators gain crucial insights into their community's needs, concerns and ideas, while the participants can have their say on matters that bear real relevance for their community.

How do I find my consultations?

1. Go to the community homepage. 

2. Once there, select 'your consultations' on the grey sidebar-menu on the left. Here you will find an overview of all the consultations, both completed and ongoing.

3. Scroll through the different consultations or filter them by themes to find the ones you're most interested in. Click 'discover' to get to the introduction page where you can read up on the idea behind and aim of the consultation. 

And how can I participate in a consultation? 

To participate in a consultation, click 'participate' at the bottom of the introduction page. 

There three principal ways of participating available to users:

• Add a contribution: voice your opinion by writing a comment (read up on adding contributions here). 
• Reply to a contribution: consultations are all about starting a dialogue between the users. In addition to writing a new contribution, you can also reply to an existing one by clicking 'reply'. 
• Upvote a contribution: if you agree with a contribution, you can express your support by clicking the blue 'upvote'-button underneath a comment. This allows users and administrators alike to see which ideas are considered particularly relevant by the community. 

To set up a consultation,

1. Log in to your administrator account and select 'your consultations'. 

2. Choose a title for your consultation and enter it into the text box - you'll still be able to edit the title at a later point. Then click 'create your consultation'. 

3. This will take you to the edit page where you determine the settings and enter all the information users need to effectively participate in it. Short explanations guide you through the different steps.

• choose the title and description that will appear on the introduction page of your consultation. Make sure that the description is relevant, informative and appealing, so that users are informed enough to participate and are excited about it. You should explain both the context and the purpose of the consultation, making clear why it's important. 
• add a short title and short description, which will appear on the 'your consultations' page to give users a quick overview of the topics discussed in the different consultations.
• you can add a picture or a video to make the consultation more inviting to the users, automatically drawing them in and encouraging participation. Upload a picture by clicking on the image-box and/or upload a video by clicking the video-sign in the top-left corner of the text-box and inserting the URL. 
• a questionnaire for the users to give you better sense of who's participating in the consultation. 

4. As a final step before launching the consultation, set a time-frame for it. Scroll all the way down to the publication settings at the bottom of the page and choose the start and end date of your consultation. Here you can also change the visibility to 'private', which means that only people who were invited by link will be able to see and participate in the consultation. 

Well done! You just created your first consultation. 

How do I make changes to my consultations?

You’ve just had a meeting and everything needs changing? Don’t panic! You can quickly and easily edit both the content and opening/closing dates of your consultation regardless of whether its published or still in creation mode.

 1. From your homepage, click on 'your consultations', found in the grey sidebar

2. Select the consultation you'd like to edit, and click ‘Edit’ in the top right-hand corner of the page 

3. To edit the consultation’s title and content, simply write in the corresponding content boxes, and similarly, to edit the dates, selecting the new date and time on the calendar

Note that all changes are saved automatically when clicking 'close edit mode'

 4. Once you’re done, hit ‘Close edit mode’ and you’ll be taken back to the discussion’s introduction page where you’ll be able to see your changes