Proactive Moderation

Proactive Moderation empowers admins to review and approve all posts before they go live. This ensures that every piece of content aligns with the community guidelines and organizational standards before it is published.

Proactive Moderation must be set up by a Global Admin and you should speak to your Customer Success Manager or Account Manager before doing so.

Setup

1. Go to Extensions in the Dashboard
2. Add Bot Account 
   1. Set the name to: ‘Post_Approval’ 
      ⚠️ Please note that the name must be exactly right, otherwise the feature will not work.
   2. Set admin permissions to ON
   3. ‘Visible to Users’ doesn’t need to be ON 

     3. Select the streams that you want to proactively moderate. To do this, go to the Streams section of the Dashboard, click on the required stream, go to ‘General’ and then select ‘Post Approvals turned on’. 

ℹ️ If you do not see this option, please contact your Customer Success Manager or the Support team. If the feature isn’t included in your plan, it can be purchased as an add-on.

From now on all posts posted in the selected streams will land in the moderation inbox, where admins can approve or reject created posts.

How does it work?

Post Creator

• When creating a post, the creator sees a note in the post editor, letting them know that their post won’t be published immediately.
   
• After hitting the ‘create post’ button, the post disappears and the creator receives a chat notification with confirmation.

• It’s possible to view the post via the link in the notification. The only available option for non-admin users is to delete the post. Admins can disable reactions, comments or pin the post.

• When accepted or rejected, the creator receives a chat notification to let them know.

Moderator Actions

When a post is submitted for publication in a stream, it will appear in the moderator’s inbox. The moderator can take the following actions:

• View in Web App: This option provides a preview of the post along with a message telling the user that their post will not appear immediately and that they will be informed when it has been published.
   
• Reject with a Comment: The moderator can choose to reject the post and provide a comment explaining the reason for rejection.
   
• Approve the Post: Then the post will be published.

Moderators do not receive automatic notifications when new content is awaiting approval in the moderation inbox. However, the 'History' tab logs all changes made to posts. While this log is useful for tracking updates, it does not allow moderators to preview the full content of rejected or removed posts.

Notifications for pending post approvals

To help admins and moderators react faster, proactive moderation can also send a chat notification whenever a new post is submitted for review in a stream with post approvals enabled.

Notifications are sent as a direct 1:1 message from the chatbot to all Stream Admins and Moderators of the relevant stream, and are available on both web and mobile. 

The notification includes the post title, the author name, and the stream name, so responsible users can quickly see that a new post is waiting for review. Sample notification:

“A new post "Happy birthday, Tom🎉" by "John Johnson" has been submitted for moderation in stream "HR". Please review it in the moderation inbox.”

To approve or reject the post, they need to open the Moderation inbox in the Dashboard on web, where pending posts can be reviewed. In some cases, by the time a user opens the moderation inbox, the post may already have been reviewed by someone else. 

Admins can also check Moderation → History to confirm what has already been moderated.

Post Publishing and Moderation Process

• Posts without comments or emojis will be successfully published as intended once accepted. The post will go live with the correct settings.
   
• If a post is scheduled, it will require moderator approval before being published. Even if the scheduled time passes, the post will not go live until the moderator has approved it.
   
• When posting to multiple streams, posts are published immediately for streams that do not have proactive moderation enabled. For streams with proactive moderation, each post will appear as a separate item in the moderation inbox for approval.