As of March 30, 2023, Community Onboarding is available to all community servers. Also, we’ve begun testing a new feature within Community Onboarding called Server Guide.
More and more people come to Discord every year to experience awesome communities like yours. But sometimes the experience of joining a new community can feel like being cannon-blasted into a strange, foreign land that gets new people asking “Sooo… what am I supposed to do here?” or “Why are there so many channels?!”
The truth is, many new people on Discord trying to join your community don’t understand what “bots” are, what roles do, or which of your many channels to check out. And when they get confused and overwhelmed, they just leave. Surely there has to be an easier way to get people to join your community, know their way around, and actually stay and become a part of your tribe.
That’s where Community Onboarding comes in to help you save the day.
What does this article cover?
Here’s how it works
To help anyone join your communities on Discord with ease and delight, we’re giving community admins the ability to create a personalized onboarding experience. With Community Onboarding, new members get to pick out their own roles and channels and enjoy a personalized channel list in your server by answering a few simple questions.
Once they’re in, they can adjust their answers to your questions to swap roles or channels at any time in a new Channels & Roles tab above their channel list.
Great! How do I set up Community Onboarding?
1. Add Default Channels
First, head over to Server Settings > Onboarding and start the setup process by adding Default Channels.
Your Default Channels will be the channels that all new members will see in their channel list when joining your Community. These should typically be your most popular and valuable channels you think every new member should have on their channel list.
Best practices:
- Prioritize channels with healthy activity and friendly for new joiners, like #general, #polls, #giveaways, forums, or LFG channels.
- Avoid including channels that aren’t useful or relevant for most new members as part of your Default Channels - you’ll be able to assign those later!
2. Create Customization Questions
Members will answer Customization Questions to pick additional channels and roles. Create a question, give it some answers, and then assign relevant channels and/or roles for each answer choice. When a member picks that answer, they will be granted those roles and those channels will be added to their channel list!
Customization questions let you create questions and answers that let new members pick out their own roles and channels.
Start by asking questions that assign new members additional channels
- Try using a question like “What would you like to do here?” to assign your main channels
For each question, add answer options that assign channels and/or roles when selected
What new members will see
- You can also ask a question like “What off-topic channels do you want?” to assign off-topic channels
For each question, you can choose to:
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Ask before a member joins - this shows your questions and answers to new members right before they join your server. Questions that assign channels and important roles should be asked before a member joins.
- Questions without this toggled on will be included in the Channels & Roles tab above everyone’s channel list, for members to check out later. Use this for questions around non-urgent customizations, like vanity roles.
- Allow multiple answers - lets new members select multiple answer choices for the same question. Great for those “Choose all that apply” questions.
- Make Required - members must answer the question to proceed into your server. If a question assigns important channels, consider making it required!
Best practices:
- Use the “Preview” button at the top to test out the look and feel of your questions and answer options, and ensure they assign the correct channels and/or roles as intended.
- Avoid including too many answer options or members will feel overwhelmed.
- Don’t make answer options or descriptions too long! Keep them short and sweet where possible so new members can read and answer them easily.
- Check out our Community Onboarding examples article for specific examples of good, simple questions to ask new members.
3. Make sure most of your member channels are assignable through Onboarding
Most of your member channels should be included in either Default Channels or Questions, so that members can select them.
If channels are left out of onboarding, newer members may not ever find those channels! If there are lots of channels left out, try creating additional questions or answers that assign them.
Make sure most of your member channels are assignable through Onboarding! We'll let you know which channels haven't been assigned.
4. Review and publish
Once you’ve selected your Default Channels and set up your Customization Questions, you’ll be able to enable and preview your Onboarding setup from the point of view of a new member joining your server, assuming you meet the following criteria:
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You must have selected at least 7 Default Channels
- At least 5 of these channels must allow @everyone to View and Send Messages
5. Remove verification steps that overwhelm or lock new members from joining your server
Remember how confusing it can be for newer folks who get easily confused and overwhelmed by bot-powered verification steps that block access to certain parts of your server?
With Community Onboarding, you have an easy way to grant new members their own roles and channels from the start and show them all the cool things your community has to offer.
At this stage, consider removing bot-powered restrictions that add confusion and turn away new members trying to join your server.
“But Discord, wouldn’t that make my server more vulnerable to raiders also trying to join my server?!”
To that, we have the solution: Raid Protection
Enjoy greater peace of mind from join-raids without the downside of restricting well-intentioned folks from your server. Our Raid Protection system uses machine learning to automatically detect suspicious behavior or activity happening in your server that are indicative of a likely join-raid about to take place.
How it works: If a possible join-raid is detected, our system will take automated actions to protect your server before it happens, such as sending you an alert so you can investigate and take action, and requiring CAPTCHA for new joiners within the next hour to help keep out botted accounts trying to join your server in large numbers. This way, you can feel comfortable using Community Onboarding without worrying about complicated bot restrictions or raiders trying to join your server en masse.
You can enable alerts to receive notifications when suspicious server-join activity or behavior is detected in Server Settings > Safety Setup > Raid Protection. Learn more about how to protect your server from raids here.
Left: Set up to receive alerts when a possible join-raid has been detected in your server.
Right: What an alert looks like
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I access Community Onboarding?
You’ll find Community Onboarding in Server Settings > Onboarding.
Q: What permissions are required to access and set up Community Onboarding?
You must have “Manage Server” and “Manage Roles” or “Administrator” permissions to set up Community Onboarding.
Q: Who is Community Onboarding currently available to?
A: As of March 30, 2023, Community Onboarding is available to all community servers.
Q: What devices is Community Onboarding available on?
Users can experience Community Onboarding on any device.
However, admins can only configure and enable Community Onboarding on desktop.
Q: Are there examples of Community Onboarding questions I can check out?
Yup, check out Community Onboarding Examples.
Q: What happens to channels that I don’t assign to any Customization Questions?
Channels you don’t assign to Customization Questions will still exist in your server but won’t be assignable for new members going through your Community Onboarding experience.
Members will be able to find, access, and add these channels to their channel list by going to Channels & Roles > Browse Channels.
Q: What’s the point of unmarking “Ask before member joins” for a Customization Question?
If you create a Customization Question and choose to unmark “Ask before member joins,” it will appear in Channels & Roles > Customize but will no longer appear to new members who go through your onboarding experience.
You may choose to do this if you want to ask members that are already in your server questions that easily assign them roles and channels.
Q: Will members who leave my server and rejoin have to go through my onboarding process again?
Yes.