Configure community forums

---
title: Configure community forums
description: A forum is a place for users to share content, exchange notes, ask and answer questions, and so on. Before community users can contribute content, configure a forum with content types and permissions, and create and add topics to one or more forums.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/customer-service-management/communities/configure-forums-topics.html
release: brazil
product: Communities
classification: communities
topic_type: task
last_updated: "2026-09-10"
reading_time_minutes: 4
breadcrumb: [Configuring communities, Communities, Customer Service Management]
---

# Configure community forums

A forum is a place for users to share content, exchange notes, ask and answer questions, and so on. Before community users can contribute content, configure a forum with content types and permissions, and create and add topics to one or more forums.

## Before you begin

Role required: sn\_communities.admin or sn\_communities.forum

\_admin

**Important:**

Starting with the Brazil release, Communities is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer installed on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the [Deprecation Process \[KB0867184\]](https://support.servicenow.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0867184) article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

## About this task

A forum is the container for user-created content. A forum must be configured with content types and permissions before becoming available for users to contribute content. Forums can be organized hierarchically using the **Parent** field. Once forums are set up, they are visible on the Community homepage based on user permissions.

A topic is an area of interest that users can discuss. Topics are visible from the Community homepage and also appear within forums. They can be organized hierarchically using the **Parent** field.

-   The community admin creates topics and can associate a topic with one or many forums.
-   Forum admins can associate topics with their own forums.
-   If a user has access to a particular forum, they also have access to all its topics.

## Procedure

1.  Configure one or more of the following for community forums and topics.


-   **[Create a forum](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/create-forum.md)**  
Create a forum to provide a place for users to share content. You can configure forums for membership that registered community users request access to join. You can also configure forums to convert unstructured conversations to structured knowledge articles.
-   **[Configure content types for a forum](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/add-content-type-to-forum.md)**  
Define which types of content to use in a particular forum and associate a workflow so that content is reviewed before becoming visible to other community users.
-   **[Invite users to become members of a forum](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/invite-users-forum.md)**  
Invite users to become members of a particular forum to encourage greater community involvement.
-   **[Approve forum memberships](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/approve-forum-memberships.md)**  
Manage forum membership approvals when registered community users request membership to a forum.
-   **[Create a topic](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/create-topic.md)**  
Create a topic for users to create and share content.
-   **[Add a topic to a forum](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/add-topic-to-forum.md)**  
Add a topic to a forum so that users can associate content to that topic.
-   **[Disable topics in a community](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/disable-topics.md)**  
Disable the topics feature so that no topic information is visible in your community.
-   **[Create a sub forum](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/create-sub-forum.md)**  
Create a sub forum and map it to a parent forum to establish a forum hierarchy.
-   **[Move forum content](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/move-forum-content.md)**  
Move community content posts from one forum to another.

**Parent Topic:**[Configuring communities](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/customer-service-management/communities/configure-communities.md)

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