Community blog articles provide support and help for users and highlight the expertise of Community members. Blog articles are an effective way to help answer questions, give tips, and provide detailed guidance.

There are two types of blogs on our Community:

• Hosted blogs: these blogs are authored and published directly on our Community platform.
• Syndicated (or external) blogs: these blogs are hosted and published initially on another platform, and then syndicated to our Community.

All blogs, hosted or syndicated, must conform to the blog content guidelines in this article and our Community Code of Conduct at all times. Please review both sets of guidelines completely before submitting your request for a new blog.

Content guidelines

• Content must be written for end users, IT professionals, or developers of a product that is the focus of the Community.
• Content may be either non-technical or technical content about a product that is the focus of the Community.
• The blog is not to be used for marketing one’s business or services or promoting competing products.
• Licensing, branding, and pricing information is not allowed, and could result in your post and/or blog being disabled.
• The tone of the content must be professional, business-oriented, as opposed to issues of personal or non-business nature.
• Blog content should be presented in English and use good sentence structure with good spelling.
• The author confirms that all content published is not plagiarized or syndicated from another source. If using AI/ChatGPT to provide answers to forum questions, each answer must be checked for accuracy, and to confirm that it answers the question asked.

Request a new blog

You can request a new blog via the Community support form.

Note: please allow 5 business days for your request to be reviewed.

Gather the following information in advance to complete the form:

• Blog title: Be as specific and descriptive as possible, avoiding general titles such as "News & Highlights".
• Blog description: Give readers a brief idea of the topic and direction of articles in less than 250 characters- this text will appear on the blog page.
• Product area where you want your blog to appear: Select a product or an area of focus within the Community in which you would like your blog to belong. Viewers will still be able to find your blog in this area via filters or search.
• Sample blog articles: (For hosted blogs only) We ask that you include 3 writing samples that demonstrate your ability to write about the topic.
• Sample blog URL: (Optional for hosted blogs) Provide a URL to your current blog that contains the sample articles.
• Syndicated blog URL: (For syndicated blogs only) For syndicated blogs we need the RSS 2.0 feed URL which may (but not necessarily) look something like this: www.blog.com/topic/feed/

How to author a new hosted blog article.

Only a user designated as the blog author for the specific post can edit an existing published post.

Steps

1. When logged in, go to any blog landing page.
2. Select the Create blog post button on the right side, above the search field.
3. Author your blog post:
   1. Blogs: Select the blog you want to create a post in. You will be able to pick from a list of blogs that you are an author for.
   2. Title: Enter the title of the blog article.
   3. Synopsis: You may optionally define a short summary text to appear for a post on the blog landing page. If none is specified, the first few lines of the blog post will be shown.
   4. Blog post description: Type or paste the content of your blog article in the Blog post area.
      • Note: If you are pasting your content from another web editor or Microsoft Word, it is recommended to use the Paste as plain text option (or Paste from Word option for Microsoft Word) and style the post using the editor in the Community to avoid problems with style or display.
      • You may add images to the body of the post using the Insert image button in the editor.
   5. Published date: Select a date that you want the blog post to be published. If the date is today or earlier, the blog will be published immediately.
   6. Allow commenting on this blog post: Select this checkbox if you want to allow other Community users to post comments to your blog article. This is selected by default.
      
4. Select Next.
5. If the post will be a 'featured' post in the blog (appear in the first four posts grid), enable the 'Is feature?' option:
   
   
   
   If the post is already published and is being promoted to a featured post, the post author can edit the post, and on edit page 2, enable the 'Is feature?' option.
    
6. If the post is a 'featured' post, it will display a thumbnail image on the blog landing page; if you do not upload an image, a default image will display instead. Note that this image will only appear on the main blog landing page, and only if it is designated as a featured post; all other posts will appear under the featured posts.
   
   To upload a thumbnail image, select Upload or select image from the library: Upload a suitable thumbnail image for your blog post; see guidelines below.
   
   
   
   Image Upload Guidelines:

• Supported Formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG
• Maximum File Size: 5MB (smaller images load faster)
• Minimum Width: 250 pixels (No height restriction)
• Optimal Dimensions: 1024x565 pixels for the best fit
• Thumbnail Preview: Your blog’s thumbnail will only be shown if the blog is featured.
       To get your blog featured, please reach out to the Community Managers.
• Images not meeting the minimum width may appear stretched or pixelated.

1. Select either Save and preview or Save and submit to finish.
   • Selecting Save and preview will save the blog as a draft and it will not appear on the blog landing page. The draft is accessible with the direct link for review. You may also view your blog drafts from your My activity page.
   • Selecting Save and submit will make you blog active, and once the publish date you selected has arrived the blog post will be visible on the blog landing page.
      

How to unpublish a blog article

1. Go to the blog article (logged in as the author) and select the 'Edit' link near top-right of article

2. Select 'Next' on page 1

3. Select 'Save and preview' to remove the article from public view and put it into draft status.