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Thread tagged as: Question

Blog up and running - a couple of work flow questions...

Hi,

My perch blog https://www.colconquerors.com/blog has gone live today and having received a few surprise comments on day 1 (wasn't expecting any for some time yet!) a couple of things have sprung to mind, and I've never blogged before hence why I missed something I guess!?

Here goes.

1) When people comment on my post I get an email to say there's a new comment which I then go and authorize in the back end of Perch but to reply to this I either have to do it via the web site form that the visitors use or reply to the email I get meaning that the blog isn't updated with the reply. What's the best way of doing this?

2) When I reply to a comment via the form I now have to then log in to Perch and mark the comment as live and I'm sure when I was testing this that so long as I was signed in to Perch the update just got posted?

Help appreciated and if there's something easy I can do to make the work flow better I'll glady take it on board.

Many thanks

Rob

Rob Hawkins

Rob Hawkins 0 points

  • 7 years ago
Rachel Andrew

Rachel Andrew 394 points
Perch Support

When people comment on my post I get an email to say there's a new comment which I then go and authorize in the back end of Perch but to reply to this I either have to do it via the web site form that the visitors use or reply to the email I get meaning that the blog isn't updated with the reply. What's the best way of doing this?

You can't just reply to the email, that would require that you had something running on your server that could parse an incoming email and post it as a reply.

You need to post a reply on your blog.

When I reply to a comment via the form I now have to then log in to Perch and mark the comment as live and I'm sure when I was testing this that so long as I was signed in to Perch the update just got posted?

If you are signed in it will be posted straight away. You have just said you have to "Log in and mark the comment as live". If you have to log in then you were not signed in.

Hi Rachel,

Thanks for getting back to me quickly.

I was signed into Perch and had the blog open in another Firefox tab and the reply to my comment had to be authorized in the Perch, it didn't just go live. Why could this be?

As an aside when I reply to a comment via the blog will people receive an update so they know there's a reply, I guess not? And then I'm thinking this then means I have to reply to the email as well....

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Rob

Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan 2638 points
Perch Support

If you have multiple tabs open, that will look like a session fixation attack and Perch will log you out.

That will be it then - I logged back into Perch and tried again to comment and it all worked this time...

As an aside how do people that have commented become aware that I have responded to their post?

Cheers

Rob

Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan 2638 points
Perch Support

I think they feel their ears burning.

The software doesn't currently have any mechanism to inform them of that.

;-)

Ouch - But does that not mean that they will be unaware of any activity related to their post?

I'm not an expert blogger so didn't think to check this when setting off but would have thought this is pretty standard stuff for a blog? Perhaps I'm wrong and others also do not offer this functionality?

Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan 2638 points
Perch Support

It's not something I've heard of, seen as a user, or had requested before. I can see the logic in it.

Seems like an opportunity to move ahead of the competition then?

This would be a great feature and would ensure people that comment remain engaged in conversations and would in businesses prevent people sitting around waiting for a reply that has been made but they never see. This could lead to real problems if the comments are made expect a response and it's then presumed the owener of the blog/business can't or hasn't been bothered to reply. Yes it could be done by email but that's extra work load and a risk of it getting missed but sometimes a reply needs to be seen to be public for various reasons.

What do you think, can you include in a future release? I think it would be a welcome addition to the Perch community.

Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan 2638 points
Perch Support

I'll make a note of it in case anyone else asks for it in the future. Considering the amount of work involved (e.g. we have to create the concept of a reply before we can notify of a reply) and that only one person has asked for it, the chances of me being able to make a good argument to spend time on the feature are fairly slim.

Ok fingers crossed - thanks for the help today....