---
title: "Discussions | Console | Ilmiya Documentation"
description: "Everything about class discussion channels in Console — browsing, creating, access control, posting, reactions, and notifications."
url: "https://ilmiya.com/docs/console/inbox/discussions/"
language: "en"
---
# Discussions
The **Discussions** tab is where you browse, create, and manage your class’s discussion channels — group spaces for announcements, topic-specific Q&A, assignment help, and general class conversation. It’s the default tab when you open the [Inbox](https://ilmiya.com/docs/console/inbox/). Students see and participate in the same channels from their Campus Inbox.
Only staff (Console, Admin, People, Studio, and Analytics apps) can create channels — students have no create-channel option in their app.
## Accessing Discussions
1. Open the [Inbox](https://ilmiya.com/docs/console/inbox/) — it opens on Discussions by default.
2. If you’re on another tab, click **Discussions** in the tab bar to come back to it.
## What the Discussions List Shows
Each channel is listed with:
| Column | Description |
| --- | --- |
| **Name** | The channel’s icon/emoji and name — click to open it |
| **Message** | The creator’s avatar and display name |
| **Date** | When the channel was created |
| **Actions** | Edit or delete the channel |
> **Note**
>
> The **Message** column is a mislabel — it actually shows who created the channel, not a message. Visibility and message-count aren’t shown as columns here, even though that data exists.
## Searching and Sorting
- Use the **search bar** to find a channel by name
- **Sort** by Name, Message (creator), or Date
## Creating a New Channel
1. Click the **+** (Create new) button in the Inbox header.
2. Select **Discussion**.
Fill in the channel details:
| Field | Description |
| --- | --- |
| **Name** | A clear, descriptive name (e.g. “Science Q&A”, “Week 3 Assignment Help”) |
| **Icon** | Optional — upload an image to represent the channel |
| **Status** | Public (whole organization) or Private (only students you assign) |
3. Click **Create** — the channel is created immediately and added to the Discussions list.
Students will see it in their Campus Inbox automatically if it’s public, or once assigned if it’s private.
> **Note**
>
> Channels you create here are the same channels students see in their Campus Inbox under the Discussions tab. Everything is shared in real time.
## Opening a Channel
Click on any channel’s name to open its detail view. There are three icons in the channel header:
| Icon | Opens |
| --- | --- |
| **Pencil** | Rename the channel inline |
| **Chat bubble** | The Chat view — posts, comments, and replies |
| **Person** | The Access view — who can see and participate |
> **Note**
>
> A channel opens on the **Access** view by default, not Chat.
## Channel Visibility
| Setting | Who can see and participate |
| --- | --- |
| **Public** | Every student in your organization, automatically |
| **Private** | Only students you’ve explicitly assigned via the Access view, plus the creator |
## Managing Access
The Access view (person icon) is a searchable list of your organization’s students, each with a checkbox and a message count showing how active they’ve been in that channel.
| Visibility | How Access behaves |
| --- | --- |
| **Public** | Every student already has access — the checkboxes here are disabled since membership is automatic |
| **Private** | Only students whose checkbox is checked (plus the channel’s creator) can see or participate |
Use the **Assign** / **Unassign** buttons to add or remove students in bulk on a private channel. Unassigning a student removes their future access immediately, but doesn’t delete anything they already posted — their past posts and comments remain visible to everyone who still has access.
## Renaming a Channel
1. Open the channel.
2. Click the **pencil icon** in the channel header.
3. Edit the name inline and confirm.
> **Note**
>
> The pencil icon renames inline. To change the icon or switch visibility (Public/Private), use **Actions → Edit** on the Discussions list.
## Deleting a Channel
1. From the Discussions list, find the channel’s row.
2. Open the **Actions** menu and select **Delete**.
3. Confirm the deletion.
> **Caution**
>
> Deleting a channel permanently removes it and all its posts, comments, and replies. This cannot be undone, and there’s no way to archive a channel instead — deletion is the only option.
## Posting, Commenting & Replying
Open the **Chat** view (chat-bubble icon) to see the conversation. Discussions have exactly one level of nesting: **Post → Comment → Reply**.
1. **Post** — a top-level entry: a question, announcement, or topic to open up for discussion.
2. **Comment** — a response to a post.
3. **Reply** — a response to a specific comment.
To add any of these: type your message (or click the **mic icon** to dictate — it transcribes your speech directly into the text box), optionally attach a single image via the **paperclip icon** (text is optional if you’ve attached an image), then send. There’s no character limit. A new post notifies every member of the channel except you.
> **Note**
>
> You can’t reply to a reply — the system blocks it at two levels of nesting. If you need to continue the thread, add another comment on the original post.
## Reactions
Click the **reaction icon**, or an existing reaction pill, to react to a post, comment, or reply with one of 8 emoji: 👍 👎 😄 🎯 😐 ❤️ 🔥 👀. Click **+** to open the full picker.
- You can have **one active reaction at a time** — picking a different emoji swaps your previous one rather than stacking; clicking your current reaction again removes it.
- The number on each emoji pill is how many people reacted with it.
> **Note**
>
> Students see a different emoji set in their Campus app: 👍 👎 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 🔥 ✨.
## Marking an Answer
Only the **channel’s creator** can mark a comment or reply as the accepted answer:
1. Find the comment or reply that answers the question.
2. Open its **•••** menu and click **Mark as answer** (**Unmark as answer** to undo).
The post gets an “Answered” badge, and any previous answer on that post is automatically unmarked.
This option isn’t available to students at all.
> **Tip**
>
> Use **Mark as Answer** actively — it turns your channel into a searchable knowledge base for the class. Students can scan through questions and see which ones have been resolved at a glance.
## Editing and Deleting
| Content | Who can edit | Who can delete |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Post** | Its author only | Its author, or the channel’s creator |
| **Comment or reply** | Its author, or the channel’s creator | Its author, or the channel’s creator |
Use the **”…” menu** on the post, comment, or reply to edit or delete it. Students can only edit or delete their own comments and replies — they don’t have a channel creator’s moderation ability over other students’ content.
> **Note**
>
> There’s no pinning and no report/flag option anywhere in Discussions.
## Visible to Staff Only
Separate from Public/Private membership, every channel has a **“Visible to staff only”** toggle that controls how much of the _conversation_ other students can see from each other — not whether they can see the channel at all.
| | |
| --- | --- |
| **Who can toggle it** | Any staff member who can open the channel — it isn’t limited to the creator, and students never see this control |
| **When OFF (default)** | Normal open discussion — every comment and reply is visible to everyone in the channel |
| **When ON** | Top-level posts are unaffected — everyone still sees every post. But comments and replies become filtered per student: the channel’s creator always sees every comment and reply from everyone, while each student only sees comments/replies that are their own or the creator’s |
In effect, turning this on splits the comment section under each post into private, parallel staff↔student threads — one student can’t see another student’s comments or replies, but everyone can still see the creator’s.
## Notifications
Discussions trigger real-time notifications for:
- Being added to a channel
- A new post (sent to every member except the poster)
- Someone commenting on your post
- Someone replying to your comment
- Your comment being marked as the answer
There’s no per-channel notification mute or settings option, for staff or students.
## Staff View vs. Student View
Students use a separate, simpler view of channels — it’s not just a restricted version of the Console experience:
- No “Visible to staff only” toggle, no Access view, no rename option
- A different reaction emoji set than staff see
- No way to create a channel
- Can only edit or delete their own comments — not others’, the way a channel creator can
## Not Supported
- Pinned posts
- Read receipts
- Search or filter of posts/comments within a channel (search only works at the channel-list level)
- Archiving — deleting a channel is permanent
[Previous
Navigating Console](https://ilmiya.com/docs/console/getting-started/navigating-console/) [Next
Messages](https://ilmiya.com/docs/console/inbox/messages/)
---
[View this page on Ilmiya](https://ilmiya.com/docs/console/inbox/discussions/) · [All pages in Markdown](https://ilmiya.com/markdown-index.md)