Automatically Subscribe Users to A Specific Application

Thanks so much for asking this question Avery Desrosiers! From the behavior I've seen, all members of a group are only automatically subscribed to forums in the group. There are certain use cases where you wouldn't want people subscribed to a forum, but would want them subscribed to a blog or other applications. So my question to add here...is there a way to avoid having a group member from automatically being subscribed to a forum in a group? 

Hi Avery Desrosiers and Keeley Sorokti. Yes, both of these are possible.

First, it's correct that, by default, new members are auto-subscribed to forums in a group. This is a behavior that's defined by an optional plugin in Administration, called "Forum Auto Subscriber". You can disable it, like other optional plugins, in Administration > Extensions > Forum Auto Subscriber > Enabled/Save.

Second, to subscribe users to a specific application, there isn't an out-of-the-box way to do this that comes to mind. However, it would be a perfect use case for a relatively simple automation in Automation Studio - a new feature in 11. In fact, if the Forum Auto Subscriber plugin didn't already exist before 11, it would probably be implemented as an automation too. Here's an example of a similar problem solved with an automation that automatically joins members to roles. I can follow up soon with a more in-depth example soon.

Hope this helps!

Thinking... perhaps you could even use the automation from that thread to join members to a role that's already subscribed to your applications.

I had a good thread with Jillian Bejtlich on this topic not too long ago! https://community.telligent.com/community/11/f/ask-the-community/1147315/new-blog-article-notification-for-members

Michael Monteleone replied as I was typing and his answer is spot on. As I mentioned in the thread with Jillian, we can run a script on the back end to do so but an automation for this to handle ongoing is best suited for it!

Also mentioned in the thread with Jillian, do be mindful of subscribing users to content that they did not ask for. An argument could be made for both ways (opt-in/opt-out), but some are very sensitive to the fact they didn't subscribe to something and then automatically were without their consent. 

Example in that thread is also here: https://community.telligent.com/marketplace/b/listings/posts/add-or-remove-members-from-role-based-on-membership-type

Yes, that's a shameless plug for the Marketplace.