In the Basics section I will cover everything regarding a basic server setup in a chronological order. After you enabled Community, implemented some special channels, and did a final check of your server, it is time to dive into Onboarding. This section will cover every step of the way to enable and configure Onboarding to get the most out of the feature.

How Onboarding benefits you

The onboarding module offers new members a smaller range of channels in the server by default, focusing on channels that are active or important for everyone. Upon joining, they are also prompted with some questions related to specific channels and roles to expand their view and interests. This pushes users incrementally to a broader view of the server to access features and roles they want, rather than presenting everything at once and overwhelming them.

After getting acquainted with the basic structure of the server, users can answer additional questions in the Channels & Roles page at the top of the server view. These questions allow members to get acquainted with more complex or niche channels and features of the server. At the top you will also find a Server Guide page with a word of welcome, new member to-do’s and helpful Resource pages.

Enabling Onboarding

To enable Onboarding, find it in your server settings under “Community”. Discord will guide you through every step of the way, and below you will find more details about each screen. Onboarding consists of five steps:

• Safety Check
• Default Channels
• Customisation Questions
• Server Guide
• Review

Safety Check

The first step will allow you to toggle all the safety measures you’d like to deploy for your members. Note that some settings are already active when you enabled Community in the guide ⁠Community & Finals Steps, or if you’ve tinkered with the Safety Setup settings before under "Moderation". There are quite a few features that will help you protect your server and your members, and they are relatively easy to enable.

• Raid protection will help if your server is joined by a lot of accounts in a short amount of time. The additional activity alerts will help you monitor unusual DM activity to help protect your members.

• DM and spam protection contains the verification level required, a rules screen to have users accept, and a bunch of settings to filter and hide DMs and messages from suspicious accounts. Warning members of visiting outbound links is a good approach too, as users can always decide to trust domains in the future on their end.
• Automod has only been possible with bots until recently. This feature allows you to delete messages before they are sent, meaning no more unread messages icon anymore after cleaning up spam or abusive content. You can also set a channel like #bot-logs to send alerts to, or automatically have the member be timed out. I recommend enabling everything except custom words, as that will be configured based on how your community grows.
• Permissions will already be activated if Community has been enabled. These settings require users with moderator roles to have 2FA set up and removes any risky permissions from @everyone.

Default Channels

The next step is to set up default channels, providing the user with channels that are considered important for everyone to participate in or read. There must be at least 5 chattable channels enabled and at least 7 channels in total.

You can switch to advanced mode to combine this view with the pre-join questions from the next step if your server requires acquiring a role before having full access. Do note that you don’t necessarily have to finish setting these up before exploring the rest of Onboarding. Move on the next step when you have ideas for which channels and roles you want to assign through questions.

💡Tip

Creating a new channel in the server will show it with a ‘New’ tag for all members, so you don’t have to worry about micro-managing your default channels. Users will always have the freedom to mute or hide channels they are not interested in.

Customisable Questions

The questions and answers that you set up will relate to specific channels and role that already exist. Make sure to have finalised your role structure and channel layout before you start. Linking all these questions to channels and roles can be a lot of work if you have a lot of self-assignable roles, but it’s definitely worth it as it will gently push users to a wider view of the server to access features they want, instead of presenting everything at once and overwhelming them.

The pre-join questions are prompted upon joining the server to pick additional channels and roles. Based on their choices the channel list will be customised to provide a broader channel overview after the default channels. This is the right moment to ask users what topics they are interested in, what platforms they own and what notifications they like to receive. These questions will also be listed in a separate Channels & Roles page listed at the top of the server, so existing members don’t miss out on the initial customisation.

The post-join questions are available in the Channels & Roles page as well. This is used to assign roles that members are more inclined to pick after they’ve settled, easing users into the more complex and/or niche channels of the server.These can be related to pronouns, events, in-depth topics or other specialisations.

Server Guide

The Server Guide is the final piece of the Onboarding feature and serves as the main place where new members land. This will take place at the top of your channel list as well, as it is the place where all the practical information related to the server will be found. 

You start with a welcome sign to welcome your new and existing community members to the server. Exclusively to new members, there’s a to-do list of activities you can set up in order to get them activated in your server. As the minimum is 3 actions, I recommend you have new members read your welcome page, introduce themselves and read the latest announcements or official information. Reading the rules is already a mandatory step of the process, so keep in mind that you need to set up at least 3 activities other than the pre-filled one.

Resource pages are special pages that remove all formatting about the author and timestamps to make it easier to read them. It also lets users start reading at the top of the channel automatically, which is quite helpful. To start, you can assign your rules & welcome channel and official information channel into separate resource pages. Additionally, if you have any guides, instructions or other resources to list, this would be a great place to provide a general overview. You can even set custom thumbnails to help with visibility and organisation.

Review

Finally, you can review your current Onboarding progress and settings in the review tab. By hitting ‘Preview’ you can experience the pre-join questions and rules screen that new members will be able to view, as well as answer the post-join questions. The to-do list of actions and welcome sign can also be previewed, as well as any resource pages you have already set up.

If there’s anything missing to fully enable Onboarding, this screen will also give you a warning related to what elements are not complete yet or might need to be checked up on. When you’re satisfied, hit the ‘Enable Onboarding’ button to deploy this feature. Be sure to announce to your community that Onboarding is enabled and they can now customise their experience with Channels & Roles. If you have a lot of resource pages, it might be useful to point that out, too.

Next up: Content & Communication guides

You have completed the setup of your server! Head to Content & Communication to learn about crafting clear, engaging, and accessible communication across your server.