# Discourse as a private email support portal

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-as-a-private-email-support-portal/34444
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** rfc, spec
**Created:** [13 באוקטובר,‏ 2015,‏ 7:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-as-a-private-email-support-portal/34444 "2015-10-13T07:28:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 16

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### Author: ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [25 באוקטובר,‏ 2015,‏ 9:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-as-a-private-email-support-portal/34444/16 "2015-10-25T09:27:41Z")

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> [@Knagis](#):
>
> This sounds exactly what we needed and ended up writing a scheduled task that uses API and modifying the source code of Discourse (custom guardian rules that allow topic creator to view/reply his topics in certain categories even when those categories are private).

Interesting. Sounds like you came up with a way to make the [create/see permissions](https://meta.discourse.org/t/create-see-and-create-permissions-again/33150) work. I don’t suppose you could open source these tweaks for others to look at?

> [@Knagis](#):
>
> One thing that I don’t see mentioned above and what we are using is to promote a private conversation to a public one by moving it in a public category. This was the main reason why we switched from Freshdesk to Discourse - **we end up publishing most of our incoming support tickets.**

I wish more companies would make fuller use of their Q&A community like that! Certainly hope this makes it into the spec. It is [already possible to an extent](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cant-move-to-new-topic-from-pm/32272).

How did you communicate this to users though? Obviously you’ll omit sensitive info and such, but beyond that: Do you ask users for permission / give them a heads up that their post will be made public, or do you just go ahead with it?

> [@sam](#):
>
> “staged accounts” will not be mentionable, that is pointless anyway as they have no user profile so impact will be minimal.

Would I be able to invite a staged account (i.e. an email-user without a username) to a PM by typing in their e-mail?

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-as-a-private-email-support-portal/34444)._