Discourse Policy

Plugin
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:discourse2: Summary Discourse Policy gives the ability to confirm your users have seen or done something, with optional reminders.
:hammer_and_wrench: Repository Link https://github.com/discourse/discourse-policy
:open_book: Install Guide How to install plugins in Discourse

Features

Discourse policy shares much of its DNA with polls, it has the goal of ensuring members of a group accept certain policies by clicking a button.

It has some specific features that set it apart from polls:

  1. It must apply to a group.

  2. It can optionally nag members of a group either weekly or daily to click accept on a policy.

  3. The UX makes it very easy to see who accepted and who did not accept a policy.

Configuration

Screenshots

Before clicking accept

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image1063×190 9.52 KB

After clicking “grey” person on top right

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image1064×193 11.4 KB

After clicking accept

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image1084×201 11.5 KB

Creating a policy

Discourse policy registers a custom [policy] BBCode element. Which means you need to write this block of code in your post where you want to show this policy.

[policy group=founders reminder=daily]
I accept this policy will annoy me daily until I click accept
[/policy]

In this case the policy applies to the founders group and a reminder is sent daily to all users that did not accept the policy.

Site settings

policy_enabled : Enable the discourse policy plugin on the site.

policy_restrict_to_staff_posts: Policies may only appear on staff posts.

policy easy revoke: Show the accept and revoke buttons at the same time.

BBCode attributes

The [policy] element can accept the following attributes.

  • group: the group name that policy will apply to required
  • version: the version number of the policy, bump number up to require all users re-accept the policy
  • reminder: remind users of the group to accept policy (weekly or daily), optional, default off
  • accept: text used for accept button, default is “Accept Policy”
  • revoke: text used for revoke button, default is “Revoke Policy”
  • renew: number of days or text describing period (monthly, quarterly or yearly) after which a user needs to re-accept policy
  • renew-start: the first date renewals will start at Eg: 17-10-2017, useful if you want to set the renewal cadence so it happens every half-year (Jan,June)
  • add-users-to-group: accepts a single group as input; users who accept the policy will be automatically added into this group (when policy is manually revoked or if the policy version is updated, user(s) gets removed from group)
  • private: hide users who accepted/did not accept the policy

:information_source: The backend job to check for policy reminders runs every 6 hours. If the reminder element is set to weekly or daily, users who have not accepted a policy will be sent notification reminders to accept the policy only if they have not already received a reminder notification for the policy within the past week or day.

Usage examples

Basic policy:

[policy group="team" reminder="daily" accept="Accept" revoke="Ignore" version="1"]
I have read, understand and acknowledge this policy.
[/policy]

Bumping the revision number, to require that everyone reads the update:

[policy group="team" reminder="daily" accept="Accept" revoke="Ignore" version="2"]
I have read, understand and acknowledge this policy. (Last updated [date=2020-04-23 timezone="America/Los_Angeles"])
[/policy]

Periodic auditing task:

[policy group="audit_committee" reminder="weekly" renew="90" renew-start="01-07-2019" version="1" accept="Assignment Complete"] 
I have ensured that someone is assigned to this quarterly audit task.
[/policy]

CHANGELOG

TODO

  • Optional immediate reminder for new policies
  • Possibly allow certain groups to apply policies (expanding on staff)

Last edited by @benji 2025-05-20T21:08:02Z

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