Discourse Staff Alias

[Discourse]

	Summary	Discourse Staff Alias allows set groups to create topics and posts, as well as make edits, as an alias user.
	Repository Link	https://github.com/discourse/discourse-staff-alias
	Install Guide	How to install plugins in Discourse

As this is an official plugin maintained by the Discourse team, support, bug, ux, and feature requests can be made in the respective categories here on Meta, and tagged with the appropriate plugin tag. Click on a link below to get one started.

 Support  Bug  UX  Feature

The Discourse Staff Alias plugin allows certain groups to create topics and posts, as well as make edits, as an alias user. This can be useful in situations where staff members need to respond to queries or make announcements without revealing their personal usernames.

Enabling Staff Alias

Once installed, the Staff Alias plugin can be enabled from its settings, accessed from your admin/plugins page:

This plugin is default disabled, and before enabling a new username for the alias must be added to the staff alias username admin setting:

---

Using the Alias

Once enabled, the staff alias can be toggled on using the composer’s actions drop-down, and users in the allowed groups can then choose to create topics and posts, as well as make edits, using the staff alias:

The topic/post/edit will then appear as if created by the staff alias:

---

Keeping track of who used the Alias

If you are in one of the allowed groups you will also see a note of who created the topic or post, or made the edit:

---

Settings

Name	Description
staff alias enabled	Enable discourse-staff-alias plugin
staff alias username	Username of the alias user
staff alias allowed groups	Groups that are allowed to post as staff alias user

Hosted by us? This plugin is available on our Enterprise tier.

Last edited by @qadeem_khan 2024-05-27T01:55:01Z

Check document

Perform check on document:

[sok777 (sok)]

@Discourse

You can use either an existing user account, or enter a new name for one to be created:

It seems we can’t add an existing user account. Why is that?

[JammyDodger]

There’s a chance I made a mistake when writing up the instructions.

I also can’t get an existing user to be a staff alias now I test it again, which makes sense when I think about it. I’m not sure what led me to believe it was possible. I’ll update the instructions.

[sok777 (sok)]

Thanks! It’s a shame because I think it makes it unified when all staff members can use the site name or like a ‘master’ account that already exists. For example @Discourse

[barto_95]

when i test to create subject, i received the error message

[JammyDodger]

Does your staff alias user have the right permissions to create a topic in that category? (do they have staff permissions)

[barto_95]

Yes this is the problem …

thank you

[barto_95]

Its not possible to response on message replay on user with option staff alias i receive the error same above but if i use staff aliase to respond on message subject is ok

[sp-jordan-violet (Jordan Violet)]

What are the chances this could be extended to be a dynamic “post as another user” tool?

We have a use case where we have a product communications manager who needs to create new topics as other product managers in our organization. This tool seems like most of the functionality is there, but would require the ability to set the user being posted as dynamically.

[fokx]

I meet the same error every time I reply to some post that is not OP:

An error occurred: You are not permitted to view the requested resource.

After digging into this a little bit, I find the culprit lies at:

discourse/discourse-staff-alias/blob/5e1855a2321c32a8fd4c78988954fa57f29b9cb9/lib/discourse_staff_alias/posts_controller_extension.rb#L17

The problem is:

params[:whisper] is "false", which is a String, so simply change this line to:

if !DiscourseStaffAlias.user_allowed?(existing_user) || params[:whisper] == "true"

…will solve the issue.

I made a simple PR: FIX: InvalidAccess when replying to non-original post by fokx · Pull Request #67 · discourse/discourse-staff-alias · GitHub