Tags | messages |

ADMIN PRIVILEGES REQUIRED

This documentation is for Stack Overflow for Teams Enterprise. Free, Basic, and Business users can access their documentation here. Find your plan.

The Custom Messages and System Messages features allow site administrators to create, customize, and manage various messaging elements across their Stack Overflow for Teams Enterprise (SOE) site. This makes it easy to reach your users in your way, with everything from system alerts to onboarding messages.

To access Custom Messages and System Messages, click Admin settings in the left-hand menu, then Custom messages.

The first area of the Custom Messages page allows you to control a special subset of your site's custom messages: system messages. System messages appear at the very top of the site, and are usually used for site downtime, password resets, and other events that affect all users.

By default, system messages are visible to all users whether logged in or not. To display the system message to logged-in users only, click the Hide the system message when logged out checkbox. Enabling this option ensures that system messages remain visible only to logged-in users. This is helpful for messages intended only for your active user base.

To control your site's system messages, click System messages under the checkbox. This will take you to an admin page on your site not accessible by any menu (https://[your_site]/admin/messages/system). Here you can edit and update system messages.

You can create a new system message and set how long you want your site to display it. You can also view and reuse any past message by clicking its Re-use link.

NOTE: Read the help box in the upper-right corner of the page for important details about the duration and formatting of system messages.

The Custom Messages page allows you to craft your own messages in five areas: site banners, onboarding, profile, participating, and tour. To access each of these areas, click the corresponding button in the upper-right corner of the page.

NOTE: Many custom messages have a Show me link. Click this to see a thumbnail that shows where the message will appear on your site.

Click Site banners to control the content of various banners across your site, ensuring users receive important updates and alerts. You can add messages to the following areas of your site:

Content above community bulletin
This message appears at the top of the right-hand column on the user's home page.

Footer notice
Use this message to add text, links, and other content to the footer at the bottom of every page.

Read-only notice
​ Not used.

Click Onboarding to create messages to help new users with the onboarding process. These messages include:

New user confirm
Use this message to communicate with new users before they finalize the account confirmation process.

How to tag
Use this message to customize the first bullet prompt in the How to Tag sidebar. Users see this sidebar when adding tags to a new question.

Click Profile to control several aspects of user profiles on your site.

"About me" placeholder
This message appears in the About me text box when new users fill out their profile. Use this message to help them create an effective profile (for example: remind them to include specific items, keep it brief, proofread before they save, etc.).

Show the user’s email address on their Main Site profile
Enable this checkbox to show users' email addresses on their main site profile.

Show the user’s ID on their Main Site profile
​ Not used.

Click Participating to customize messages that help your users add well-written, well-formatted questions and answers.

Advice for asking a good question
This message appears at the top of the "How to Ask" page shown to new users.

Placeholder text of new question title
Customize this message to pre-populate the question Title with text that will help users write effective question titles.

How to format markdown
This message allows you to add useful tips to the top of the How to Format help box. This box appears when users are writing the Body of their question.

Help text in sidebar
Use this message to add site-specific guidance for your users to craft better questions. The How to Ask sidebar sits on the new question page and has lots of room, so you can be generous with advice for your users.

Click Tour to customize aspects of your site's Tour page. This page appears to new users, and is also available by clicking the (?) button at the top of your site.

You can choose which example question to show on the tour page. As described in the right-hand column, the question featured on the tour page must meet specific criteria. Click Browse all eligible questions to locate an eligible question for the tour page.

When you find a suitable question, click Choose to see a preview of how the question will look on the tour page. To confirm, click Use this question for the tour page.

ID of example question
Once you browse and locate a suitable question for your tour page, the question ID will appear in this box. You can also enter a question ID directly if you know it's eligible for display on the tour page..

Max # of characters in the question and answer
Enter a character count limit to define the maximum size of the featured question and answer.

Allow block elements in the question/answer body
Check this box to disallow questions or answers with block elements (for example: lists, images, code blocks). Allowing these elements in the feature question or answer can affect the page layout.

If in the future the chosen example question no longer meets the requirements and any additional rules (such as character limit or block element), it will no longer show on the tour page. The tour page will revert to showing the default unicorns example question.