Tender works as a public forum and a private help desk at once: customers can browse public discussions and the knowledge base, while anything they choose (or you choose) stays between them and your team. Not every site wants the public part. Here are the ways to close things down, from the lightest to the strictest. You'll find all the settings in your dashboard under Account & Settings › Settings › Site Settings.
Private categories
The lightest touch, and the one most sites need. A private category's discussions are only seen by the customer who started them (and the people they share them with) and your staff. Use one for anything personal, like billing.
To make one, open Discussions › Manage Categories in your dashboard and edit (or create) the category; see How do I create additional categories?. Your staff can still make a single discussion public, for example to share the answer to a common problem, with Make Public in its Permissions box.
Support only replies
Keep public discussions readable by everyone, but stop customers replying to each other's: under Public Forums, tick Support only and click Save your changes. Only your staff, the customer who started a discussion and the people following it can then reply.
Turning off the public forum
Click Off beside Public Forums. Customers no longer see the list of categories or anyone else's discussions; each sees only their own. The change happens as soon as you click.
With the forum off, Allow private discussions decides whether customers can still start discussions on your site ("Start a Discussion"). Untick it to turn discussions off altogether, if you only use Tender for your knowledge base.
Private mode
Private mode closes your whole site to anyone who isn't a member: visitors who aren't logged in see only a login page. Nobody can sign up by themselves; people join when:
- you invite them (Account & Settings › Users; see How do I invite/add users to my Tender site?),
- they log in through your own site with single sign-on, which creates their account (see Share your own site's authentication with Tender), or
- their email address is at a domain you trust (see below).
To turn it on, click On beside Private Mode, then Save your changes.
With private mode on, you can also set:
- Email domain whitelist: anyone with a confirmed email address at this domain (for example
example.com) can sign up without an invitation. Handy for an internal help desk. - Public Knowledge Base: keep your knowledge base open to everyone while discussions stay members-only.
Your logo still shows on the login page. Under Account & Settings › Appearance & Text, add a note telling visitors who to ask for an invitation.
Members see the site as before, with whatever public discussions it has; combine private mode with the settings above to limit that too. Private mode depends on your plan: if you can't switch it on, see Account & Settings › Plans & Billing.
Attachments on public discussions
Some files attached to a public discussion can only be downloaded by your staff: audio, video, archives (such as .zip) and programs (such as .exe or .dmg). Everyone else sees the file's name marked "(available to support staff)". On a site in private mode, members with a confirmed email address can download them too. Images, PDFs and other documents download as usual, and on a private discussion everyone who can see the discussion can download all of its files.
For who can open a private discussion, see Discussion privacy and tokens.