--- title: "Answer your Discord help forum and hand posts to your team" description: "Have your bot answer every new post in a Discord help forum, and email your team the posts it can't solve, with the conversation and a link to the post." canonical_url: "https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/discord-help-forum" last_updated: "2026-11-12" --- # Answer your Discord help forum and hand posts to your team **Available on:** Standard, Pro, Enterprise plans. Your bot can answer every new post in a Discord forum channel, such as #help, and then ask the member whether that solved it. When they ask for a person, the bot hands the post to your team: it emails you the conversation with a link to the post, tags the post, mentions your support role and stops answering there. Your team replies to the member in Discord. > **Standard, Pro and Enterprise** > > The help forum works with the **Gateway** transport of the [Discord channel](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/discord), which is included on the Standard, Pro and Enterprise plans. Answers use your team's [message tokens](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/message-tokens), like any other reply. Turning posts into Inbox tickets instead of emails comes with **Tickets**, which is in early access: see [With Tickets](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/discord-help-forum#with-tickets). > > **Who can do this:** [team owners and admins](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/teams#what-each-role-can-do). ## Before you start - Your bot is connected to your server with the **Gateway** transport, and the **Interactions Endpoint URL** from the channel settings is saved in the Discord developer portal. The buttons don't work without it. The **Help forum** settings check this for you. See [Add your bot to a Discord server](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/discord). - The bot's role can use **Manage Threads**, so it can tag and close posts. Bots added before the help forum was available don't have it: click **Add to Discord** in the channel settings again to give it to them. - A forum channel just for questions. The bot answers every new post in it, so don't use a forum that also holds feature requests or announcements. You can create one from Chat Thing in the steps below. - Optional: a role for your support team. To mention it, make the role mentionable in **Server Settings** > **Roles**, or give the bot the **Mention @everyone, @here, and All Roles** permission. ## Steps 1. Open your bot, go to the **Channels** tab and open the **Discord** settings. 2. Under **Help forum**, turn on **Answer new posts in a help forum**. 3. If you see **The buttons won't work yet**, click **Set it for me**. Chat Thing sets your Discord app's **Interactions Endpoint URL**. If your app already sends interactions somewhere else, change it in the Discord developer portal instead. 4. Choose the forum under **Help forum**, or click **Create a help forum** to make a new one. Chat Thing creates it with **Solved** and **Needs a human** tags and guidelines that tell members how it works. Choose a **Category** to put it in, or leave **No category**. 5. If the forum you chose doesn't have the tags, you see **This forum has no Solved and Needs a human tags**. Click **Add the tags**. Your forum's other tags stay as they are. 6. Optionally choose a **Support role** to mention when a member asks for a person. 7. Click **Save**. The hand-off email goes to the **Notification Email** of the bot's [Talk to a human](https://chatthing.ai/docs/power-ups/talk-to-a-human) power-up, if it has one with an address set. Otherwise it goes to the team owner's account email. To send hand-offs to a shared address, such as your support inbox, add the Talk to a human power-up to the bot and set its **Notification Email**. Creating a forum and adding tags need the **Manage Channels** permission, which the bot doesn't ask for when you add it to your server. The first time, Chat Thing says **The bot needs the Manage Channels permission**. Click **Give the bot permission**, authorise it in Discord, then try again. Nothing else about the bot changes. ### Tags the bot recognises The bot looks for these tag names, ignoring capital letters. The whole name has to match, so **Solved ✅** doesn't count; put an emoji in the tag's emoji setting instead. | When | Tag names | | --- | --- | | A member clicks **Yes, solved** | **Solved**, **Resolved** or **Answered** | | A member clicks **Talk to a person** | **Needs a human**, **Needs a person** or **Escalated** | Tags Chat Thing adds are moderated, so members can't add them to posts themselves. Discord allows 20 tags in a forum. ## What happens to a post 1. A member opens a post. The bot answers it from your knowledge, then asks "Did that answer your question?" with **Yes, solved** and **Talk to a person** buttons. It keeps answering follow-ups in the post. 2. **Yes, solved**: the bot thanks them, tags the post **Solved** and closes it. 3. **Talk to a person**: the bot replies that it has passed the post to your team, tags it **Needs a human** and mentions your support role. Your team gets an email with the post's title, the member's Discord name, the conversation so far and an **Open the post in Discord** button. 4. The bot stops answering in that post, so it doesn't reply to the member or to the people from your team helping them. Reply to the member in the post yourself. 5. When it's sorted, open the conversation in **Conversations** and choose **Mark as resolved**. The bot then answers in the post again. The email links straight to the conversation. Only the person who opened a post can use its buttons. Pressing **Talk to a person** again before the conversation is resolved sends no second email; the bot says the post is already with your team. ### With Tickets When your team has **Tickets** (in early access), a post handed to a person becomes a ticket in your Inbox instead of an email. You don't need to connect a mailbox: when setting up Tickets, choose **Use Discord only**. 1. The ticket has the conversation so far and a **From Discord** badge. Its customer shows as **Discord member** with their Discord name. 2. Everything the member writes in the post after that is added to the ticket, and moves it back to your queue like an email reply would. 3. Your team replies from the Inbox. The reply is posted in the post as the bot, starting with the first name of the team member who sent it (for example **Sam from the team:**), so the member knows a person answered. Images can't be sent to Discord yet. If a ticket can't be opened, the post is emailed to your team instead. ## Check it works 1. From an account that isn't the bot, open a post in the forum with a question your bot can answer. 2. The bot should answer within a few seconds and show the two buttons. 3. Click **Talk to a person**. The post should be tagged **Needs a human**, and the hand-off email should arrive with the conversation and a link to the post. 4. Write another message in the post. The bot shouldn't answer it. With Tickets, a ticket with a **From Discord** badge appears in your Inbox instead of the email. Reply to it from the Inbox, and the reply should appear in the Discord post. ## Troubleshooting ### The bot doesn't answer new posts - Check **Answer new posts in a help forum** is on, the right forum is chosen, and you clicked **Save**. - The bot needs to see the forum and send messages in posts. - The Discord channel must use the **Gateway** transport, with **Message Content Intent** turned on in the Discord developer portal. ### Discord says "The application didn't respond in time" when a button is clicked Your Discord app's **Interactions Endpoint URL** isn't set to Chat Thing, so Discord has nowhere to send the click. Open the **Help forum** settings and click **Set it for me**, or copy the URL from the channel settings into **General Information** in the developer portal. ### Nothing happens when a button is clicked Only the person who opened a post can use its buttons. Clicks from anyone else are ignored. ### The hand-off email doesn't arrive Check the **Notification Email** of the bot's Talk to a human power-up, then your spam folder. If the bot has no Talk to a human power-up, or its **Notification Email** is blank, the email goes to the team owner's account email. ### The bot stopped answering in a post Someone asked for a person in that post. Open the conversation in **Conversations** and choose **Mark as resolved**, and the bot answers there again. ### No ticket appears in the Inbox Turning posts into tickets needs **Tickets** set up. Open **Tickets** and finish setup; at the mailbox step you can choose **Use Discord only** instead of connecting email. Without it, the post is emailed to your team instead. ### The post isn't tagged The forum needs one of the [tags the bot recognises](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/discord-help-forum#tags-the-bot-recognises): open the **Help forum** settings and click **Add the tags**. The bot's role also needs **Manage Threads**. ### Chat Thing says the bot needs the Manage Channels permission Click **Give the bot permission**, click **Authorize** in Discord, then click **Create forum** or **Add the tags** again. You can also give the bot's role **Manage Channels** in **Server Settings** > **Roles**. ### Adding the tags says Discord allows 20 tags The forum already has the most tags Discord allows. Delete one you don't use in the forum's settings in Discord, then click **Add the tags** again. ## Related - [Add your bot to a Discord server](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/discord): Connect your bot to Discord so it answers slash commands, @mentions, direct messages and help forum posts in your server, and moderates it by your rules. - [Moderate and automate your Discord server](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/discord-moderation): Check every message in your Discord server against your rules, remove spam and self-promotion, and react or reply when things happen, like members joining. - [Answer questions in your Slack or Discord community](https://chatthing.ai/docs/use-cases/community-bots): Set up a bot that answers member questions in your Discord server or Slack community from your docs, and summarises what's been discussed.