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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"> <meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow"> <title>Answers/OfferingHelp - Launchpad Help</title> <script type="text/javascript" src="/moin_static198/common/js/common.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript">  </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="all" href="/moin_static198/lp20/css/common.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="screen" href="/moin_static198/lp20/css/screen.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="print" href="/moin_static198/lp20/css/print.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="projection" href="/moin_static198/lp20/css/projection.css">   <link rel="alternate" title="Launchpad Help: Answers/OfferingHelp" href="/Answers/OfferingHelp?diffs=1&show_att=1&action=rss_rc&unique=0&page=Answers%2FOfferingHelp&ddiffs=1" type="application/rss+xml"> <script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-12833497-4']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 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float:right; font-size: 0.9em; width:40%; background:#F1F1ED; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; &quot;"><tbody><tr> <td style="&quot; padding:0.5em; &quot;"><p class="line891"><div class="table-of-contents"><p class="table-of-contents-heading">Contents<ol><li> <a href="#Overview">Overview</a></li><li> <a href="#Answer_contacts">Answer contacts</a><ol><li> <a href="#Responding_to_new_questions">Responding to new questions</a></li><li> <a href="#Handling_frequently_asked_questions">Handling frequently asked questions</a></li><li> <a href="#Answering_a_question_with_an_existing_FAQ">Answering a question with an existing FAQ</a></li><li> <a href="#Creating_a_new_FAQ">Creating a new FAQ</a></li></ol></li><li> <a href="#Filtering_email">Filtering email</a><ol><li> <a href="#Rationale">Rationale</a></li><li> <a href="#X-Launchpad-Question">X-Launchpad-Question</a></li></ol></li><li> <a href="#Next_step">Next step</a></li></ol></div></td> </tr> </tbody></table></div><span class="anchor" id="line-5"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-6"></span><p class="line867"> <h1 id="Overview">Overview</h1> <span class="anchor" id="line-7"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-8"></span><p class="line874">You can help other members of the free software community quickly and with little effort by answering support questions in Launchpad Answers. <span class="anchor" id="line-9"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-10"></span><p class="line862">Anyone can answer any question in Launchpad. However, if you're keen to help out on an on-going basis, you can make sure you stay up to date with new questions by becoming an <tt class="backtick"></tt>answer contact<tt class="backtick"></tt>. <span class="anchor" id="line-11"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-12"></span><p class="line867"> <h1 id="Answer_contacts">Answer contacts</h1> <span class="anchor" id="line-13"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-14"></span><p class="line874">As an answer contact, you have two main jobs: <span class="anchor" id="line-15"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-16"></span><ul><li>reviewing new questions <span class="anchor" id="line-17"></span></li><li>creating stock answers to frequently asked questions. <span class="anchor" id="line-18"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-19"></span></li></ul><p class="line862">You or anyone else can volunteer to become an answer contact for a project. All you have to do is click the <tt class="backtick"></tt><tt class="backtick">Set answer contact</tt><tt class="backtick"></tt> link on a project or distro's Answers overview page. If you're the admin of a team, you can also set that team to be an answer contact. <span class="anchor" id="line-20"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-21"></span><p class="line867"><img alt="/!\" height="15" src="/moin_static198/lp20/img/alert.png" title="/!\" width="15" /> <strong>Important:</strong> when you become an answer contact, you're asking Launchpad to send you an email each time someone asks a question about that project or distro. If you make one of your teams an answer contact, you're subscribing each member to also receive that email. You should gain each member's permission before you make the team an answer contact. <span class="anchor" id="line-22"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-23"></span><p class="line874">Volunteering to be an answer contact is the easy bit. While Launchpad provides the mechanism to offer help to people, each project can choose for themselves how they deal with user support queries. <span class="anchor" id="line-24"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-25"></span><p class="line874">To find out about any such conventions, you should get in touch with one or two of the other answer contacts. Visit any of the project's Answers pages and expand the answer contacts box, in the left-hand column, for a full list. <span class="anchor" id="line-26"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-27"></span><p class="line867"> <h2 id="Responding_to_new_questions">Responding to new questions</h2> <span class="anchor" id="line-28"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-29"></span><p class="line874">Once you're an answer contact, Launchpad will email you each time someone posts a new question to your chosen project or distribution. <span class="anchor" id="line-30"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-31"></span><p class="line862">You can also see a list of questions awaiting an answer by using the <tt class="backtick"></tt><tt class="backtick">Open</tt><tt class="backtick"></tt> filter towards the top of the page. <span class="anchor" id="line-32"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-33"></span><p class="line867"> <h2 id="Handling_frequently_asked_questions">Handling frequently asked questions</h2> <span class="anchor" id="line-34"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-35"></span><p class="line874">Every free software project has questions that crop up regularly. <span class="anchor" id="line-36"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-37"></span><p class="line874">If you're an answer contact for a project, you can create a library of stock answers to the project's frequently asked questions. <span class="anchor" id="line-38"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-39"></span><p class="line867"> <h2 id="Answering_a_question_with_an_existing_FAQ">Answering a question with an existing FAQ</h2> <span class="anchor" id="line-40"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-41"></span><p class="line874">When you answer a question, you can choose to use an existing FAQ answer. This saves you from typing an answer that has already been given by one of the project's answer contacts. <span class="anchor" id="line-42"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-43"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 1:</strong> Visit the open questions page for the project you're interested in. For example: <a class="https" href="https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu">https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu</a> <span class="anchor" id="line-44"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-45"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 2:</strong> Click <strong>Open</strong> in the menu, then select a question from the list. <span class="anchor" id="line-46"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-47"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 3:</strong> Click <strong>This is a FAQ</strong> in the menu. <span class="anchor" id="line-48"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-49"></span><div><table style="&quot; font-size: 0.8em; width:30%; background:#F1F1ED; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; &quot;"><tbody><tr> <td style="&quot; padding:0.5em; &quot;"><p class="line891"><img alt="create-new-faq.png" class="attachment" src="/Answers/OfferingHelp?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=create-new-faq.png" title="create-new-faq.png" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="&quot; text-align: center; &quot;"><span class="anchor" id="line-50"></span><p class="line891"><strong>This is a FAQ</strong></td> </tr> </tbody></table></div><span class="anchor" id="line-51"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-52"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 4:</strong> Launchpad will search for any existing FAQ answers that appear to be relevant. If you see a relevant answer, select the radio button beside. Otherwise, you can enter your own search terms to look for other FAQ answers that may be useful to the original questioner. <span class="anchor" id="line-53"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-54"></span><p class="line867"><img alt="{i}" height="16" src="/moin_static198/lp20/img/icon-info.png" title="{i}" width="16" /> <strong>Note:</strong> If you can't find a relevant answer but think that the question should be considered a FAQ, skip to the next section <em>Creating a new FAQ</em>. <span class="anchor" id="line-55"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-56"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 5:</strong> You can send a message to the questioner to explain why you're sending them a link to a FAQ. Launchpad automatically enters a generic message in the <em>Answer Message</em> text-box, which you can customise. <span class="anchor" id="line-57"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-58"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 6:</strong> When you're ready to send the FAQ to the questioner, click the <strong>Link FAQ</strong> button. A link to the FAQ and your message will then appear as an answer, alongside any other answers, to the question. <span class="anchor" id="line-59"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-60"></span><p class="line867"> <h2 id="Creating_a_new_FAQ">Creating a new FAQ</h2> <span class="anchor" id="line-61"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-62"></span><p class="line867"><em>Continues from after step 4 in the section above.</em> <span class="anchor" id="line-63"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-64"></span><p class="line867"><img alt="{i}" height="16" src="/moin_static198/lp20/img/icon-info.png" title="{i}" width="16" /> <strong>Note:</strong> Although any user can answer a question with an existing FAQ <span class="anchor" id="line-65"></span>answer, only answer contacts for the project can create a new FAQ answer. <span class="anchor" id="line-66"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-67"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 5:</strong> If you can't find a suitable FAQ answer, click <strong>create a new FAQ</strong> in the page's introductory text. <span class="anchor" id="line-68"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-69"></span><div><table style="&quot; font-size: 0.8em; width:30%; background:#F1F1ED; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; &quot;"><tbody><tr> <td style="&quot; padding:0.5em; &quot;"><p class="line891"><img alt="create-new-faq.png" class="attachment" src="/Answers/OfferingHelp?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=create-new-faq.png" title="create-new-faq.png" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="&quot; text-align: center; &quot;"><span class="anchor" id="line-70"></span><p class="line891"><strong>Create a new FAQ</strong></td> </tr> </tbody></table></div><span class="anchor" id="line-71"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-72"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-73"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 6:</strong> Specify relevant keywords to improve the chances of your FAQ being found in searches. <span class="anchor" id="line-74"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-75"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 7:</strong> Enter the text of your FAQ answer. You should make sure that your answer is accurate and complete as it will be used as the canonical answer to this problem. Alternatively, enter a simple explanation and a link to an external page where the reader can find more details (for example, if the complete answer is contained in the project's wiki or documentation). <span class="anchor" id="line-76"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-77"></span><p class="line867"><strong>Step 8:</strong> When you are happy with your answer text, optionally customise the <em>Answer Message</em>, then click the <strong>Create and Link</strong> button to add your FAQ to Launchpad and send it to the questioner. <span class="anchor" id="line-78"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-79"></span><p class="line867"> <h1 id="Filtering_email">Filtering email</h1> <span class="anchor" id="line-80"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-81"></span><p class="line874">As an answer contact, you'll receive quite a bit of email from Launchpad. To help you deal with this email, Launchpad uses special headers to help you filter incoming messages. <span class="anchor" id="line-82"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-83"></span><p class="line867"> <h2 id="Rationale">Rationale</h2> <span class="anchor" id="line-84"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-85"></span><p class="line862">The <tt class="backtick"></tt><tt class="backtick">X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale</tt><tt class="backtick"></tt> header appears in all email that Launchpad sends you. This tells you why Launchpad sent you the email, which is particularly useful if you want to find the quickest way to stop that type of email. <span class="anchor" id="line-86"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-87"></span><p class="line867"><span class="anchor" id="line-88"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-89"></span><pre><span class="anchor" id="line-1"></span>X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Answer Contact (Launchpad itself)</pre><span class="anchor" id="line-90"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-91"></span><p class="line867"> <h2 id="X-Launchpad-Question">X-Launchpad-Question</h2> <span class="anchor" id="line-92"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-93"></span><p class="line862">Emails from Launchpad Answers have the <tt class="backtick"></tt><tt class="backtick">X-Launchpad-Question</tt><tt class="backtick"></tt> header, which is made up of: <span class="anchor" id="line-94"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-95"></span><ul><li><p class="line891"><strong>Product:</strong> the project that the question is about. <span class="anchor" id="line-96"></span></li><li><p class="line891"><strong>Status:</strong> open, needs info, answered, solved, invalid or expired - more <a href="/Answers/AskingForHelp#Question_statuses">question statuses</a>. <span class="anchor" id="line-97"></span></li><li><p class="line891"><strong>Assignee:</strong> the person assigned to work on the question, if any. <span class="anchor" id="line-98"></span></li><li><p class="line891"><strong>Priority:</strong> always set to normal. <span class="anchor" id="line-99"></span></li><li><p class="line891"><strong>Language:</strong> the language the questioner chose when asking their question. <span class="anchor" id="line-100"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-101"></span></li></ul><p class="line874">Here's an example: <span class="anchor" id="line-102"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-103"></span><p class="line867"><span class="anchor" id="line-104"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-105"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-106"></span><pre><span class="anchor" id="line-1-1"></span>X-Launchpad-Question: product=launchpad; status=Open; <span class="anchor" id="line-2"></span>assignee=None; priority=Normal; language=en</pre><span class="anchor" id="line-107"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-108"></span><p class="line867"> <h1 id="Next_step">Next step</h1> <span class="anchor" id="line-109"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-110"></span><p class="line862">Different projects favour different ways of planning future releases and organising chunks of work. <a href="/Blueprint">Blueprint</a> is Launchpad's light-touch specification tracker that makes it easy to organise and follow future work. <span class="anchor" id="line-111"></span><span class="anchor" id="line-112"></span><div><table style="&quot; width: 100%; &quot;"><tbody><tr> <td><p class="line862"> <small><a href="/Answers/AskingForHelp">< Asking for help</a> </small> </td> <td style="&quot; text-align: right; &quot;"><p class="line862"> <small><a href="/Blueprint">Specifications and project planning ></a> </small> </td> </tr> </tbody></table></div><span class="anchor" id="line-113"></span><span class="anchor" id="bottom"></span></div><p id="pageinfo" class="info" lang="en" dir="ltr">Answers/OfferingHelp (last edited 2009-05-07 22:02:42 by <span title="??? @ pool-96-255-224-215.washdc.fios.verizon.net[96.255.224.215]">pool-96-255-224-215</span>)</p> <div id="pagebottom"></div> </div> <div id="footer"> <p class="menu"> <a href="https://help.launchpad.net/Legal">Terms of use</a> | <a href="https://launchpad.net/feedback">Help improve Launchpad</a> | <a href="https://launchpad.net/faq">FAQ</a> | <a href="/RecentChanges">Recent Changes</a></p> <p> <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/"> <span xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dc:title" rel="dc:type">Launchpad Help</span> by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="https://canonical.com/" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Canonical Ltd</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/">Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License</a>. <img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0;vertical-align:middle;" src="https://licensebuttons.net/l/by/2.0/uk/80x15.png" /></a> </p> <p>© 2004-2019 <a href="https://canonical.com/" target="_blank">Canonical Limited.</a></p> </div> </body> </html>