Heads Up: Community Groups Refresh (May 2021)

[TeamBIC]

Hey BIC! We’re excited to share new enhancements coming to the Beauty Insider Community. To help minimize bugs in the long-term and ensure the BIC is in tip-top shape, we are refreshing our Community Groups! Don’t worry – your favorite existing groups will remain in-tact (stay tuned for snazzy new group descriptions and a rebrand of our “Moms Only” group to “Parents Only” 😉). This change mainly involves slight design tweaks and major under-the-hood improvements. Please note that during this transition, all Community email notifications will be turned off - once we have confirmed that the refresh is complete, we hope to have emails back up and running ASAP! 🙏

The move to the new Groups experience will occur in two phases. In the first phase, we will launch a refreshed Groups look-and-feel. In the second phase, we will start the process of moving existing posts to new groups. Read on for a breakdown of what we have planned!

Phase I (5/4/2021 - 5/5/2021)

As we kick off our move to the upgraded Groups experience, we will put current groups into “read-only” mode. While you will temporarily be unable to start new conversations, you will still be able to search, heart, and reply on all existing Community posts like you normally would. Putting groups into read-only mode will get them ready to go for the refreshed Groups experience!

The next step in the process is to launch the new Groups experience. This will take about 5 hours to complete, and during this time, you may see the new Groups experience appear. When the launch is complete, there are a few key things you’ll want to know:

• Click Groups to navigate to the new Groups landing page experience
• Click a group in Trending Groups to navigate to the new experience for that group
• Once you’re in the new group experience, you will be able to start a new thread by hitting the “Start a Conversation” button just like before
• NOTE: If you join a group between 5/2/2021 and 5/4/2021, you will need to re-join that group in the new experience

Phase II (5/5/2021 - 5/17/2021)

The next step in the journey is to move 10+ years of Community posts to the new, upgraded Groups. You can imagine how much content you’ve helped create over the years. 😊

Moving posts to the new Groups first involves migrating the most recent 40 - 50 posts to each new group. This process will take up to 12 hours, so as the day gets started on 5/5/2021, you will begin to see about 4-5 pages of posts in each new group. Then, we’ll continue to move all posts to the new Groups over the next 10-12 days. We know this will take a while, and we appreciate your patience! Remember, if a post has not yet been moved to the refreshed Groups experience, you can still find it via search.

We’re thrilled to make these changes that will help improve the BIC experience overall! We thank you for your patience as we push these new changes along. ❤️

[greeneyedgirl107]

@TeamBIC I received this notification - yay!  Thanks for all your hard work!

[SportyGirly125]

@TeamBIC Yes. I started getting email notifications this morning. Thank you so much for all the hard work going on behind the scenes. 

[lnum]

@TeamBIC Yes thank you!

[eshoe]

@TeamBIC yes, YES they are up again!!!!

Thank you so very much, I appreciate all that you do in front and behind the scenes of BIC🥰

[lnum]

@TeamBIC Since this update my email notifications have stopped working again. 

[blackkitty2014]

@TeamBIC Is it possible to have the thread order fix? Most of the threads are completely out of order. They seem to start with all 2019 posts. 😰

[TeamBIC]

Hi @blackkitty2014! Thank you for this feedback. We sincerely apologize for the current experience - we also see many of Community's favorite threads are sorting out-of-order! Our vendor partners are working on finding a solution as this is our top priority to fix. We appreciate your patience as we look for a solve. ❤️

[eshoe]

Ditto @lnum @TeamBIC!

[SportyGirly125]

@eshoe @lnum It’s mentioned above in bold that email notifications will be turned off during the transition. 

[eshoe]

Thank you for pointing that out, @SportyGirly125, I missed it!

[greeneyedgirl107]

@eshoe Yes - I missed that, too!

[eshoe]

I’m glad I’m not the only one, @greeneyedgirl107! 

[RGbrown]

@TeamBIC 

Are there any plans to implement a search function that would be useful in searching for a particular post? Something that would actually help folks find specific info in this vast wealth of knowledge that is currently severely underutilized?

Background for my question:

The move has now effed up my beloved nails thread; posts are completely out of order, and that makes it impossible to find a specific post anymore. I've been using it for myself as a sort of reference; I write out notes on the polishes I used, whether I liked them or not, any notes or issues with the formula, etc. And while I previously couldn't use search for a particular post, I knew what date I posted it by the date stamp on the pics on my phone, so I could go back through and find an old post fairly easily with that info. But now, I can't even do that, as the posts aren't in date order anymore. I even tried to Google one of my posts using "Sephora China Glaze Mustard The Courage", and I got what looked like a good result, but the link just dropped me somewhere randomly in the middle of the thread, and my post was nowhere on that page. I guess the joke is on me for for not saving my notes anywhere else but here, but I foolishly assumed that lessons had been learned by the tech team after the first move, and this site would only improve, not make the same mistakes again.

Specific example aside, BIC is a veritable treasure trove of wonderful info...that no one can find because the search function is weak. It makes the mega-threads completely useless as a repository and reference of good information, because it's impossible to drill down through them if someone wants to find a certain tidbit, whether it be info on a certain mask folks may have tried in the Mask of the Week thread, or which folks have purchased a certain product from the Monthly Hauls threads, or what folks thought about shampoos they've finished in the Empties thread, or what a certain user posted about various retinols in multiple posts that are scattered in several different threads. BIC has sooooo much information, but as it is now, it's nearly impossible for folks to harness it, and this move seems to be making it even harder. 

/Rant over

I promise I'm not telling AT y'all, but I am definitely frustrated that posts can't even seem to be transferred in date order. This was a problem that showed up in the BT to BIC move (was that 2017?), and I can't believe no one cared enough to fix it before moving the board again four years later, or even tried to correct it in the week or so since it was reported this time around. 

[TeamBIC]

Hi @itsfi, @greeneyedgirl107, and @RGbrown, thank you for your feedback! We will be sure to share your suggestions with our vendor partners for future updates. Regarding some Community threads sorting replies out of order, bug fixes cannot be made while Community content is moving over to the new Groups experience, and we assure you that resolving this frustrating experience is the #1 priority for our vendor team once the groups refresh process is complete (started 5/4/21 and going through 5/17/21). We absolutely hear you on the last migration and appreciate that you're feeling the same frustrations. We are very hopeful that this move creates a more stable experience overall for the long-term behind-the-scenes on Community. 😊

[itsfi]

@TeamBIC, the groups refresh process is almost complete! How exciting! Thanks for all your efforts!

[greeneyedgirl107]

@TeamBIC I agree with @RGbrown that a more in-depth search function would be great.  I find that I'd like to be able to search content in posts, not just the thread title. 

And while we're making suggestions, I did post a while back that I would love it if we could add comments on our Loves List.  I'd like to write notations like, this BICer rec'd this product, or that BICer rec'd a certain method of application for that product.

[itsfi]

@TeamBIC, a search function like the one @RGbrown mentioned would be fabulous!!! 😍 I often find myself wanting to look for a search from one of my fellow BIC members, usually about a mask (go figure! 😂) but sometimes about a lip balm 😉 or other products. I've been able to pull up a very few things by a search online but that is very much hit or miss. A search feature on the boards would be super helpful. 🤞

[Cyncynn]

Thanks for the heads up and all your hard work ❤️

[pocketvenus]

Thanks for all the hard work @TeamBIC ! ❤️

[lmaster]

@TeamBIC just wanted to note that on the Lip lover group, the 100 days of lipstick challenge thread is non existent 

[SportyGirly125]

@lmaster @TeamBIC There are several other threads that don't pop up.  The only way I found them was to do a Google search.