Best Of

After joining the SonicWall Community, you've likely taken time to browse around and eventually stumbled upon ranks. 

What is a Rank?

Ranks reflect a user status within the community. New community members start as Newbies. As you engage with members through posts, replies, and accepted answers, you will rank up to Enthusiast, Cyber Security Overlord, All-Knowing Sage, and Community Legend.

• Newbie - Newbie is the first rank any new community user is assigned. Seize opportunities to ask questions, answer questions, and mark replies as accepted answers to increase your rank.
• Enthusiast - Follow discussions by setting up category notifications aligned with your interests and product knowledge. You’ll leverage the powerful insights of other SonicWall users to get your questions answered and contribute to discussions as well.
• Cyber Security Overlord - At this rank, you will be a community stand-out. Others will recognize you as a Cyber Security expert, and you’ll earn the prestige of being a Cyber Security Overlord.
• All-Knowing Sage - At this rank, other community members are used to seeing your username and avatar all over discussion forums and leaderboards. Continue on this path to become a community legend!
• Community Legend - Your cyber security knowledge knows no bounds. At this rank, you are a community legend, SonicWall product expert, and Cybersecurity guru.

How can I rank up?

Now that you know SonicWall Community ranks, the next question would be, how you can progress through these ranks. 

In general, as your participation within the community increases, so does your rank. Go from a Newbie to a seasoned Community Legend by joining discussions and showcasing your cybersecurity expertise. 

 An example could be:

• posting and helping in discussions,
• discussing the latest cybersecurity trends, 
• giving and receiving likes on helpful posts,
• being a nice person,
• Marking an answer as an accepted answer,
• Marking a discussion as resolved.

Keep in mind that Staff ranks (SonicWall Employee, Moderator, Administrator) are not achievable by ranking up as a member.

About Badges

In addition to ranks, the SonicWall Community awards a variety of badges. You might have received a notification from the community saying you’ve earned a new badge, along with a simple one-liner on how you scored it.

• Early Adopter - The early bird catches the worm! You are one of the first members to join the SonicWall Community.
• Name Dropper - Mentioning someone in a discussion (like this: @Name) is a great way to encourage dialog and let them know who you’re talking to.
• Photogenic - Little things like uploading a profile picture make the community a better place. Thanks!
• 1 Year Anniversary - Thanks for sticking with us for a full year. A new badge will be received for each year you stick with us!
• First Answer - Answering questions is a great way to show your support for a community! The more questions you answer, the more Answer badges you'll receive.
• Work Out Loud - Sharing is caring
• First Comment - Commenting is the best way to get involved. Jump in the fray! The more comments you make, the more Comment badges you'll earn!
• 5 Helpfuls - You received 5 Helpfuls. We like that. Get 20 more and you'll receive the next Helpful badge.
• 5 Likes - You received 5 Likes. Keep up the great work to receive more Like badges.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below. See you around the community!

Hello @Mike_Minster_Oppy. I just PMd you. I'm happy to assist.

Thank you,

This tip outlines a few tricks you can use to get a speedy answer. The SonicWall Community supports Discussion and Question style posts. To learn more about discussion versus question style posts, check out this Tip on When to post a discussion or question.

Start with a Search

The SonicWall Community contains a long history of questions from fellow SonicWall product users, so it's likely that a question (and answer) that matches your inquiry already exists. Before posting a new question, try entering a few keywords related to your issue into the search bar to see if anyone else has posted something similar. If there is a search result that fits your needs and also has a green checkmark next to it, that means your question has an accepted solution, as shown below.

Note: After posting a question, be sure to mark the answer as either accepted or rejected, simply hit yes or no on the dialog beneath the answer (comment).  This helps fellow members know when an answer is credible.

Keep in mind, you can also use SonicWall’s site-wide search feature to tap into Technical Documents and Knowledge Base articles. For more information on SonicWall’s search engine, check out this article. An Introduction To SonicWall's New Search Page.

Category is Key

The SonicWall Community has several categories for asking questions. Choosing the best category for your question is important since discussions and questions can only be moved by moderators. Here’s a quick guideline for the types of questions that belong in each forum.

Category List

• Firewalls - Get help with configuring, troubleshooting and purchasing all SonicWall firewalls including the TZ, NSa, SuperMassive and NSsp series.
• Capture Security Center - Capture Security Center (CSC) is a scalable cloud security management system, built-in and ready to use component of your SonicWall product or service.
• Cloud Security - SonicWall Cloud App Security (CAS) offers next-gen security for your users and data within cloud apps, including email, messaging, file sharing and storage.
• Email Security - Learn how to protect against the most advanced email threads using SonicWall's email security options.
• EndPoint Security - Everything you need to know or ask about SonicWall's endpoint protection capabilities using SonicWall Capture Client or Content Filtering Client.
• Secure Remote Access - Learn more about SonicWall's Secure Mobile Access appliances and VPN client options.
• Secure Wireless - Ask questions about our wireless network security including the SonicWave and SonicPoint series access points, WiFi Cloud Manager and WiFi Planner.
• Switches - SonicWall Switches deliver intelligent switching for next-gen secure connectivity.

Note: When posting a new question, provide as much detail as possible. The more information others have to understand your issue the easier it will be to help you troubleshoot. Information such as the latest version you are running, types of troubleshooting you’ve already tried, etc. 

Select the Right Channel

Apart from search and categories, here are the common places our users visit to get the latest updates.

• Announcements - These types of posts contain important information regarding products and general SonicWall company and community updates.
• Knowledge Base - Search Knowledge Base articles to access information regarding SonicWall products, services and solutions. 

Hopefully, this SonicWall Community Tip will help you navigate the community’s resources and get the answers you need faster. We encourage you to get a hold of us if you have any questions, and as always, you can leave a comment here or tag me with any additional comments and thoughts.

Although many of you are familiar with the SonicWall Community, we wanted to give some tips on navigating the Community if you are new around here!

If you are new, first of all, welcome to the SonicWall Community, your main destination to connect, learn, and share best practices, knowledge, and skills with real people in real-time. We want you to get the most out of SonicWall Community, so the tips below will outline three basic steps to get started.

Step 1:

The first step is to work on your Profile! Pick a username, add a photo, and tell us more about you!

Step 2:

Follow product categories! Head to the Technology and Support category to browse and join different categories that speak to you and find conversations based on your product interests.

Step 3:

Take a leap of faith and ask the Community a question, you couldn't find the answer to anywhere else. Check out this tip on How to Get the Answers You Need Faster and be sure to post your question. The Community is here to help!

To learn more about SonicWall Community technical know-how, check out this article: Get Started with SonicWall Community. 

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below or tag me with any additional comments and thoughts.