A product announcement needs two things from its Discord channel: the app must be able to post, and your intended customers must be able to read it. Start with a destination you can explain in one sentence, then check both sides before your first launch.
Choose the channel for the audience you already have.
For announcements inside your own server, a standard text channel is enough. MemberPort accepts standard text channels and Discord’s special Announcement channels. Threads, forums, and voice channels are not destinations in its current picker.
Discord’s special Announcement type requires Community to be enabled and adds a Follow workflow for other servers. Posting there and publishing to followers are separate actions. MemberPort posts the product message; it does not automatically publish it to following servers. See the Announcement Channel FAQ.
| Your intended audience | Starting choice | Decision to record |
|---|---|---|
| Members in your own server | Standard text channel | Which existing member roles should see the launch feed? |
| Your server plus servers following its announcements | Announcement channel in a Community server | Who will review and publish each post to followers? |
| A rehearsal with restricted message visibility | A restricted text channel | Is the product safe to discover through /drops elsewhere in the server? |
Give the feed a clear purpose.
Use a name such as new-releases and a channel topic that tells members what belongs there. For example: “Selected releases from our shop. Product questions go in shop-chat.” This is a fictional example you can adapt, not a built-in MemberPort message or an automatic channel setup.
Decide whether the feed is for announcements only or conversation too. If questions belong elsewhere, name that destination explicitly. A quieter feed can make older releases easier to find; it does not guarantee that members will receive notifications or read every post. MemberPort’s product messages do not ping roles or members.
Set permissions for the bot and for readers separately.
In the destination’s permissions, give MemberPort View Channels, Send Messages, and Embed Links for its product cards. Give the intended audience View Channel and Read Message History so they can find previous posts. These are separate jobs; a bot posting successfully says nothing about whether your customers can see the channel.
For an announcement-only feed, restrict ordinary members’ Send Messages permission while allowing the bot to send. Thread creation and sending in threads have separate controls. Review those as well if you want discussion elsewhere. Discord explains each setting in Channel Permissions Settings 101.
Check all relevant roles and any member-specific overrides; an extra role can change the effective result. Server administrators bypass channel restrictions, so an administrator’s view is insufficient for the audience check. Use Discord’s permission hierarchy when the settings do not behave as expected.
Save the destination in MemberPort.
Open Setup in MemberPort, connect your server, choose the destination, and select Save channel. The page heading is Discord. Channel selection is store-wide: individual drops do not each carry their own destination.
Before switching to a rehearsal channel, review pending drops. Announcements that have not started use the store’s selected channel when they publish, so a temporary change can redirect them. Coordinate or pause those launches first, record the original destination, and restore it deliberately after the rehearsal.
A channel appearing in the picker, a saved setting, or a Connected badge is configuration evidence. The picker does not audit effective permissions, and saving does not send a test. The announcement preview shows content; it is not a delivery test.
Check the channel as an ordinary member.
Use the worksheet below to record an observed result for each check. Ask an existing member with the intended audience roles to check, or use an appropriate non-administrator account you control. Never share their login credentials.
If you arrange a rehearsal, choose a product safe for the whole connected server to discover. A restricted message destination does not make an announced drop private: /drops can return its products in other channels where the command is allowed. After checking, pause the rehearsal drop to remove it from future command results; this does not delete messages already posted. Coordinate the destination first. This is a manual merchant check, not an automatic test mode. No test announcement was sent in preparing this guide.
| Check | What a useful result looks like |
|---|---|
| Find the channel | A person with the intended audience roles can see and open the destination. |
| Read the announcement | The product name and card are readable from that member’s account. |
| Return later | After reopening the channel, the member can find the previous announcement. |
| Follow the shop link | The button opens the intended customer-facing product page without a staff session. |
| Ask a question | The member knows which channel to use for product questions. |
| Record the handoff | The owner, selected destination, outstanding issues, and next release are written down. |
Treat cross-server publishing as another decision.
If you chose an Announcement channel, assign a trusted person to review the post before publishing it to followers. Publishing another author’s message requires Manage Messages in addition to Send Messages under Discord’s crosspost permissions. That permission is for the human publishing workflow, not a new requirement for MemberPort to create its product card.
Start with the channel your customers will actually use. MemberPort’s early-access workflow connects selected Shopify products to one Discord destination; native cross-server publishing, membership access, and customer-role management remain separate responsibilities.
Sources & further reading
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