Using this Site
Joining the CommunityUser Dashboard
Searching the Community |
|
Joining the Community
Registration
To join the community, click the Register button on the login page. Once you are on the registration page enter the required information (name, email, password, and primary affiliate or community location name) in the form. Click “I accept the terms and conditions” box and then click ‘Submit’. You will receive a confirmation email sent to the email address you registered with.
Logging In
To log in to the community enter the email address that you created the account with along with the password you created and select "login". You can select “Remember my Email” (not recommended for public computers) to remember your account email address. If you forgot your password you can reset it by clicking "Forgot Password" which will send a new password to your account email address.
User Dashboard
My Dashboard
Take Action – Items found in this section will continually rotate. Here you can find links to take part in advocacy action alerts, learn about time sensitive resource releases, and watch newly released recorded webinars.
Recent Discussions - The most recent discussion threads will be listed here at a glance.
The latest resources – As resources are uploaded, this section will automatically update to keep you loop in!
Latest News – The most current Inside Track blog post will be conveniently listed here.
My Bookmarks – This area gives you a way to quickly get to specific content items on the site that you have bookmarked. You can bookmark items including friends, discussions, and resources.
My Friends – This box will show you how many Friends you have and a display 10 of them. If any of these friends are currently logged in it will display that they are Online.
Discussions
Discussions are open to the entire community to read and comment on. The Discussion Categories can only be created by site administrators, but users can create new topics from within the parent categories. To create a new post, click the category title and then click the ‘New Topic’ button. To comment on a discussion, go to the bottom of that page and click the ‘Reply’ button to enter your comment. Once you are ready to submit the comment, click ‘Post’ and your comment will appear in the thread selected. Subscribing to categories or discussion threads will send you notifications when new topics or responses are submitted. You can set your subscription preference to Instant, Daily, or Weekly.
Blogs
Our featured blog is called Inside Track and uses content from the monthly volunteer newsletter. Here you can find many volunteer highlights, messages from the Volunteer Advisory Council, and recent comments left on the blog posts.
Resources
The Resources page allows you to search for resources by name or known keywords in the main search bar at the top of the page, or by filter. Available filter options allow users to search by volunteer role, a variety of topics, resource type (guide, document, video, etc), or by featured resource. Clicking on the title of the resource will lead to the resource page where there will be a brief description, a preview of what the resource looks like, and the opportunity to download the resource. Any resource page can be “liked” and bookmarked.
Connect
Search Members page - To connect with other users on the site or become 'friends' you will need to send them a friend request. The top of this page shows the most recent members to the community. To search for members, you can sort all member through a variety of drop down options or filter by volunteer role, location, or time frame. To send a friend request you will need to view their profile and click on the "Add Friend" link.
Volunteer Advisory Council page – This page lists all members of the Volunteer Advisory Council and links directly to each of the members’ profiles.
Calendar Submission
The calendar submission allows users to list upcoming affiliate events and meetings. Though submissions do not receive confirmation, the events will be added within 3 business days (PurpleLight may take up to 5 business days.) All PurpleStride events are automatically added as the website is launched, so please do not submit PurpleStride events using this form. If you have any questions or are not seeing your event listed within the time frame above, please contact your staff partner.
My Account
My Settings Page
My Account – Easily manage your account settings from this page, including contact information, changing your password, privacy settings, notification preferences, and subscription settings. The Privacy Settings tab gives you control over who can see your content. There are three settings for each area that can be applied: friends only, everyone and private. The notifications tab allows you to control what areas of the platform send you an external email to your account email address, such as when there is updated content to what you uploaded or discussions you are participating in. You can also unsubscribe from all site notifications in this area.
My Content – This area allows you to manage all your photos, videos, and files. For each item you upload you can add a title, description and tags. Here you can upload your profile photo, which is the main image that represents you and is associated with all your activity within the community. For photos you can choose to upload or link to a photo to be shared in the community (max files size is 20 MB). For videos you can embed videos from other sites such as You Tube or upload a video from your computer (max file size is 250 MB).
Friends - See all your friends and click the links to visit their profiles. Here you can view, remove and send messages to friends from the community. If you have any pending friend requests they will appear at the top of the page and you can select one of the following options: “Accept” to add them as a friend, "Decline" to not add them and "No Action" to leave them as a pending request.
Edit Profile - To edit your profile, click within the box of each information area (boxes marked with a blue star are required). When finished with each section click "Save Changes" and the information will display on your user profile.
Inbox - The site inbox or private system messages allows you to communicate privately with other users on the site. The inbox view allows you to see latest messages you have received from other users.
Invite - Use the invite page to invite other volunteers to the community. Your name and the email subject are automatically populated all you need to do is add email addresses by typing them in the next box. Separate each email address with a comma. If you’d like to add a personal message, do so in the box below the email address box. The message body is an automatically generated email from the community. Once you have all the information populated click on "Send Invitation".
View Profile - From the profile page you can see and change your main profile picture, view a list of your friends, and see comments members have left for you. You also can see your profile details such as your volunteer activity and social media information.
My Messages page
This area leads back to the Inbox. Here you can open and read a message by clicking on the subject header of each message. You can also delete or archive a message by clicking on the check box and then clicking either ‘Delete Selected’ or ‘Archive Selected’ at the bottom of the page. To view sender’s information profile, click the user name. You can also compose new messages and view sent messages from this area.
Searching for Content and Other Users
Profile Based Search
Profile based search is an easy way to find other people with the same interests or experience in the community. To use profile based search all you need to do is click on any word in the profile information of the user's profile you are viewing. This will search the platform for all users with the same information and return a list of those users in the search results. You can then view their profiles and add new friends by sending them a friend request.
Basic Keyword Search
To search quickly using a keyword or phrase type the keyword, name, or topic you are looking for in the top right search box located in the site header or navigation area. When you are ready, click “Submit” and you will be returned a list of all content items and users relevant to your search terms.