Long version: url, initial login, site info and tips

Hello,

You received this message because you are a member of a UUFA cluster as a representative of a Fellowship committee or group. This message contains three pieces of information about the new UUFA website: the url for the development site, instructions for gaining access to the features of the site, and some tips for using the new site with your committee, working group, or activity group (hereafter, simply group).

URL for the site

You can link to the website now at http://uufames.org/uuwebsite/  When the site goes live, it will be located at http://uufames.org/ and you will get an email announcing that change of url.

Initial login

The first time you visit the new website, you will need to log into the site by requesting a new password. Follow this procedure:

1. Enter your username in the username field in the User Login section located below the site menu in the left-hand, green column. By default, your username is Firstname Lastname (with initial caps and one space between first and last names).
2. Click on the Request new password link, which will automatically send a one-time login link to your registered e-mail account (the one that is listed in the UUFA directory; you can change this later if you’d like).
3. Check your regular e-mail account and follow the link, which will take you directly to your account information where you can select a password.
4. You should already be a member of the group(s) where you are a leader, and you should be listed as a manger of your group. If this is not the case, please email Chris White (ciwhite@ieee.org) or use her personal contact form in the Members and Friends directory so we can correct the settings.
5. The right-hand block shows My Groups, a set of active links to the groups to which you belong; this list shows by default on all pages in the site.

Site information and use tips

This is a very general list of things to know about the site; if you have a question that isn’t covered here or need more information about a feature, contact Chris (ciwhite@ieee.org).

Online directory.  Only logged in users can view the online member directory (http://www.uufames.org/uuwebsite/directory/members). You can sort this directory by Firstname, Lastname, and City or you can limit your search by last name using the alphabet list.

Site contact form.  The contact link (located in the upper right-hand corner of every page) opens a secure form that allows anyone—logged in users and anonymous visitors—to contact the office (the default), Brian, Lori, the board president, Gallery in the Round, the membership or Sunday morning program committee, or website feedback.

Threaded discussion.  Use the Create Forum topic link to communicate within your group or committee. Creating a forum topic sends an email message to everyone who is a member of your group and creates a threaded discussion on your group’s webpage. These forums are private among your group members; people who visit a group’s page will see only the general information about the group (in the yellow field) and <what else? events? polls?>.

Add/remove group members.  Add members to your group through the ## members link. Use the list tab to remove members from your group and the add members tab to add members to the group. Select the add members tab and type in the name of the UUFA member you wish to add to your group. You can either type in the member’s name or you can select the name from the list that automatically populates based on what you’ve entered. Repeat the process until you’ve added everyone you want to add, then click on the add members button.

Enter content.  Let’s say you want to create or contribute to a forum discussion, and you’ve used the link to open the view that has fields where you input the subject, select the kind of committee talk (communications or meeting notes—we may add categories later, depending on what we find we need), then enter the content in the body field. You can type directly into the box using the wysiwyg editor to add features like headings, formatted text (e.g., bold, italic, block quote), or bulleted or numbered lists as you type.

Other icons in the wysiwyg editor also allow you to insert images, anchors, and links. This editor uses common conventions for these actions, so you can transfer skills from prior experience or you can figure it out here and use it elsewhere.

Paste from Word feature.  You also can create your text in a word processing program (e.g., Microsoft Word or Open Office) and use the Paste from Word feature, which brings in the text without all the usually invisible electromagnetic mumbo-jumbo baggage that these programs insist on appending to our innocent content. (As an example, I am going to send this message to members of each of the clusters, so I am creating it in Word and I’ll use this feature to paste the content instead of laboriously retyping it for each group.)

You activate this feature through the icon that looks like a clipboard behind the Word icon. Clicking this icon will open a dialog box that instructs you to “Use CTRL+V on your keyboard to paste the text into the window.” If you haven’t already done so, select the content in your word processing program that you want to enter into the body (CTRL+C or Command+C on a Mac), and use the CTRL+V (Command+V) to paste in the text. Then click on the insert button, and voila!