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New Features of ACS Network 2.0 - Where to Start?

New Features of ACS Network 2.0 - Where to Start?

Ever since we launched the upgraded ACS Network last week, I've been thinking about what it is you need to know about first. There are just so many new and enhanced features, that at times, I feel at a loss of what to tell you.

So I will start to point out some major changes and things you might want to do immediately.

When you first came to the Network, you will notice that the home page looks different. I've marked up a partial screenshot to highlight some of the areas that might be of interest to you. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

new_homepage_072910.png

One of the first things you might want to do is to set your email preferences. You can access your preferences by going to your profile or through

the "Your Stuff" pull down menu.  Select Preference and then Email Notification Preferences.  On this menu you can choose if you want to receive a summary email (essentially a digest) of some from the Network.

I suspect it will help you to understand a few items on your profile. If you look to the right hand side, you should see these two boxes.

profile_actions.png

The first box, entitled "ACS Account Management" has a link for you to manage the information on your ACS record. This is the information related to your address and email address and whether you are opted into the ACS Network which is stored on a different system at ACS.

The second box, entitled "Actions" has several links.

  • Edit profile shows information in your ACS profile. Some of them can only be changed via your ACS Record as described above.  Most of the other profile fields should be self-explanatory.

  • Change photo & avatar allows you to upload up to four profile images. You can crop them as you like. In addition, you can create up to three avatars (or select an exisiting one).

  • Edit preferences allows you to select some general settings. You can also access "Email Nofication Preferences" which allows you to set what your default email settings are. In addition, you can set your email summary (email digest) frequency.

  • Manage email notifcations shows you the list of items you are watching and for which you receive email notifications. These might include a certain type of content, group, forum, or user, you can go to his menu. To stop receiving notifications, click on the Name and you should then see in the resulting Actions box a link to "Stop email notifications".

Hopefully, this is a start on the new ACS Network. I'll go into more depth about the profiles in my next post.

Comments

Hi,  I uploaded a photo but have not been successful in changing the default ivew from an Avatar image to a photo.  Any suggestions?

Hi,  Is it possible to set up space on a Group page that contains an RSS feed from an external source?  Thanks for your help!  GB

Yes, as a Group Owner, you can add RSS feeds to group pages.  Go to your Group's page and select the "Customize Link" on the Overview tab. Next, select "Other" from the list of widget categories.  Scroll down and select "RSS Subscriptions" and then drag the widget on to your group's page.  Now all you need to do is fill in the blanks with the URL for the RSS feed, supply a userid & password for the feed (if applicable) and choose your options for how you want the RSS feed to display.

You can preview the feed before it goes live on the page. When you're satified that it's ready, save your changes and click the "Publish link" at the top of your page.

It appears that we have a bug that prevents adding an avatar directly to your profile.  However, when adding a new profile photo you can choose to crop the image and use it for your avatar.  Go to your profile (just click on your name inside the network) and select “Change photo and avatar” from the Actions Box.

This has now been fixed. You now may upload an image then crop it down for your avatar that is not your profile image.

Thank you very much for providing these instructions!  Everything worked as anticipated except for one thing - there was no "view RSS feed" link at the bottom of the list for viewing all items available from an RSS feed.  It would be great if this functionality could be added.  Thanks again!

Re Related Groups - It would be very cool if the related group box didn't prefill or if there was a customizable Related Group box that enabled users to identify a list of related groups that they wanted to have listed in their Related Group Box.  Ideally, people could browse and search to identify related groups (or communities or Forums).

Re Group Overview Description - it would be helpful to also include a URL for the website of that group at the end of the description.  This could be an optional field.  I used HTML box feature to add this info after discovering it was not possible to add HTML code into the Group Description box.    Thanks for considering this suggestion!

Thank you very much!

I have the email message that includes

"You haven't set a status update. Log in and set your status."

What is a status update?  How would one set it?  Why would I want to set it?

Here is a link to a recent javascript:;.