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.)
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.
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.
