Participating in Community Lists
Q1: How can I join a community?
Login to your NACA profile to add yourself to topical lists. Navigate to the “Account” tab and then choose “Personal Info” in the left navigation box. Scroll down about halfway until you see the “Listservs/Communities” section. Here you can add yourself to or remove yourself from the listserv communities. You can also provide us with another email address to receive list communications.
Q2: How do I view my communities?
In the vertical blue navigation bar running along the top of the page, click the second tab, “Communities” and then “My Communities.” You can also click the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choose “Communities” from the dropdown menu.
From the “Communities” page, you will see a list of all communities of which you are a member. To enter a community, either click its name or the blue “Enter” button to the right of its name. You can also view community discussions, enter the community library, or view community members by clicking one of those white buttons, which appear below the blue “Enter” button.
Q3: How do I send a private message to an individual?
From the online community, if you search for an individual in the directory, you can click the blue “Send Message” button to the right of his/her name. If you are viewing the individual’s profile, click the blue “Send Message” button directly underneath his/her name. You can also use the "Reply to Sender" feature to message an individual by responding to his/her message (see Question 4).
Q4: How do I reply privately to the sender of a message and not the entire group?
From your email software when the message is open in your email, click the “Reply to Sender” button in the top right corner. This will open a new email message where you can respond directly to the individual at his/her email address. The rest of the group will not see this message.
From the online community, when the message is open in your browser, click the arrow next to the blue “Reply to Discussion” button on the right side of the page. The dropdown menu will give you the option to “Reply to Sender.” Clicking this will bring up a page where you can type your reply into a text box. Click “Send” at the bottom of the page to send your message to the individual.
Q5: How do I reply to a message so that it is sent to the entire group?
From your email software, when the message is open in your email, click the “Reply to Group” button in the top left corner. This will open a new email message where you can respond to the entire group.
From the online community, click the “Reply to Group Online” link near the bottom of the email page. This link will take you to the online community site, where you will need to login with your NACA email and password. Once you have done so, you will be taken to a page where you can type your reply into a text box. Click “Send” at the bottom of the page to send your message to the group.
Q6: How do I view private messages I have sent to individuals and messages others have sent to me through the community site?
Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu. Click the fourth tab below your name, “My Account,” then choose “Inbox” from the dropdown. Here you will be able to view your messages sent, messages received, and any pending contact requests.
Q7: Where can I view a summary of the messages I have contributed to my communities?
Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu. Click the fourth tab below your name, “My Contributions,” where you will see “List of Contributions" in the dropdown. This shows the exact content that you have contributed to your communities.
Q8: How can I view and search a community's discussion archive?
Navigate to that community’s page by clicking the “Communities” tab in the vertical blue navigation bar running along the top of the page and then “My Communities.” You can also click the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choose “Communities” from the dropdown menu. Once you are on the community page, click the white “Discussion” tab below the community name.
On this page, you will be able to view all threads by subject for that community. To search for a particular subject, use the Search bar on the far right side of the vertical blue navigation bar at the top of the page. Once your search results have come up, you can sort those results by relevance, most recent, or least recent by using the “Sort by” bar on the right side of the screen. You can also further filter your results using the “Refine by” section at the left of the page. Here you can expand or restrict your search to certain communities, search by tags, or choose a specific time frame for the post to have been made. Once you have found the discussion you were searching for, click the title link to bring up the message thread.
Q9: What actions can I take in the discussion archive?
While viewing a discussion thread (see above), click on the title of an individual message. To the right of the title will be a white “Recommend” button, which you can use to signify that this particular message contains quality information. To the right of that title will be a blue “Reply to Discussion” button with an arrow to the right of the button. Clicking that arrow will reveal a dropdown menu with several other action items. You can reply to the sender personally (see Question 4), post another message in this thread, print the message, or mark the message as inappropriate.
Adding Contacts
Q10: How do I search for other members?
In the vertical blue navigation bar running along the top of the page, click the third tab, “Directory.” From here you have two search options: basic and advanced. The basic search contains the search fields of first and last name, company name, email address, city, and state/province. The advanced search contains the basic search fields along with additional functionality to search by listserv community membership, law school, areas of practice, and bar license.
Q11: How do I add other members as contacts?
To add someone as a contact, search for the individual in the directory (see Question 10). When the individual comes up in your results, simply click the blue “Add as Contact” button on the right side of the page. The individual will then get an email that you wish to be contacts and can choose to accept or decline.
You can also click the individual’s name to view his/her profile and click the blue “Add as Contact” button underneath his/her name. From here, you can also send the individual a private message or download his/her virtual business card by clicking the “Download vCard” button.
Q12: How do I know if someone has invited me to become a contact?
You will receive an email from the system to your personal email address (the one where you receive listserv emails) informing you that a member has requested to add you as a contact.
You can also view any pending contact requests in your inbox within the community system. Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu. Click the fourth tab below your name, “My Account,” then choose “Inbox” from the dropdown. Here you will be able to view any pending contact requests.
Q13: How do I view my contacts and their information?
Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu. Click the second tab below your name, “My Connections,” where you will see a dropdown menu with three options. “Contacts” will show you all of the members who are your contacts and you can click an individual’s name to view his/her profile. “Networks” will show you how many members practice in your areas of practice (based on what you filled out in the “Areas of Practice” section of your profile). “Communities” gives you a list of the listserv communities to which you belong.
Managing my Account/Profile
Q14: How do I edit my profile?
Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu (the percentage bar above the button tells you how thoroughly your profile has been filled out). From your profile page, you can edit your contact, work, education, and other information. For each section, either click the blue pencil icon next to the section title or the green “Add” button. Many of these links redirect back to the database, where your edits will be stored and will carry over to appear on the listserv community site.
Q15: How do I preview my profile before saving changes I have made?
The platform currently does not have a way for you to preview your profile before saving changes. If you would like to see what your adjustment(s) will look like, send us an email at membership@consumeradvocates.org and we can send you screenshots using a test account.
Q16: How do I determine my privacy settings?
Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu. Then click the white “Account” tab below your name and choose “Privacy Settings” from the dropdown menu. Here you can decide whether to be included in the community roster and also set who is able to view certain aspects of your profile. You can choose to let all members view your information, only your contacts view your information, or no one view your information. Note that there is an option for "Public" to view your information, but there is no public, nonmember access to our software. Only current NACA members can access the software.
Q17: How do I change the signature that appears in my emails from the community?
Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu. Then click the white “Account” tab below your name and choose “Discussion Signature” from the dropdown menu. Here you can add different elements to your signature or remove them. This signature will be used when you send messages while logged in to the community platform. When you respond to or send messages directly from your email server, it will be able to pick up the signature from your personal email.
Q18: How do I set my email preferences to choose what kinds of messages I receive and how often I receive them (for example, individuals messages verses daily digest)?
Navigate to your profile by clicking the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choosing “Profile” from the dropdown menu. Then click the white “Account” tab below your name and choose “Email Preferences” from the dropdown menu. Here, you can choose whether to receive general emails (for example, messages regarding your community engagement), administrative messages, contact requests from other members, and notification emails when someone comments on your content.
To control the frequency of your community messages, click the blue “Community Notifications” button in the middle of the page (you can also go back up to the white “Account” tab and click “Community Notifications” from the dropdown). Here you have four options for receiving messages to your lists (the preferences need to be set separately for each list):
- Real Time: You will receive an individual email every time a new message is sent to the community.
- Daily Digest: You will receive one email each morning containing all of the list’s messages from the day before.
- No Email: You will receive no emails from the list at all but will remain a member. You can still view messages and discussions by logging in to the online community.
- Consolidated Daily Digest: This option combines multiple list digests into one email so that you will receive one email each day containing the digest messages from all of your lists that are part of the consolidated digest. You can choose which of your lists you want to be included in the consolidated digest by checking the box to the right of each list’s name. In addition, you can choose to still receive real time or individual digest messages from the lists that are part of your consolidated digest by adjusting the bar directly below the “Notification Settings” heading. If you set the bar to “Yes,” you will receive no other emails from your lists other than the consolidated digest. If you set the bar to “No,” you can then choose which type of individual email (real time or digest) to receive from your lists in addition to the one consolidated digest.
Q19: How do I change the email address to which I receive messages?
To receive community messages at a different email address, navigate to your NACA profile and scroll down to the "Listservs/Communities" section. Here you can add an email address to be used specifically for your list messages.
Using the Document Library
Q20: How do I upload a document to the resource library?
Each community has its own document library, where all uploaded files are stored and able to be searched. When you are viewing one of your community’s pages, click the white “Library” button in the navigation bar directly below the community’s name to enter the resource library. Documents sent with messages as attachments are automatically added to the library.
When sending a message using your email provider, attach the document as you would with any regular email. Once you send the message to the list, the document will be uploaded into the resource library, where you can then go to tag the document (see question below).
When sending a message through the online community, compose your message and then scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you can click the blue “Attach” button. A screen will then pop up for you to upload your document to your message. You can choose a folder in the library for your document by clicking the “Edit library entry details” link after uploading the document and before sending the message. Once you send the message, your document will be uploaded into the resource library, where you can then go to tag the document (see question below).
You can also upload a document directly into a community’s resource library without sending a message. Navigate to the community’s library and either click the “New” button below the “Folder Contents” heading or the green “Create New Library Entry” button. Clicking either of these will take you to a screen where you can name your entry, enter an optional description, choose a folder in the library for your document, and choose the type of file you are uploading (standard document, video, etc). You will then be taken to a screen where you can upload the file. If you upload more than one file at a time, the next screen will allow you to name each individual document and rearrange their order. On the last page, you will be able to tag the document.
Note: If you upload multiple files in one entry, each file cannot be given its own tag and the entire entry will be tagged together; therefore, if you have two files that need separate tags, you should upload them in two different entries.
Q21: How do I tag a document in the resource library?
If you upload a document directly into the library, you can tag it during the upload process (see Question 19). Since the document tags "live" in the libraries, a document can only be tagged after it has been added to the library. Once you have sent a document to one of your communities, navigate to the community’s resource library and click to view the document you wish to tag. Below the document, you will see a “Tags and Keywords” heading. Click the green “Add” button to the right of this box and you will then be able to choose from the list of available tags. The tags are organized by community so be sure to only use the tags that fall within your community’s heading.
Q21: How large can files be when I attach them to emails or upload them to the library?
When sending a file as an email attachment, it can be up to 30MB in size. When uploading a document directly to the library, it can be up to 1GB in size. For large attachments, therefore, it is recommended that you upload them online to ensure that they are saved to the library.
Q22: How can I view and search a community's document library?
Navigate to that community’s page by clicking the “Communities” tab in the vertical blue navigation bar running along the top of the page and then “My Communities.” You can also click the arrow next to your image or the silhouetted image in the top right corner and choose “Communities” from the dropdown menu. Once you are on the community page, click the white “Library” tab below the community name.
On this page, you will see all folders within that community’s library. Click on a folder on the left side of the screen (under the “Folders” heading) to make the folder’s contents visible on the right side of the screen (under the “Folder Contents” heading. The contents of the folder will automatically open in folder view but you can change to list view by clicking the blue button to the left of the “Create New Library Entry” button.
You can view a library entry by clicking its name and then clicking the “View” button below the “Folder Contents” heading. This will bring a preview of the entry up in your browser and allow you to open the attachment, as well.
To search for a document, use the Search bar on the far right side of the vertical blue navigation bar at the top of the page. Once your search results have come up, you can sort those results by relevance, most recent, or least recent by using the “Sort by” bar on the right side of the screen. You can also further filter your results using the “Refine by” section at the left of the page. Here you can expand or restrict your search to certain communities, search by tags, or choose a specific time frame for the post to have been made.
Q23: What actions am I able to take in the document library?
To view an entry in the library, click its name below the “Folder Contents” heading then click the “View” button. This will bring a preview of the entry up in your browser. To the right of the entry’s name, there will be a blue “Action” button. Clicking on this will bring up a dropdown menu, from which you can create a permalink (a direct link to the document page for you to save) or mark the document as inappropriate if you have concerns. If you are the individual who originally uploaded or sent the file in a message, you can also edit or delete it.
Q24: What if I need more help with completing certain tasks?
View our video tutorials that give step-by-step instructions for performing certain tasks (note that you’ll need to login to view this page). We will continue to add more videos over the coming weeks.
If you are still having trouble, please reach out to us at membership@consumeradvocates.org or 202.452.1989, ext. 102.