Navigation

My Home

The first page one sees after log in is ‘my home’ page. My home is one’s own community of one – a personal window into PCO.

Three principal views of ‘my home’ are the content aggregator, my communities, and administration.

Content aggregator shows most recent content from all communities one is a member of. Content is grouped into content types and shows most recent six contributions of each content type, regardless of the community it was contributed to.

Click on any contribution title to read the contribution, or click on a community name next to the contribution to go to that community.

My communities shows a list of all communities one is a member of. This is a list of all communities one actively participates in and is interested in content of those communities.

Click on community title to go to that community, or click remove to terminate membership in the community.

Administration shows the list of communities one can administer but is not actively participating in. This is usually the case when one has delegated a number of sub-communities to other to manage and has no direct interest in participation (for example, some sub-communities might be in different language, but linked to the topic one started in parent community). This list is only visible to those who are leaders of at least one community.

Both my communities and administration allow you to sort communities alphabetically by title or short name, or to display the hierarchical relationship among communities.

Page Header

The page header is visible on every page within PCO. It provides access to your profile, search box, and button to access the help guide.

If a community has a logo set, it will also show the logo and the community title and subtitle.

Below the logo and community title is the breadcrumb bar, showing you where exactly you are within the site hierarchy. Click on any elements of the breadcrumb bar to jump to the page described within that element. For example, if you are viewing a file within a sub-folder, click on the folder name in the breadcrumb bar to return to that folder.

Directory

The Directory shows all communities within PCO that welcome participation from new members. A community leader can decide not to expose the community in directory – in that case, it’s existence would not be obvious to users browsing through community directory.

Community directory is publicly visible – one does not have to be PCO user to browse the directory. This also means that the directory will be indexed by search engines, and will appear in their search results. If you are a community leader, make sure your community title and description are well-written and useful in describing what your community is about.

When in community directory, use the paging bar on the top or the bottom of the page to page through the list of communities you can join.

When you spot a community you would like to participate in or explore its content, click on the join button to request membership.

Discover Other Communities

The Discover Other Communities button is visible on your home page. Click on it to jump into community directory and discover interesting communities you can participate in.

Community Homepage

The community home page has three principal sections: a welcome message, notifications, and latest content added to the community, broken down into different content types. Of the three, only the latest content is always visible.

If a community leader provided the welcome message, it will always be visible at the top of the page.

If you are a leader, and there are pending requests to join the community or content to be approved, my notifications section will appear above the latest content list. Once you handle all pending requests and approve all content, the my notifications section will disappear.

The latest content shows latest five of each content type added to the community, sorted chronologically. If there is no content of certain type, the grouping for that content type will not be visible.

Content Selector

When viewing a any page within a community, a green bar appears in the upper right corner of the page. The bar contains words settings or about depending whether you are a community leader or community member, and then followed by content type names the community supports.

Discussions – click on this link to show all active discussion threads, sorted chronologically – most recent updated discussion first.

Library – browse the community library.

Announcements – archive of announcements to community members.

Events – calendar of events of interest to community members.

Members – a list of all community members, a who is who of this community.

Action Points – task list with task assigned to community members.

A community leader might have decided to disable certain content types in a community, or prevent the membership list from showing. Accordingly, the content selector will only show enabled content types.

About/Settings link, however, is always visible. Click on it to see details about the community.

Leader Tools

A community leader has access to a handy menu for quick actions related to the current community:

Add community allows creating of a sub-community of the community the leader is currently viewing.

Create member will create a new PCO user profile and will add that profile as a member into the current community. This function is also available via settings page, under members section.

Invite member will allow the leader to invite a new member to the current community. This function is also available via settings page, under invitations section.