Connections 3.0.1 Frequently Asked Questions
1. What does following a community accomplish?
When you follow a community, or other content, the notifications show up in your News Feed on your Home page, making it easier to track what has changed in your selected communities. You can also configure your preferences from “Settings” to determine from which communities you would like to receive content and email notifications, and how frequently.
2. It looks like following a community generates an automatic daily update, is this the de facto for all communities?
The defaults are configurable, and in Connections are located. Another point is that you can override your settings for specific content – as you may want a daily newsletter for the Communities you are following, but want an individual notification each time someone edits a particular wiki page within that Community.
3. What are the main differences between joining a community and following? What are the added benefits? Are users encouraged to do both?
When you join a community, you have access and you can participate. When you are following a community, you get the added capability of notifications that let you know what is happening in the community even if you haven’t visited it recently. Whether someone should do both depends on how they prefer to work. If you are working in a community all the time, you might not want the notifications, because you are already seeing new content as it is created. If you want notifications to trigger when you visit a community, or to lead you to items that you are going to take action on, then you want to follow it.
4. If I’m already a member, why would I want to follow the same community?
Take this example, in a community that is being used to run a project—you may want to know each time certain events occur in the community — because they are the trigger for you to go to the community and take action.
An example of when you may not want to follow community is one that serves as a reference/resource of information, and when you want to interact with it, you go and read what is there and contribute your information. You would be a member, but perhaps not follow it.
5. How are previously established networks with coworkers in previous versions of Connections affected by the new ability to “follow” an individual in the recent upgrade?
Your network is a two-way flow and conveys that there is a mutual and visible acknowledgement of that relationship. If you are Network Contacts – you see each others updates, and other people see that you are in each others network. Following is quite different.
If you follow someone – you see their updates, but they don’t see yours unless they choose to follow you. You can see who follows you, and receive a notification that you are being followed. Other people don’t see this information. Following conveys an interest, not a relationship.
6. How do the email preferences affect moderated communities, or communities that send emails via the “mail community” function?
These email preferences aren’t related to the “mail community: function in a community. They are related to content you have created and content you are following.
7. If users have difficulty with bookmarking tools and images, is there an easy fix?
If users have issues with bookmarking and adding new images, it may be related to their browser cache. Clearing out their browser cache should resolve the issue.
