Working With Communities

From the Communities Home page, you can do the following:

You can do a basic or an advanced search for available communities from the communities.

ProcedureTo Perform a Basic Search for a Community

Steps
  1. Type a keyword in the Search Communities text field.

  2. Click Search.

    Search results are displayed with links to communities matching the keyword.

ProcedureTo Perform an Advanced Search for a Community

Steps
  1. Click the Advanced Search link.

  2. In the search fields, type keywords and select search operators.

    The following search operators and parameters are available:

    Find Results

    Performs a keyword search for available communities.

    • All of the words -- Specifies that the search result contains all of the keywords similar to the Boolean AND operator.

    • Any of the words -- Specifies that the search result contains any of the keywords specified similar to the Boolean OR operator.

    • The exact phrase -- Specifies that the search result contains the exact text string similar to using quotation marks.

    • Passage search -- Specifies that the search result contains a combination of words in the order in which they are typed in the text field similar to the Boolean AND and OR operators.

    Communities Name

    Searches communities by name.

    • Contains -- Limits the search result to community names that contain the word that you typed in the text field.

    • Not contains -- Limits the search result by omitting community name that contain the words that you typed in the text field.

    Creator's Name

    Limits a community search to the name of the creator of the community.

    • Contains -- Limits the search result to community names that contains the creator name that you typed in the text field.

    • Not contains -- Limits the search result by omitting community name that contain the creator name that you typed in the text field.

    Created within the

    Specifies the time period when the community was created and allows you to limit your search to a certain time period.

    The search results are displayed as links to communities matching the keywords.

  3. Click the link to the community you want to view.

ProcedureTo Browse for Communities

You can browse for communities from the top-level category links on the Communities Home page. You can browse for categories when you do not know the specific name of a category, or when you want to explore communities under a specific topic.

Steps
  1. Click the category link.

    The subcategories are listed with their names, but without any description. Communities are listed as links with the number of members in the community and a short description.

  2. Click the link to a community, or click one of the subcategories.

    Clicking a subcategory displays a list of its subcategories and a list of communities at the bottom.

ProcedureTo Create a New Community

You can create a new community or delete a community that you created or own from the Communities Home page. You can join and leave any available community. The creator of the community is the owner of the community. The owner of the community can transfer the ownership to another community member or delete the community. The community owner can also add a new member. Members can join any community.


Note - You must be a community owner to delete a community. The Delete button is visible to community owners only.


Steps
  1. Click Create a New Community.


    Note - If you want to create the community in one of the available categories, click one of the available subcategories.


  2. Select the category in which you want to create the community, and click Next.

    The Describe New Community page appears.

  3. Type a name for the new community in the Name text field.


    Note - Every community should have a unique name even if they are created in different categories.


  4. Describe the new community in the Description text field, and click Next.

    The Select Template page appears.

  5. Select a template from the available options, and click Next.

    The selected template assigns the layout of the new community.


    Note - The option to select a template appears only when there is more than one template available on the system.


  6. Review the selections, and click Finish.

    The Community Created message appears with details of the category in which the community was created. Once created, you cannot change the community selections.

  7. Click the links to proceed to the newly created community, or return to the Communities Home page.

ProcedureTo Delete a Community That You Created or Own

Steps
  1. From the Communities Home page, select the community that you want to delete.

  2. From Community Info, click Delete.

  3. Click Delete again to confirm.

ProcedureTo Join a Community

Steps
  1. From the Communities Home Page, find a community that you want to join.

  2. From Community Info, click Join.

  3. Click Join again to confirm joining the community.

    The community page refreshes and the member view is displayed.

ProcedureTo Leave a Community

Steps
  1. From the Communities Home page, select the community that you want to leave.

  2. From Community Info, click Leave.

  3. Click Leave again to leave the community.

    The community page refreshes and the community page for visitors is displayed.