Help > Managing Members

About Members

Members are the users of a Clearvale network. Depending on the type of network created, you can limit membership to company employees or make the network available to people outside your organization. Because Clearvale is simple to use, little technical expertise is necessary to become a member or to administer a site. When you belong to a network, you are given a role:

Administrator has full management control over a network or ecosystem.
Disabled members have had their accounts closed.
Member is a network user and can be given administrative rights by a network administrator.

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Anonymous Setting

Members have the option of having their profile information, such as name, contact information, profile photo, and so forth, hidden from other members. To make yourself anonymous on a network:

Go to Profile>Edit Profile and select Account Settings.
Under Account Name Settings, select the check box next to Make me anonymous on this network.

Clearvale assigns an anonymous user name to you, for example "Member 30." Your anonymous name appears next to any content that you add to the network. Note, however, that your real name appears for you, the network owner, and any network administrators. You can choose to no longer be anonymous at any time.

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Configuring Invite Settings

How people can join your network depends on how the administrator configures invitation and member settings. To configure these settings, select Admin>Network Administration (only administrators have this option).

Scroll down to Joining & Invitations and make the following selections:

If you want people to be able to join the network by using a Sign Up Now link on the home page or by invitation sent by you, select the first box. You have the option of requiring administrative approval for all membership requests.
If you want non-administrators to have the ability to invite people to your network, select Allow non-administrators to invite people to join your network. Note that with this option, administrators do not need to approve memberships.

Before inviting new members, administrators might consider going to Admin>Email Templates to customize the appearance and wording of network invitations. To customize the appearance and wording, use the editor to change font color and size, add images, and add text. The template will be used for all invitations, including those sent by network members.

NOTE: Do not alter the information located between the percentage symbols ("%"). The text within the percentage symbols is automatically replaced with your first and last name, the network link, and an optional personalized message when you send the email.

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Inviting Members

Administrators and members can invite people to a network who are affiliated with a specific organization or from anywhere, depending on the type of network created. For example, with a Private (Business) network, membership is restricted to those with specific e-mail addresses. Public networks are open to the general public.

To invite members to join your network:

If you are an administrator, select Admin>Invite Members. If you are a member and your administrator allows you to invite new network members, you will see an Invite Members tab displayed on the network.
Enter e-mail addresses of the people to invite, separating each address with a comma or carriage return.
You can enter a personalized message to include with the invitation. When done, click Next.
You can assign communities to your invitees now or click Send Invites to send the invitations. To assign communities to your invitees now, click Assign Communities. You can assign people to a community by using the check boxes to indicate which communities you want the invitees to belong; when the invitees accept your network invitation, they automatically become members of the communities to which you assigned them.
Also see Approving Members.

You can also invite multiple members to a network by uploading a plain text (.txt) file that contains one e-mail address per line. To use this method:

Under Import File, click Browse...
Navigate to the text file containing the addresses and click Upload.
Click Send Invites to send the invitations or Assign Communities to assign communities to your invitees, as described above.

Once new members sign into a network, they will see a Get Started block display on the network's home page. This block contains links to areas of the network where new members might want to perform tasks immediately.

The block will display until closed. Once closed, it cannot be displayed again; however, tasks such as updating a profile or joining communities and so forth can still be performed.

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Approving Members

The network's invitation settings might require that the administrator approve the membership requests of people who want to join your network. If this is the case, administrators receive an e-mail notification when someone not invited by them wants to signs up for the network. Additionally, administrators can use the Admin>Member Administration page's tabbed menu choices to see information about the network's member population. Administrators also use these tabs to approve or reject membership requests:

Members contains the list of current site members and a drop-down menu to select the network roles of Member or Administrator; you can also select Disabled to disable an account.
Sent Invitations contains a list of email addresses to whom you've sent invitations. Date sent is also listed.
Members Awaiting Approval contains the list of people who want to join your network and whom you have not yet approved. You can approve or reject membership requests here. Additionally, if a member joined your network and needs no approval, or if you invited a member and the member has not joined yet, you can resend the person a confirmation email. The confirmation email is the email that new members receive from Clearvale and to which they must respond as a final step before becoming network members. Sometimes these emails may be ignored or may go into email spam folders, so resending a confirmation email can be helpful.
Rejected contains the list of people who wanted to join your network and were not allowed.

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Creating Contacts

Contacts are people on your network with whom you have a connection. Both administrators and members can create contacts for themselves. When you add someone as a contact, the member immediately shows up in your contacts list and you show up in theirs; no approval is required. A benefit of creating a contacts list is that, within a large network, your contacts list can act as a shortcut to information about people with whom you interact frequently.

Also see Contacts in Working with Widgets.

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Updating Profiles

Both administrators and members have individual network profiles. You can edit your own profile by selecting Edit Profile at the top of the page. You can:

Edit Profile information, such as what you are working on, your telephone number, and other details. Note that the contact email field in this screen is for display only; it does not update or alter the email associated with your Clearvale account.
Change Profile Picture by uploading a new photo and also create a thumbnail of a photo.
Set Member Notifications by making check box selections. See Managing Notifications for more information.
Set Community Notifications by making check box selections. See Managing Notifications for more information.
Update Account Settings such as your full name, display name (the name displayed on the network), password, and preferred language.

To edit the page layout of your profile, select Edit page layout from your profile page and choose the widgets that you want to display on it.

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Managing Notifications

Notifications let you know when someone performs an action. To set your notification preferences, go to Edit Profile. You can set preferences for Member Notifications and Community Notifications.

Member Notifications. Member Notifications are notifications settings used when actions are taken on blog posts, images, forums, files, and videos. For example, you might want to know when someone comments on your blog posts. With the exception of forums, notifications are received for newly added content and for updates to content. To set your notification preferences, select Member Notifications. A page with the following sections appears:

Personal Content. In this block, you can select the method in which you want to receive the notifications about content you post. For instance, you might want to know if someone comments on your photos.

Member Content. In this block, you can select the method in which you want to receive the notifications about content that other people post. For example, you might want to know when someone posts a new blog. You can choose to receive notifications from all network members or from only your contacts.
Teamwork Content. In this block, you can select the method in which you want to receive the notifications about Teamwork. See Teamwork for additional information.

Community Notifications. Community Notifications are notifications regarding actions taken in the communities to which you belong. For example, you might belong to a community in which many people are collaborating on a time-sensitive project and want to know when new content is added. In this case, select Community Notifications. A page with a list of your communities appears. Check the ones for which you want to receive notifications.

You can select the method in which to receive notifications:

My Feed notifications are sent to your My Feed page. To view your My Feed page, click Profile>My Feed.
Email notifications are sent to the external email account associated with your profile.
Network Inbox notifications are sent to Clearvale Network Inbox which you can access by clicking on the envelope icon at the top of the screen.

You can choose to receive notifications using all methods by checking all boxes. For no notifications, leave the boxes unchecked. Note that with the My Feed page, many notifications appear here regardless of your notification settings, with the exception of community notifications. To have notifications from a particular community appear on your My Feed page, you must check the My Feed delivery option for that community.

Viewing notifications on the My Feed page

Click Profile>My Feed to display your My Feed page. The My Feed page includes:

Community notifications based on the settings that you specified on the Community Notifications page.
Notification of changes to, or comments made on, files or blog posts that are shared with you.
Notification of your network activity.
Updates from your contacts about what they are working on.

You can share an update with your contacts about what you are working on too by entering an update in the What are you working on? field in the My Feed page and clicking Post It.

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Managing Member Content

Both administrators and members can control content placed on the site. However, administrators have the ability to perform tasks such as deleting or disabling items that they did not create, while members can only edit or delete items that they themselves created. If an item seems inappropriate for the site, a member can report the item to the site administrator.

To edit or delete a blog or file:

Go to the item. Select the item that you want to change and click the Edit link or the Delete link. If you choose delete, all comments associated with the item are deleted, too.

To report an item to the site administrator:

From the page in which the item appears, click on Report this. In the page that appears next, describe why you are reporting the item. Click on Report this when done.

To check and see if any content has been reported on a site that you administer:

Go to Admin>Reported Content. You can select Delete it or Archive it. If you select Delete it, the report about the content item is deleted from the network (not the content item). If you select Archive it, the report is archived. If you want to delete an item that someone has reported, click on the link provided in the report. You will be taken to the item. From there, you can select the delete link to delete the item.

Administrators also have the option of disabling members who post inappropriate material. See Disabling Members.

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Managing Passwords

Whether you are an administrator or a participant, if you lose your password you can obtain a new one from Clearvale. From the login page, select the Lost Password link. When the Lost Password page appears, enter your login information, which is typically your e-mail address, some verification characters, and click Request. A new password is sent to you through e-mail.

NOTE: You can create multiple networks and belong to multiple networks using the same login. For example, using the e-mail address of ann@omnigamez.com as your login, you might belong to a Clearvale network at the gaming company at which you work and also join a Clearvale network that a vendor administers. When you do this, the password associated with the login remains the same in each network.

For example, if you go to your profile in the gaming company network and change your password, your password for the vendor network is also updated. Additionally, if you later join another network using ann@omnigamez, you continue to use the same password. This association between login and password helps to reduce confusion if you belong to many networks using the same e-mail login.

Ecosystems and Passwords: Profiles within an ecosystem are propagated throughout each network to which the person belongs within the ecosystem. To learn more about the Ecosystem premium service see Managing Your Ecosystems.

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Using LDAP Authentication

Network administrators have the option of requiring LDAP authentication before users access a network. To enable LDAP or reconfigure your settings on a specific network:

Go to Admin>LDAP Administration.
Enter the information as indicated for each field. Instructions for each field are provided.

When you configure your LDAP settings, you can choose to allow LDAP users to register for your network without an invitation.

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Disabling Members

If an administrator has a member on the network that must be removed (perhaps because the member no longer works for the organization), go to Admin>Member Administration. Find the member in the list and use the drop-down menu to select Disabled. You can re-enable a member at a later date at any time.

NOTE: Files, communities and other content associated with disabled members remains in your network.