Leverage Community Platform

Community Administration Quick Start Guide

Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Updated April 25, 2007

Table of Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 3
System Capabilities.......................................................................................................... 4
Quick Start......................................................................................................................... 6
Common Next Steps........................................................................................................ 7
Summary and Feedback.................................................................................................. 9

Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Updated April 25, 2007

Introduction
Welcome! The Leverage Community Platform is an integrated suite of
applications which empowers your community members to identify, meet,
connect, share, and communicate with one another. This guide is intended to
provide you with an overview of the capabilities of your system and assist you in
configuring, launching, and maintaining your community.
Your community system consists of two primary sections.
The Community Website is the outward-facing community system where your
members will find one another, communicate, and collaborate. Depending upon
your configuration, your community website may provide social networking,
group discussions, file sharing, blogs, interactive chat, and other features to
allow them to engage and interact.
The Community Administration Dashboard serves as your community control
panel. With it, you may customize your community (configuring your colors,
logos, and the overall look-and-feel), determine who you like to give access to
your community, configure the features you will offer to your members, and
review the activity within your community. Only administrators are allowed
access to this dashboard.
This guide is intended to serve as a reference to the Community Administration
Dashboard.

Figure 1. An administrator uses the dashboard to configure and manage a community website.

Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Updated April 25, 2007

System Capabilities
Your Community Administration Dashboard includes the following areas:
Setup
Use this section to configure the look-and-feel of your community website. You
may configure the colors, fonts, and images which appear on each page on your
system.
Invitations
The platform includes an integrated set of functionality with which you may
send out email invitations to whomever you would like to join your community.
Members
This section allows you to search for and review individuals who have joined
your community.
Groups
Groups allow community members to self-organize, participate in forum
discussions, share files, and schedule group meetings with one another.
Chat Rooms
The Leverage system includes an integrated real-time chat system. You may
configure as many chat rooms as you like, and your members may communicate
with one another in real-time.
Polls
With this section, you may create opinion polls to solicit feedback on specific
issues important to you and your community members.
Blogs
Every member of your community may create their own personal online journal.
Other members of your community may then comment on blog posts.
Meetings
Each member of your community has the ability to reach out and schedule
meetings with others.
Schedules
Schedules are community-wide events which you, as a community
administrator, may place on the personal calendar of every member.
Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
Updated April 25, 2007

Ads
Use the integrated advertising section to display advertisements or
announcements to your community members.
Roles
This section allows you to define varying roles for each member of your
community. For example, you may grant certain members greater access to
certain features than others.
Dashboards
The dashboard section allows you to, at-a-glance, review the behavior of
members in your community.
System
This section is primarily intended for integrators, developers, and those who
wish to extend their communities using advanced design or development tools.
Watch Notifications
Each member of your community may subscribe topics in which they are most
interested. The system will then distribute emails to individuals when a new post
is made.
My Account
Use this section to review or upgrade your software license, or to add additional
users to your community.

Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Updated April 25, 2007

Quick Start
One of the best ways to familiarize yourself with your community system is to
configure it and invite yourself, or several individuals, into the system. This
section describes how you can rapidly configure, launch, and experience your
community in just a few minutes.
Step 1: Customize Your Community
If you havent already, go to the Setup -> Customize Design section of the system
to set the colors, fonts, and logos for your community.
Step 2: Send Out Invitations
Next, go to the Invitations->Invite Individual and enter in one or more email
addresses. Each individual you invite will immediately receive an email with
instructions on how they may join your community. Be sure to send one to
yourself so you can experience the process.
Step 3: Sign Up!
When you receive your email, follow the instructions to join your community.

Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Updated April 25, 2007

Common Next Steps

I would like to customize my profile questions to be more appropriate for my
community. How do I do this?
Go to Setup -> Customize Data. This section allows you to customize each
question your community members are asked when they sign up. Please note
that, while you may ask whatever number of questions you wish, many
community administrators find that using four to six questions strikes the best
balance between collecting information and providing a pleasurable user
experience for their community members.
I would like to make it so that my community is public that is, anyone who
reaches my website may click a link to join. Is this possible?
Yes. Go to Setup -> Customize Messaging, and add the following code snippet
to the front page, where XXX represents a code you may obtain from Leverage
Software.
<a href=signup.aspx?cid=XXX>Join Now >></a>

I would like to customize my community more fully. What are my options?

The Leverage Community Platform may be customized in three primary ways.
The best approach depends primarily on your design and technical capabilities.
First, go to the Setup -> Customize Design section. This allows you to set the
colors, fonts, and logos, and requires no programming effort. Please note that the
left and right header images on your site will also be used as the header logo in
all email notifications distributed by the system. For best results, we recommend
the total size for both images should be 770 pixels wide and between 80 and 120
pixels high.
Second, more advanced designers may use the System -> Customize Template
and System->Customize CSS features under the System tab. These two features
require some level of programming effort, but offer a great deal of flexibility for
both layout and display of your community. This approach is generally intended
for designers and developers who are familiar with the use of CSS classes and
HTML templates.
Finally, the Leverage Community Platform supports a full suite of APIs and a
toolkit of widgets which enable web site designers and developers to integrate
aspects of their community directly into other areas of your web site. For more
information on these APIs, review the documentation available on the Leverage
Labs website located at labs.leveragesoftware.com.
Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
Updated April 25, 2007

I would like to map my own domain to this system, so that it appears to come
from mydomain.com instead of leveragesoftware.com. Can I do this?
Yes. Simply point the desired URL to the IP address 63.246.1.73. Please note for
this to be successful, the format of the URL should remain the same. That is, you
should configure it so that http://yourcommunity.yourdomain.com points to
http://yourcommunity.leveragesoftware.com.

I need help! I would like my system to look, act, or work slightly differently,
but I cannot quite figure out how to make this happen.
The Leverage Community Platform is very flexible. Features can be activated or
deactivated according to your needs, the look-and-feel and layout can be
configured to appear dramatically different, and the system can be integrated
into external web sites and other systems.
If you are looking for additional documentation, go to the Leverage Labs website
(located at labs.leveragesoftware.com) to find what you need.
If you still would like additional assistance, Leverage Software has a very
experienced professional service staff who can help you achieve your goals
whether they be to answer a single support question or to provide full-service
work to fully design, configure, and launch your system. If you would like to
learn more, please do not hesitate to contact us by email or phone at any time.
We are here to help make your community as successful as possible.

Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Updated April 25, 2007

Summary and Feedback

Leverage Software is continually working to design and develop the best
community-building software in the world. If you have comments or feedback
on any item in this document, or would like to learn more about Leverage
Software, please contact us using the information below.
Leverage Software
Pier One, Bay Three
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 946-6161
sales@leveragesoftware.com

Copyright 2007 Leverage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Updated April 25, 2007