Ketan Soni Presents “The New Community Platform”

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By Ketan Soni

What You Need to Know About the New Community Platform

This year, the NCBA has switched to a new online community platform. This new community platform for Sections, Divisions and Councils offers many more features than the previous system. Below is a summary of the basics and what you need to know to utilize this platform and its features.

Things You Can Do

The Old System

The New System

Instructions

Post Messages via Email

Yes

Yes

Click here

Reply to Messages

Yes

Yes (but not to messages in the old system)

Click here

Look at Archives

Yes

Yes

Click here

Upload Profile Picture

No

Yes

Add Social Media Links to your Contact Information

No

Yes

Click here

Post or Reply through the Website

No

Yes

Click here

View Discussions by Thread

No

Yes

View Attachments

Yes, difficult

Yes, easily

Click here

Choice of Replying “only to sender” or “to everyone”

 Yes, very difficult

Yes, easily

              Get a “real time” or                  Daily Digest email Yes Yes             Click here

 

Overview

  1. The website for the new community platform is: https://communities.ncbar.org. You can login with your NCBA username and password.
  2. The new user agreement can be found here.
  3. Help/FAQS can be found here.
  4. You can easily change your preferences to “real time” or “daily digest” by navigating to your profile icon in the top right of your communities home page and clicking Profile > My Account Tab > Community Notifications > Notification Settings. You can also change your contact information and profile picture under the profile tab.
  5. My Communities consists of the Sections, Divisions and Councils you are a member of.
  6. Community Home reflects the most recent discussions, upcoming events, as well as any new announcements for the community.
  7. Discussions allow you to send a message through your email (Outlook, Gmail, etc.) by using the email address listed at the top of your community’s home page (i.e., Family Law or Family Law Council) under “Discussion Email Address.” You can also post or reply to a message directly through the community platform. Discussions also allow you to view discussion threads and search for previous messages sent.
  8. Library provides access to all Section, Division and Council resources. For the Section/Division, this includes bylaws, resource links, forms, publications, etc. For the Council, this includes minutes and meeting packets.
  9. Members helps you search for the contact information of any member within your community.

Things You Can Do Now

  • You can upload a profile picture to appear next to all of your messages.
  • You can add social links to your contact record.
  • You can post or reply to a message directly through the online community platform.
  • You can view discussion threads organized by message and topic.
  • You can easily view any attachments from messages sent by navigating to the library tab and choosing the first folder that is named by community.
  • You now have all resources and information surrounding each of your communities in one location.