Dear HarmonySite Administrator,

One last set of changes to your HarmonySite before Christmas...

1.  New Help Guides

As you may already be aware, the HarmonySite help guides were not very comprehensive.  They only covered a small fraction of the many things that you, an administrator, might need to know about your HarmonySite.  We've made some improvements in that regard.  There are now many more guides available.

Also, they've been moved to a new location.  They can now be found here:  https://harmonysite.freshdesk.com/support/solutions   Please update your bookmarks/favourites.  One excellent benefit of this new location is that the help guides are now searchable - via a Search box at the top of the page.

If you visit the old help-guide location (www.harmonysite.com/guides), you will be automatically redirected to the new location.

Note that the new location has buttons/links at the top of the page to "Login" or "Sign Up", in order to submit a new ticket.  We would prefer you didn't do that, and continue to submit tickets by email, to support@harmonysite.com.

If you have any specific topics that you'd like to see a help guide on, that aren't listed in the new set of help guides, please let me know.  I'll compile a list.

2.  New "Checklist" Page

This is an important new feature for NEW HarmonySites - ones that are still in the process of being prepared for launch.  Existing HarmonySites that have been in operation for some time may still find some benefit from this.

The new feature is a checklist of all the steps required to prepare your new HarmonySite for launch to your members and supporters.  There are 26 items on this checklist.  Each item includes:

• A description of why the step is needed
• One or more links to the relevant area of your HarmonySite to complete the task
• Possibly some links to our (new) help guides

You can find this new checklist by visiting your "Administration Dashboard" (using the "Admin" link at the top of any page).  At the top of the Administration Dashboard you'll see a new message that looks like this...

Click the "View details" link to see the full checklist itself, showing which ones have been completed and which have not.

Everything you see on the Checklist page should be self-explanatory.  If it's not, please let me know via return email.

Some items on the Checklist page have Possible work to do in the "Status" column.  This means that the HarmonySite software has no way of telling whether this step has been completed by you or not.  You may already know that that step has been completed, and if so, you can click the "Mark as completed" link.  If you don't know, click the other links in the "Actions" column to review.  If you're still not sure, email me and I'll check for you.

Once all checks are completed, the new message across the top of the Administration Dashboard will automatically disappear.  But you'll still be able to access the Checklist page, via a new link in the "Website Config/Info" section of your Administration Dashboard, called "Website Set-up Checklist".

3.  "Send Email" Page Improvement

We have received the following question many times:  Why does the "Send Email" page show ALL of our members, even former members?  And can we please restrict that list to just active members?

The answer we've always given is that you may one day want to send an email to former members or to anyone else in your database.  But given the number of people that have requested that this be changed, we've finally done so.

The list now defaults to listing just your regular/active members.  But it's also easy to display any other set of members, including the entire database.  There's a new link just above the list of member names, called "Select different list", as shown below...

Click that, and the page will reload showing the list you selected.

NOTES:

• Be sure to select your list BEFORE you compose your email.  When you "select a different list", any email you've composed will be lost.  The page will actually warn you about that, but be careful anyway.
• Depending on what link you clicked on to get to the "Send Email" page, that new link may not be visible.

4.  Refreshed Look of Site

Finally, we have been busy refreshing the "look" of elements of your HarmonySite, making subtle changes so that your site looks cleaner, more modern, and in line with current web fashions.  The changes also make your site look more consistent across different browsers.

You may not even notice the changes, and that's a good thing.

REMINDER:  We still get several people sending support requests to mark@harmonysite.com.  Please please PLEASE advise ALL members of your group that may ever ask for support from us to NOT send support requests to that email address, and instead to send them to support@harmonysite.com.  There are a few exceptions to that rule, including billing enquiries, and questions about parent-body HarmonySites such as BHA, BHNZ, SABA, various SAI regions, etc.

That's it for now.  Have a great holiday season, everyone!  And thanks for being a HarmonySite user!

Mark Virtue

HarmonySite

Australia

+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)

In North America, call:  1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)

Skype name:  mvirtue

mark@harmonysite.com

www.harmonysite.com