BigTent Blog | Product updates and news for groups

Dear BigTenters,

Your primary and sign-in email address is the address you use to sign in to your BigTent group as well as the email address at which you receive group announcements and forum messages.

We often get asked whether this primary email address can be changed. Indeed it can. Please see instructions below on changing your primary email address for this week’s member tip.

If you are a group leader, please feel free to pass these instructions along to your members by posting them into your group.

Changing your primary email address is a quick, three-step process:

1. Sign in to www.bigtent.com with your old email address.

- Go to my bigtent > settings, then click “change” next to your email address.

- Click “Add another email address” and enter your new email address in the box. Click “Add.

2. We’ll send an email to your new address so that you can verify it.

- Please note: The email comes from no_reply@lists.bigtent.com, so please check your spam or junk folder if you have difficulty finding it.

3. Click the link provided in the confirmation email to verify your new address.

- You’ll be taken to back to your BigTent “settings” page.

- Click “make primary” next to your new email address. You’ll need to enter your password for security reasons.

Once you add a new primary email address, you’ll also have the option to remove your old email address. Remember that after you change your primary email address, you’ll need to use this address to sign in to BigTent.

As always, please go to support.bigtent.com to find answers to any additional questions, or contact us at support@bigtent.com.

Cheers,

The BigTent Team

Dear BigTent Admins,

BigTent’s events feature has everything you need to set up any kind of event for your group:

To add a group event:

1) Go to my groups > [group name] > events and click “Add event.”

2) Enter information such as event name, date, location, and description. You can create single, multi-day, and repeating events.

3) Add a contact person for members to contact with questions and an event coordinator to help manage the event.

NOTE: A contact person does not have to be a member of your group and is not granted any special event permissions. The information will only be visible to group members and is for informational purposes only (e.g., in case a member is late).  An event coordinator must be a member of your group and will be granted permission to edit/delete this event, manage RSVPs, and send announcements.

4) Specify RSVP options and configure payment for attendance, if desired. Please note: BigTent charges a transaction fee of 4.9% + $0.49 for paid event items. See below for links to more resources about RSVP options.

5) Ask guests to bring items and set up restrictions and requirements, if desired.

6) Set up tasks or volunteer shifts for attendees to sign up for, if desired.

7) Add items for purchase, if desired.

8) Specify additional event options such as guest list, sharing, and promotion.

9) Save and create your event, or save and send a notification to members.

Need more step-by-step instructions? Watch our video tutorial.

Cheers,

The BigTent Team

BigTent allows you ultimate control over your information. While group leaders may require certain information, such as address and phone number, to approve your membership, you can choose whether that information is shared with other group members.

Information about you is shared with other members on your profile and on the member list (if enabled by a group leader). There are two ways you can control what information is shared with other group members:

During registration:

• Check the box to beside each piece of information if you would like it to be visible to group members on your profile and the member list (if enabled).
• Complete the enrollment process.

If you are required to enter any information (address, kids’ information, etc.) which you are uncomfortable sharing with the group’s leaders, please contact a group administrator directly.

After you’ve registered:

• Go to my bigtent > settings > profile privacy and choose your group from the drop-down menu.
• Check the box next to any information you’d like to share with the group. Leave unchecked any information you don’t want other group members to see on the member list or your profile.
• Save your changes.

To view your profile, go to my bigtent > profile. Use the drop-down menu to see how your profile looks to other members of your group(s). To edit any of the information on your profile, click “settings” and choose from the personal, contact, and family info tabs.

Remember, BigTent values your privacy and will never sell, rent, or give away your information to any third party. Period. 

Cheers,

The BigTent Team

Here’s a tip for all you BigTent Admins!

As a group admin, you can either temporarily suspend a membership, with the choice to reinstate the member later if you desire, or you can permanently remove a member from your group.

The latter action cannot be undone, so please exercise caution! In both cases, the member will stop receiving your group’s BigTent email communications and will no longer have access to your group’s pages on BigTent. However, these members will still have a BigTent profile in order to manage their memberships in other BigTent groups.

To suspend a membership:

1) Go to my groups > [group name] > manage > manage membership > members.
2) Click the “active members” tab and check the box(es) beside the name of the member(s) in question.
3) Choose “suspend membership” from the “select an action” drop-down menu.
4) Confirm your choice.
5) Click the “suspended members” tab to see that you have successfully suspended this membership. From here, you can also reinstate a member.

To completely remove a member from your group:

1) Go to my groups > [group name] > manage > manage membership > members.
2) Click either the “active members” tab or the “suspended members” tab and check the box(es) beside the name of the member(s) in question.
3) Choose “remove member” from the “select an action” drop-down menu.
4) Confirm your choice.

Please note: This action cannot be undone. When you confirm you want to remove the member, his or her membership term will end immediately, and you will no longer be able to communicate with this member through BigTent, although his or her information will still be available to you through your membership reports. If you have made a mistake and did not mean to remove a member, you’ll need to re-invite the individual or quick add them back to your group.

As always, please go to support.bigtent.com to find answers to any additional questions, or contact us at support@bigtent.com.

Cheers,

The BigTent Team

Do you know what the holiday of Cinco de Mayo signifies? What has become a national day of drinking margaritas originated from the Mexican-American defeat of the French army, who was backing the Confederates, during the American Civil war. It has since become a day to honor Hispanic cultural pride. Go here to learn more about the colorful history of this holiday.

So how will you celebrate Cinco de Mayo? Dailybuzz Healthy Living has you covered with various recipe ideas for you to create your own Mexican fiesta. Then get the kids engaged with these fun, hands-on holiday-themed activities.

Or take the streets to celebrate with dance and music at your local Cinco de Mayo festival! Here are links below to a sample of festivals happening in some larger cities, but if your home is not listed here, check your local newspaper for festivities going on in your area.

San Francisco

Washington, DC

Chicago

Denver

Phoenix

Dallas

(Flickr: dbking)

Enjoy a wonderful weekend!

The BigTent Team

Hello BigTenters,

Did you know you can control how many emails your receive from your BigTent group? Whether you want a daily digest of forum activity, or get notified for every new post, you can control it all in your email settings.

Here’s what you do:

1) Go to “my bigtent” >> email settings.
2) The different communication channels are listed across the top: Forums, News, Classifieds, Deals, BigTent Blink, Personal. Choose which channel you’d like to change the settings for.
3) In Forums, you will see the forums listed on the left and “How I’m Notified” settings on the right. Select the checkbox of the forum you’d like to edit notification settings for and select the setting in the “Change Notification to” drop-down.  Options include web-only (no-emails), Email daily digest, Email every topic and comment.

4) In News, you will see your BigTent group(s) listed on the left and the “How I’m Notified” option drop-down on the right. Select your notification setting from the drop-down for each group. Options include email every entry, web-only (no email), and daily digest.
5) In Deals, you can choose whether you’d like BigTent to email you exclusive deals and promotions available only to BigTent members.

6) Make sure to save your changes!

As always, please go to support.bigtent.com to find answers to any additional questions, or contact us at support@bigtent.com.

Cheers,

The BigTent Team

Hello BigTent Admins,

You’ve let us know through the Customer Satisfaction Survey that you’d like more tips on how to use BigTent, so we are going to grant this request! Look out for weekly “how to” tips to help you manage your group.

For this week’s tip, here are the details on how to manage member permissions.

What Permissions are in Place by Default?

- By default, all group administrators have posting, moderation and admin permissions for all components (e.g., group enrollment or accounting functions, event / calendar-related functions, group news postings, and file uploading, as well as forum and group news moderation functions).

- By default, members joining the group can post to the forums, and view just about everything else. You can assign additional permissions for members to post an event, group news, files, etc. When assigning posting permissions to group members for events and news, be aware that they will be able to notify all other group members via email about events or news entries they themselves have posted.

Who can assign permissions? What can be assigned? And to whom? 

- Group administrators have permission to perform all administrative functions, including assigning other members to be group administrators and administrators of subgroups.

- A group or subgroup administrator can assign permissions to individual members to perform roles associated with enrollment, managing membership data, and accounting functions.

- At the feature level, a group administrator can assign permissions to members to perform event / calendar-related functions, group news postings, and file uploading, as well as forum and group news moderation functions. Refer to the detailed table below to see exactly what a member endowed with each permission can do.

Using the Drop-Down to View Permissions by Feature

To give someone permissions to a specific feature:
1) Click the “Roles in:” drop-down menu on the permissions page

2) Select your feature (e.g., calendar)

3) Click “Filter”

4) Click the “Add a member” link located under the role you want to give the member, (e.g., post, moderate, etc.)

Please note: If you are granting permissions within a subgroup, the member must already be enrolled in the subgroup to be granted permission.

Granting Permissions to All Members for Files and Events

You can grant permissions to all of your members at once to post events and files. If you grant all group members permission to post to the calendar or the files, they can post new entries, but they can only edit the files or events they have created, not other members’ events or files.
1) Select “events” or “files” from the drop-down menu.

2) Click “Filter.”

3) Underneath “Post” click the “change” link.

4) Select “all group members” (e.g., post, moderate, etc.)

If you’d like a visual, go here for a video how-to guide.

As always, please go to support.bigtent.com to find answers to any additional questions, or contact us at support@bigtent.com.

Cheers,

The BigTent Team

This Sunday is Earth Day. What started as a demonstration of 20 million Americans on April 22, 1970 protesting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plans, and other abuses against the environment became an international movement to annually recognize and honor our Mother Earth. Now, “green” is a household word that is making us more conscious of our actions’ consequences on the environment.

Talk about the strength of community! There are no limits to the impact created by people coming together around a common idea or goal. All that is needed is an idea and an openness to connect with others. And we here at BigTent are proud to provide an online tool to support this connection

So, how will you celebrate Earth Day this year? EarthDay.org has plenty of ideas and tools for you to make a “green” impact, including:

• participate in an Earth Day event in your area
• create your own Earth Day event
• commit to doing a “green act”, (i.e., composting, biking to work, recycling, using less water, etc.)
• donate to an environmental awareness organization

Happy Earth Day from BigTent!

The BigTent team

Awesome photo above from http://blurredhistory.blogspot.com/. 

Hello BigTent Admins,

For this week’s tip, here is the nitty gritty on how to moderate your group forums:

To define moderation settings:
1) Go to manage > forums > moderation.
2) To moderate the messages of an individual member, enter in the email address of the member you wish to moderate into the “Moderation List” and click “moderate member.”
3) To moderate all posts for all members, select “yes” to the question “Should all topics and comments posted to this forum be moderated?” This means that no comments will be posted without you first approving them.

4) Be sure to save your changes!

To control settings for anonymous topics:
1) On the same moderation page, indicate your preference for the question “Can members post anonymous topics?”
2) Save your changes.

To access the moderator dashboard and release or reject pending (flagged and moderated) messages:
1) Go to my groups > [your group] > manage. If your group has forum messages in the moderation queue, you’ll see the count of messages under “Moderate Content” on the group dashboard. Click here to review each message.
2) On the Moderator Dashboard, click on a pending message to review it. You’ll also see all messages that have been flagged by group members.
3) Choose to approve, reject, or hold for later. Make sure to press “Save.”

To disallow comments on a certain forum topic:
1) Find the topic in your group’s forums and check the “flag” box below the topic.
2) De-select the “Allow comments” checkbox.
3) Click “Submit”.

For more detailed steps with visuals, you can go here to see a video tutorial on forum moderation.

As always, please go to support.bigtent.com with any additional questions, or contact us at support@bigtent.com.

Cheers,

The BigTent Team