Sixent new feature round-up
A large number of important enhancements in Sixent have been released in the past few months. I've only highlighted a few of them in our blog so here is a complete round-up of Sixent's new capabilities.
Some of the new features only benefit Sixent Enterprise customers, but most of them improve the experience for every member in a Sixent site. This includes all members of Sixent.com.
Let us know what you think and what you'd like to see in the future.
August 2009
In August, we concentrated primarily on making Sixent Groups more manageable and usable.
Group Templates
Starting with a template can save time and help you learn what's possible in any system. Sixent now supports the ability to convert an existing group into a template that becomes immediately available for everyone to use. Our enterprise customers are especially thrilled about this enhancement as it saves time, flattens the learning curve and helps institute best practices. Pre-built templates will be available soon in Sixent.com and enterprise clients can deploy them now. Once some templates are in place, you will see the option to use a template whenever you start a new group.
Group & Page Copying
Sometimes it's even more useful to copy a group you've built rather than using a template. Group copy is also the most effective way to split a large group into two with the least amount of manual work. To use this feature, you must be the owner of a group already. Choose to start a new group and you will see a list of your own groups from which you can make a copy. You will be provided with options to control which parts of the group are copied. Once in a group, you can copy pages as well (see this blog post for details on page copying).
Site Administrators are provided additional options when copying an entire group, such as retaining all members and the ownership of copied items. This enhanced copy feature is accessed from the Site Administration area.
Group Management
Each Sixent Enterprise site has a dedicated "Site Administration" area that allows site managers to oversee all aspects of their branded instance of Sixent. This area now includes a new section for managing groups. Groups can now be searched and sorted by their ID, alias, name, owner, type (e.g. templates), member count, item count, storage utilization and date created or updated. Administrators can use this interface to transfer a group's ownership, designate templates, copy groups, delete groups and more.
Additional Privacy Settings
Control over privacy is an important aspect of the Sixent experience. The multi-profile nature of Sixent ensures you have full control over what's shown to various audiences. One key audience is the people you have not yet added to your contact list. They only have access to your open profile, typically called "Public". New privacy settings are now in place that let you control what those visitors can see and do on your public profile. You can limit access to your activity stream and/or limit who can start a conversation with you.
Change of Ownership
Sixent Groups act as repositories for content contributed by multiple people. As groups evolve, members will come and go and leave their contributions in the form of pages and content items. There comes a time when the contributions made by one person need to be managed by another. Sixent now allows group owners and administrators to transfer the ownership of a page or item to another member in the group. Transferring one or all items owned by a user can be done in a few simple steps. To access this feature, you must visit a group where you are the owner or administrator. Select the drop-down menu control that appears next to the page or item owner's photo. On pages, it is at the bottom under "Show Page Details". For items, it's in the top-right corner.
September 2009
In September our focus was on "discovery". We wanted Sixent to offer more value by connecting you to more relevant people and and content. The activity stream on your dashboard is already excellent at promoting discovery, but it's limited to the activities of your existing contacts and groups. We needed to make it easier to find entirely new people, groups and content across the site.
Site-Wide Content Search
Providing a centralized search interface for all content types and content sources was our goal and we achieved it. You will now see a "Content" tab to the right of your "Dashboard" tab. It lets you perform keyword searches across all content contributed in the site and includes all openly shared items as well as private items you are permitted to see. The search can be paired down by item type or by its source. For example, you may want to find the most viewed files with the keyword "health" that have been uploaded in groups.
Group Content Search
An obvious extension to site-wide search is the ability to focus the search on a single group. This can be done without leaving the group by accessing the new "Search" tab in all groups. The search options are almost identical to the site-wide search but they allow you to refine your search to specific pages within the group. A list of popular tags used in the group is also displayed.
Group Directory & Search
Your activity stream already notifies you of the groups started and joined by your contacts but now you can easily find entirely new groups. Select "Groups" next to your "Dashboard" tab to browse or search available groups. If site-level categories have been defined for groups, you will see a group directory. You can find groups by popularity, creation date and keyword search.
People Directory & Search
Finding people in Sixent via keyword search has been present for some time now. We've now expanded the "Find People" section to match the capabilities described above for groups. A new tab labeled, "People" now appears next to your "Dashboard" tab as well. If site-level categories have been defined for people, you will see a people directory. You can find people by first name, last name, username, registration date and keyword search.
Unified Search in Toolbar
The search form on the main toolbar has been expanded to support all types of searches: people, groups and content. To use it, simply start typing a keyword or name in the toolbar and a menu of options will appear. Direct matches from your contact list will still be suggested to you. While you're visiting a group, the search will default to a group content search but you can still select another option.
Site Categories
Organizing people and groups together at a site-level is an important part of site management. Sixent now includes a feature called "Site Categories" that does just that. The most obvious use is to create categories for the people and group directories. Another is to define roles that need broader permissions (e.g. ability to start groups or greater storage space). Finally, site administrators can exploit Site Categories for automation of group and contact assignments.
This feature is best illustrated by an example. A site category might exist for everyone located in Europe. People placed in the "Europe" category (can be self-selected or centrally assigned) can be automatically have the European management team added as contacts and be placed into groups setup for the European members.
Cross-Group Item Listings
It's now possible to add additional Item Listing pods to a group page that draw content from another page in the group or an entirely different group. This is a great way to share content and make better use of centralized resources.
You must be the administrator or owner of the"source" group to select it in the Item Listing pod configuration. If the source group is setup to hide content from non-members, the pod's viewers will still need to have a valid membership. They will be prompted to join the group if they are not yet a member.
To access this feature, simply choose "Add Pod" from the "Add" menu on any group page. Select the "Group Pods" tab and then pick "Recent Items". When the configuration options appear, you will see the option to select your other groups in the "Filtering Options" section.
October 2009
In October we worked to deliver a dedicated discussions tool and several other important features.
Discussions in Groups
Sixent already supports open conversations on profiles, private direct messages and comments on every shared item. We've now added discussion forums with threaded replies and comments to every group. Group pages now have a dedicated tab labeled "Discuss".
Imagine each group page as having two sides. One side is for content while the other is for discussions. Browsing content is now done on the "Browse" tab while the "Discuss" tab takes you to the conversations on the same topic. You can navigate up and down the page hierarchy without exiting the selected mode. If desired, group managers can feature topics so they are presented above all others.
Improved Orientation for New Members
New registrants rarely have the time to fully appreciate all that's possible in their Sixent site. They might not know how best to get started so it's important to provide guidance. Sixent site administrators can now enable a new "Welcome" tab that appears to new users before they are exposed to their dashboard. It's an opportunity to grab the person's undivided attention. It is typically setup to appear each time the user returns to the site until they dismiss it. The content of the Welcome tab is defined in the Site Administration under Settings > Site Appearance.
Site Administration Settings
As mentioned above, Sixent Enterprise is a version of Sixent deployed by organizations that want a fully segregated, branded and customized social network. The separate site is hosted at its own domain, has a unique appearance and its own set of rules. Ramius assists new customers with their initial site setup and customization but administrators can now make a number of important configuration changes on their own via a new "Settings" section of Sixent's Site Administration area. Its sections are Site Settings, Account Settings, Site Appearance and Email Templates.
Comments (3)
Bob Newby3 months ago
Phil, glad to know you'll be releasing a REST-based API. My community will need to leverage the Sixent API to effect bi-directional integration with a SaaS solution for managing paid membership signups; various subscription packages; recurring billing; subscription upgrades, add-ons, downgrades, and expirations; provisioning and updating of user accounts and account attributes; etc. An example provider in that domain is Recurly (http://recurly.com/). -Bob
Philippe Dame3 months ago
Thanks Bob. I'll have a look at the site you've suggested and take it into consideration. We plan to also allow customers to extend their Sixent Enterprise sites through RSS feeds and an REST-based data API.
Using such data, you could execute a People Search and plot the results on a map with a bit of extra development. This would be a good example to provide our customers once that's available if it doesn't make it directly into the core application.
Bob Newby3 months ago
Phillippe, thanks for sharing this informative overview. Have you given any consideration to a people search that combines (i) attributes such as a person's expertise and interests along with (ii) geographic parameters, the default being the locale of the searcher? For a very good example of this, see http://www.bringfido.com/, put in Ottawa as your destination, press search, and observe the annotated Google map that displays, which itself is clickable, etc. This functionality will be a must-have for my LuthierBuilt.net community, which we can discuss in person at your convenience. I am sure it will also be of high value to many other Sixtent Enterprise communities as well. Best regards, Bob
