Is there a manual or video explaining how to use this new communities?

[CharlotteCain]

Hi Community admin, I am struggling to learn how to use this new community in the first place. I mean I really am finding it difficult to search posts by super contributors. I am an ardent fan of @data_null__ and have been reading each of his posts where he 'participated'  in the ascending order of dates from the time he started. I was on his 22nd page or something like that until yesterday and now I feel lost. Likewise, I am a keen reader of all super contributor's solutions among the likes of @Ksharp ,  Steve Denham, @FriedEgg , @art297

Please explain how to do the same search that I used to before. I would appreciate if I could still access to all their posts from their start till date.

Many Congratulations on the new community release!

Cheers,

Charlotte

[Rick_SAS]

There are some differences. To get started, look at the Getting Started Community: https://communities.sas.com/t5/Getting-Started/tkb-p/community_articles

There are several videos there, which are collected in a single post:
https://communities.sas.com/t5/Getting-Started/Get-your-SAS-support-communities-videos-fix-all-in-on...

As to your question about following the activity of particular super contributers, I asked @ChrisHemedinger a similar question.  He says that he will investigate whether it it possible to add this feature in the future. For now, the only way I've figured out is to look at someone's profile (like Data_null's) and scroll down until you see their recent activity.  It's not a replacement for the old Activity View because you would have to repeat the process for all the people you like to follow. Still, it is something to use until we can get more info from the administrators as to whether they can resurrect that useful feature.

[CharlotteCain]

Hi Rick, I'm afraid if that's the case where I can't get to read all that I want of any super contributor or any contributor for that matter, I'd be very disappointed with the new community release. That's something very unfair and I really hope @ChrisHemedinger does something about it. Believe me, it's very upsetting. 

Chris,All the valued contributions of users will be of no use to many folks if we don't have means to access them easily. Jesus christ!, Come on! please get the old ways of searching oldest posts by any user enabled. All the other fancy stuff like badges will only add value if the content remains in tact. It seems to be me there are badges awaiting for super contributors but their contributed material taken away. Good god almighty! sad: and heart broken already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler

[ChrisHemedinger]

Thank you for the comments, Charlotte. In our new platform, there is a way to do just about everything. Some is built in, and some we'll build up over time.

Hearing that you're interested in a view of the activity by all of the people you follow -- that's valuable to us!

[art297]

@ChrisHemedinger. A number of folks want to do similar things .. and not just of people they follow, but just search on someone's id.

When I search for my own posts it shows that only less than 200 posts are there. Surely I must have made more than 200 posts over the years.

Some years ago I put together a spreadsheet containing the links to all of Ian Whitlock's SAS-L posts. Unfortunately, he never gave me permission to post it on the web, thus I only send it out to specific people upon request.

A lot can be learned by reading all of the posts by a given individual although, admittedly, one has to carefully choose such individuals unless they want to learn how NOT to learn SAS.

I still want to know how I can let people know about AnalystFinder on the Communities. Surely, a portion of the community on looking for jobs.

[LainieH]

@CharlotteCain, 

Thank you for your important feedback. The good news is that this platform has so many rich features. We have only scratched the surface.  And I understand where you are coming from, I really do.  But I guarantee this platform is really great -- and we'll be using the rest of this year to get the user experience to the level we all want. There is a lot of work to do, so please keep your feedback coming...

I want to see if this would work for you. The search feature is very robust, and I was able to create this search URL of all Super Contributors: https://communities.sas.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/user?advanced=true&f=rank_name&phrase=Super+Con...

Know that you can click on Posts and view All Posts by a given person, such as @art297

 < click on the 5,754 posts .. it is a link (we'll make it more clear in the future)

For other user searches, here also is a direct link to Advanced Search: https://communities.sas.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/user.

To search for other Ranks or Users try this:

I'm going to try to find an easier way to do this, but: 

1. Go to Advanced Search: https://communities.sas.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/user.
2. Search the Exact Phrase of Super Contributor as shown below and choose Find Results in Rank

I hope that helps. We learn something new about what this community platform can do each day - and your comments really help us uncover what is possible. 

Here is an FAQ about the community.  https://communities.sas.com/t5/help/faqpage 

I agree the user experience and navigation needs improvement but the team is working behind the scenes. Thank you for being an important part of the community. Take care for now, 

Lainie

@ChrisHemedinger, @Rick_SAS, @art297

[Rick_SAS]

@CharlotteCain: Swearing is not required; the administrators understand that you are frustrated.

@LainieH: I understand that your suggestions are temporary workarounds.  As you explore more permanent solutions, recall that a useful feature of the old platform's Activity View was that it would remember what posts you saw and  enable you to view only new activity.  "New" means "since the last time I looked," and is not connected to a particular time interval such as "in the last 24 hours" or "in the last week."  Charlotte's note reminds us that it is helpful to see recent activity.  I don't want to slog though data_null's 5000+ posts. I want to see what he has responded to since I last visited the communities, whterht that was 10 days ago or 10 minutes ago.

We all recognize that a new platform has advantages and disadvantages, and overall this platform is a winner. Thanks for listening and responding to the various requests to make the Support Communities maximally useful. 

[CharlotteCain]

@Rick_SAS and @ChrisHemedinger Please accept my apology if I mentioned anything that sounded harsh. Honestly, I didn't mean anything bad. I value all your contributions and I learn a lot from all of you. Well, i was genuinely trying to make a sincere point on behalf of all intermediate and novice users. I have often noticed some super contributors like John(Data _null_) have touched most of the predominant and complex topics in the past with their solutions and having access to such amazing posts only helps many 'not' to ask repeatedly the same sort of questions.

Personally, I learn a lot of from these super solutions and I am happy that my own knowledge has improved significantly.  If it wasn't for you guys, folks like me would be struggling. I often do the same in SAS-L too and you know very well it's far easier there.

Yes, I agree that it's very colorful and glamourous here but ease of navigation and access to 'wealth' of knowledge in it's entirity would be unparalleled. Please take note of my message on the affirmative.

Sincerely,

Charlotte

[ChrisHemedinger]

@CharlotteCain - I took no offense!  We all want the same thing: for these communities to make SAS expertise easy to access by users of all levels, and for SAS experts to easily contribute in a productive and enjoyable way.

We're listening to all of your feedback and planning improvements as we go.  We're confident that this new platform will give us the head room we need to grow, but it will take us a little bit of time to educate you (and ourselves) how to be most productive, and for us to fill the gaps that opened up during our switchover.

Chris

[Ksharp]

Charlotte, I can't browse it properly. All the Layout got screw . I don't know how to fix it . I already updated my Chrome to the newest version. I already send an e-mail to Chris. Hope he can fixed it fast.

[LainieH]

Hi @Ksharp, I'm glad you contacted Chris. We need to know what is and isn't working - and we're taking feedback very seriously. If you have any screenshhots to share, this might help when we talk to the design team.

We're trying to respond to serious issues quickly. Thank you all for your patience as we work to provide you a great experience. Keep the feedback coming, as this helps with our decisions.

Best Regards, 

Lainie

[art297]

@LainieH: The superusers' link you created almost works, but it only shows up to 100 pages of 20 posts. Unless my math is off, more than 100 pages will be needed for the most frequent posters.