Just so you all know I haven't forgotten you (I told you I would create a test area that those who were interested in restructuring the support community home page in some small ways). I actually created the test site for us to "play" but haven't invited those of you who were interested quite yet. Due to the nature of the site, it won't look exactly like the current support community -- but maybe it will be enough of a place to get some ideas going... Thanks for your patience! I plan to invite those who are interested in participating by early next week. Some of the items to discuss: - how to group/display the list of communities on the support home page - different available "widgets" that might help you - what you might like to see in the left nav or right nav - or anything else you'd like to talk about What would you think about the private group being something like ad advisory board for the online communities of sorts? We can work that out later. I'll talk with you all soon! ... View more

An update: I have created a private "testing ground" community and will be sending invites to those who are interested. If anyone else is interested in participating in this temporary testing ground community let me know. The purpose of this community will be to dicuss different aspects of the Online Support Community layout and functionality (such as we have done using this post). The reason I created a separate communtiy is so that we can "test drive" different layouts and concepts without affecting the live site. Look for an invite in the day or two for those who indicated interest in this post. Let me know via this message if you would like to also be invited. Thanks in advance for your participation and valuable feedback to help grow the community! Community Admin (LainieH) ... View more

Michelle.. that is a great idea..What I'll do is create several versions in the testground private community I just set up (will invite you all to it soon) and take screen shots for poll.. excellent idea. I love all your feedback!! (makes my job easier) -- your input matters.. thanks again!! ... View more

I like this idea a lot : what do others think? ... View more

Michelle, I agree I don't think we need that featured content widget.. if everyone is okay with it I will remove it for now (to prevent confusion).. I will do that - and then we can make additional improvements in the future. ... View more

Tom, yes you are correct -- I added that widget to the right nav. Please see the new layout I just published (I included a screen shot in my recent post). I found a widget called "Unanswered Questions". It behaves exactly like "Recent Content" but the only caveat is that it is possible some of the questions may be answered (it will be a matter of recommending to community members to mark a question answered). I think this widget has value because if someone does mark a question as "answered" it disappears from the list.. I hope you all like this one -- I think it might be a good option. The Recent Content widget in the right nav may be confusing -- It might not have that much value and those questions would still surface under "Unanswered questions". I know I've made a lot of changes on the fly. Thank you for understanding my questions and responding. I will set up that private testing ground over the next few weeks for those who are interested. Lainie ... View more

NEW Info: All, based on your recent comments (thank you!)  I have made the following changes (see screen shot). I have also added a new widget that looks like Recent Content, but it is called Unanswered Questions.  I really like this option but want you to know a few things about it: About Unanswered Questions: Pros: - this widget will show all recent questions -- just like the former "Recent Content" widget -- from all communities.sas.com communities. - there is not a recursive bug with this widget - it is a good way to keep watch on questions that really are unanswered - We might be able to get rid of the 'recent content' in right nav if this widget serves a good need - the only difference between this widget and the "recent content" widget from before is that only questions that have not been marked "answered" will show up (here is an example of a question marked answered): Cons: - not all members of the community mark a question "answered". So it is possible that a question will be answered and still show up on the list.. this might be just an educational item for the community. What do you think? - Community Admins have the ability to mark items "assumed answered" ... View more

Michelle, I've moved ideas and "Recent Content" to the right nav per your suggestion .. ... View more

Hi Tom, actually (if I understand your response, let me know if I don't): You can still see Recent Activity on the main page of the SAS Support Communities (see this screen shot with notes). PS: I just added recent content to the right nav. So in other words, Recent Activity will show all community activity.. ... View more

All who responded to this test on Friday. This morning, I spoke with our technical team and the software vendor.  I have a better understanding now of some underlying issues with the "recent content widget" that gives you the view that you like at the bottom of this support communities home page. This view lists all recent content by sub-communities (such as SAS Procedures, SAS Visual Analytics, etc). Apparently there is a known bug with our current version of the community software that causes a problem with the "recent content widget" when it is configured to be recursive. This may eventually get resolved - but for now it is a bug we need to deal with, unfortunately.  What happens is that this widget gets overloaded and causes the community site to crash.  Per the software vendor, the "widget is configured to be recursive and is placed on the top level space it essentially has to traverse the whole space tree checking which spaces the user has permissions to view every time someone hits the homepage." To correct this issue - and try to come up with a happy medium between what (I believe) you like to see on this main page and what I need to do to handle the performance bug, I have made the following change: 1. I made the 'recent content" widget non-recursive - meaning you will only see a list of discussions that are coming in at the top level of the SAS Support Communities (not from the sub-communities - such as SAS Procedures). There is a lot of activity at this top level - of course, as you know,  one issue is that many questions are being asked at this level (vs. inside a community).. that is another issue to address soon. 2. I added the "recent activity" widget that shows activity from ALL communities so that you do still have visibility to individual activity at the individual community level. You can also always view ALL content by clicking on the Content Tab on this page -- or by looking at the "recent activity" list below "recent content". I realize this is not ideal - but believe this might be a good opportunity to analyze the current community layout and get your input into what will work best moving forward. Questions for you: 1. I am working on some other ideas for the near future - I may need your input. I'm interested in creating a private community to test ideas (for example, to analyze the structure of the community, test adding categories and showing you other layouts for you to vote on that we could roll out based on your input). Would anyone be interested in participating? If so, let me know and I can invite you to the testing ground. 2. So that you can view all content on the page better - I would like to make the "available support communities" list more compact. There are a few options. I could just make the current list more compact by putting them in columns of 5 each -- or I could move it to the left or right nav in a longer list. Are there ways I should groups this list better? I know this was a long message.. Thank you very much for your input, flexibility and ideas. Community Admin ( ) ... View more

Thank you all for letting me try that test -- I reverted back to how it was before. Since there might still be some intermittent performance issues with that widget - I will try to brainstorm ways to fix and see if there are other options. For now it should be okay. Thanks again!! ... View more

Hi I just saw some of your comments. I might give the RSS feed a try here and see what you think -- the reason I removed the "recent content" widget is because due to a minor bug with that widget- it was causing the system to slow - or even crash for several minutes. I was advised to test out the Recent Activity string - but I think I might test the RSS feed based on the recent feedback... ... View more

Hi Art - actually since the DS2 posts are currently private -- those won't show up here.. just the public forums for now. ... View more

I moved this to the Procedures community in order for you to have more SAS users view your quesiton. thank you ... View more