Quick Tips & Tricks

Quick Tips & Tricks

Q: My Habitat Profile information is not accurate:
A: Is your Habitat Profile showing inaccurate information and repetitive updates to your profile are not working? That is because the data is being fed to Habitat through the NIRSA Member database. If you update your NIRSA Member profile, it will feed back accurate information to your Habitat Profile. To do this, go to nirsa.org and log on. Click on the "my profile" link in the upper right hand corner. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on the "click here to edit my profile" link. Now you can update your NIRSA Member profile, save the information, and give it 24 hours before checking your Habitat profile.

Q: How can I use Habitat to reach out to all NIRSA members?
A: Many NIRSA members have expressed the need for a central place to communicate with colleagues across the Association, much like the old NIRSA Recsports Listserv. Based on this feedback, all NIRSA members are now subscribed to Habitat’s NIRSA Community discussion forum.

The NIRSA Community discussion forum on Habitat is the replacement platform to the old NIRSA Recsports Listserv. With all professional, student, and associate members now subscribed, you can use the NIRSA Community to post the comments and questions that you want to reach the most members, including members outside the more refined regional, student, associate, or topic-specific communities to which you may also belong.

To access the NIRSA Community, just click on the "All Communities" link under the "Directory" tab above. Click on "NIRSA Community" and read what your colleagues have posted, respond to a post, or start your own discussion. With a much more diverse audience, the NIRSA Community on Habitat will help you connect with your colleagues more efficiently and more clearly than ever before!

Q: How do I join a Community?
A: To Join a Community, click on the "Directory" button and select "All Communities". You can search for specific Communities, or scroll through the list of communities. To join a community, click on the community, and if it is open to all members, there will be a "Join Community" button you select. Once you join a community, you will be asked how you want to receive Discussion threads posted to that community. Select the option you want, and you are good to go. If there is no "Join community" button, it is most like an "Invitation Only" Community. These are most often NIRSA Committees, Work Teams, Boards, etc.

Q: How and where can I ask a question on Habitat?
A: If you would like to pose a question or ask for guidance on a project from the NIRSA Membership, the best place to do that is to post a discussion in a Community. You can only post discussions in Communities you have joined. If the question is for the general NIRSA population, you can post it in the NIRSA Community. If it is specific to Aquatics, you can post it in the Aquatics Community and/or cross-post it in the NIRSA Community. The beauty of these "Discussion Threads" is that they are archived. Anyone that "replies to Discussion" will be answering the question to the entire group, which is a great way to capture a variety of answers. Documents can be attached to the discussion post and will be saved in the community library for future reference.

Q: How will I know if there have been recent discussion posts?
A: Depending on the method you chose for receiving community discussions, most members are notified electronically that there has been a recent post to one of their Communities. You can choose between real time emails sent to either your computer or mobile device, a once a day "digest" that compiles in one email, all the discussions from the previous day, or no email notification. You can also use different email addresses for each community you join.  To do this, Go to the "Discussions"; tab and select "My Subscriptions".  There you will see a line under each Community that states: Subscribed as: xxxxxxx@xxxxx.edu change.  Just select the change link and change the email address for the community, and then save the change.  

Q: Does everyone see the same "NIRSA Discussions" that I see??
A: The posts in the "NIRSA Discussions" column you see on the homepage of Habitat are unique to you. They are discussions from the Communities you have joined. You will not see discussions from communities you haven’t joined.  

Q: How do I create a Community?
A: Go to the directory button on Habitat and select "All Communities". There you will find a button that says "Create a New Community". Here you name and describe the community you are creating. If you want the Community to be by invitation only (only the creator of the community can invite members to join---these are most often committees, work teams, boards, etc.), select that option. If you want any member to be able to join, select the "NIRSA Members" option. The "Who can view your Community" refers to whether the community name will be listed in the roster of communities. If "viewing" is by Invitation only, only members that have been invited to join the community, will even know it exists, as everyone else will not see it listed on the communities roster.  

Q: Why did Habitat replace the old List Servs?
A: The Habitat Discussion posts function exactly like the old list servs, but with more options. The challenge now is getting more members to join the various communities, similar to when the List Servs began and not many people subscribed to them. The more members that join, the more responses you will get to your questions. In Habitat, all discussions are archived so you can go back and find past discussions, unlike the List Serv where the same questions got asked fairly regularly. Members can attach documents to their discussions (which are also archived in the libraries), which they were unable to do on the ListServ. The number of ListServs we could offer was limited, but the number of Communities in Habitat is not. Encourage your colleagues to join communities and post, and the networking will be astounding!  

Q: I’d prefer to have certain forums go to a different e-mail address. Is this possible?
A: You can use different e-mail addresses for different forums. For example, you could have one forum go to your personal e-mail and others go to your work e-mail. On the "My Subscriptions" page within Discussions, under each community to which you’ve subscribed, you’ll see "subscribed as [e-mail address]. Change." Just click the "change" link, enter a different e-mail address, click "OK", and click "Save" at the bottom to confirm the change. If you change your main e-mail address in your profile or with us, it will update all of the forums that used your former e-mail address. Those that use a different e-mail address will remain the same.  

Q: How can I sort discussion threads?
A: By default, Discussion postings are displayed by the newest posting by date. There are three ways that the Discussion postings can be displayed; Date, Subject, or Author. By clicking on any of these headings, the postings can be sorted on those either Ascending or Descending.  

Q: How can I get in touch with Associate Members?
A: Did you know that Associate Members are now on Habitat? If you are looking for a particular product that one of NIRSA’s Associate Members offers, simply post a discussion in the "Associate Member Community" and they will be able to view your posting and respond to your questions!.  

Q: Where is the best place to share IMPORTANT information with all Habitat Users?
A: If you have something important to share and want your message to reach the largest NIRSA audience possible, post a discussion in the NIRSA Community. Unless a member has opted to unsubscribe, all NIRSA Members are a part of this community and will receive regular alerts when discussions are posted. Discussions from this community will also show up on the Habitat Homepage when a user logs in. To access the NIRSA Community, just click on the "All Communities" link under the "Directory" tab above.  

Q: How do I send a private message to someone?
A: There is more than one way to send a private message to a NIRSA colleague through Habitat:  
  • From an individual’s profile page
    If you are on an individual’s profile page, simply select the "Send Message" link located under their contact information in the top center of the page.
  • From a discussion posting
    If you are reading a discussion within a community and you would like to reply only to the creator of the discussion, select the "Reply to Sender" on the menu located on the left side of the discussion post. Your message will be sent only to the creator of the posting and will not be added as a thread for all community members to read.
  • From a blog posting
    From a blog posting you will see the creator’s photo on the right side of the page, select "View Profile" then select the "Send Message" link located under their contact information in the top center of the page.