Group Office: File Locking and Version Control

Group Office has proven itself to be immensely useful to me, for chapter activities, for document development and as a source of some of the more obscure or perhaps just time pertinent material. (If you’re running a conference you’ll really appreciate it !) One thing not commonly shown is how to have a configuration controlled document, edited sequentially by a group of people. There is a locking feature used to maintain control while you are editing the document. Along with the file version viewing capability, document editions are maintained as properties of the single document name to keep your group office space nice and tidy. See: Group Office Landing Page and scroll down to “File Locking and Version Control”

Addition of Chapter Website Links

I have added some of the Chapter websites to the side of this site.  This allows chapters that utilize their chapter websites prior and outside of the main blog to continue to use their sites without having to post everything to the main SAWE blog.

Please still post to the main blog!  We want to link the Chapter sites so they do not become obsolete and can still be used as means of communication among chapter members.

I only added the Texas, LA, and Hampton Roads sites currently, as they appear to be the most utilized sites.  If you wish for your chapter site to be added as a link to the SAWE blog please let me know and I will add it.

Thank you for all those that have subscribed thus far, posted, and have reached out to be involved in the blog.  This is what we hoped for and envisioned when we first talked about a blog. Please continue to reach out to your chapter and make sure people are subscribing! That is the easiest way to be involved and be kept up to date on posts.

Melissa Rapier

How to interact on the blog

I will do my best to hit all the points on how you can interact on the blog.  As I stated from the beginning this will be a bit of a learning curve to start, but I hope that you stick with us and utilize the blog as much as you can!  As I am finishing writing up this blog post, I realize it may be long, but I believe it hits a lot of the questions on how to interact with the blog.  I have tried to test everything out myself so that I can speak to everything as best I can, hopefully I am not wrong on anything!

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND SOMETHING DIDN’T WORK AS I STATED! I WILL UPDATE THE POST TO REFLECT ANY ISSUES AND HOW TO WORK AROUND THEM!

Subscribe to the Blog

On the right side of the blog, the last menu allows you to subscribe to the blog via email.  This will allow you to receive notifications of new posts!

Create an Account

You do NOT need a account to interact on the blog, you will have limitations but those will be addressed in each section.  I do highly recommend that you register an account, this will allow you to do more as well as subscribe to the blog to be notified when new posts occur

To create an account, on the right side of the site you will see “Recent Posts”, “Recent Comments”, “Archives”, “Categories”, “Meta”

Under the Meta section you can register an account, this will also automatically make you a “Subscriber” to the blog.

After you register an account, you click the username and password to login, this is not necessarily a WordPress account, I believe this just registers you to the SAWE blog.

When you login, it should take you to your profile, please make sure you have your name filled out, and chose your full name to be displayed. This way we aren’t trying to guess on who a user is that comments!

Commenting on Posts:

The easiest way for members to interact with the blog is comment on posts.  This provides us feedback on our articles, and we believe the discussions that can come from the blog will provide us something that sending out email blasts and newsletters couldn’t.

  • You do not need a login to comment on posts
  • At the bottom of a post you can “Leave a Reply”
  • Provide your comment, name, and email address
  • You may also check to be notified when follow up comments occur, so if you forget about a post, you will see when you have responses to your comments! You can also check to be notified of new posts by emails
  • Admin has to approve the comment, this helps us weed out spam bots from posting on all our posts.
    • If you have an account, once you are approved for a comment once, you do NOT need approval on future comments
    • If you choose to not have an account and provide your name and email for comments, you will still need to be approved for all comments
  • As we start posting regularly, I will check the site daily to approve comments.  I am also notified of comments via email so I will see when things are happening and will approve them as soon as I can.
Posting to the Blog

If you wish to post an article, update, etc. to the blog — first off, thank you!  This is exactly what we want.

  • You DO need an account to be able to post to the blog.
  • Once you have Registered an account as discussed above, you will be a “Subscriber” to the SAWE blog.
  • Once you are a “Subscriber” to the blog, I can change it so that your role is not a subscriber, but a contributor or author.  This will allow you to be able to post to the blog
  • You will need to contact me and let me know that you wish to be able to create blog posts, otherwise you will be a subscriber
  • If you do end up being a contributor or author, I will send a separate email to you on how exactly to post and things you can add (i.e. categories, tags, etc.) if you are having trouble figuring anything out!
  • Another option is to post through me, if you have a write up or an article that you want posted you are more than welcome to contact me (Melissa.rapier@sawe.org) and I will post for you.  I have no problem doing this!
Other comments
  • Remember that this is a public blog.
  • If you are a blog poster, keep this in mind if there are things you do not want on the public blog, we can and will link stuff back to the SAWE website where users will need to log in to view

Thank you if you made it this far and read everything, I hope that I hit on all the main points and cleared up any confusion.  Please do not hesitate to ask questions if you continue to have any, I will do my best to answer them.  Looking forward to the future of this blog.

Melissa Rapier

(Melissa.rapier@sawe.org)

 

 

Welcome to the SAWE Blog!

In the newsletter we discussed all the changes that are coming in regards to our social media presence.  I am excited that this blog is one of those changes.  We really want this to be interactive, having members ask questions, add comments, and get conversations going on the blog.

This blog is a public forum so it is not just for members.  For anything that we plan to be for members only, we will hyperlink to the website where you will need to sign in to view.  There will also be a block on the website front page that will link to recent blog posts.

We are using WordPress for the blog, as the features are very beneficial.  Posts will be able to have categories and tags to be easily searchable (i.e. Standards & Practices, President, etc.).  There are many other features we will be implementing and using on WordPress that the SAWE website could not offer.  You may need to create a WordPress account to be able to interact with posts.

Blog posts will include a variety of content.  The blog will allow us to dispense the newsletter, as we will be posting updates from the Executive Board members regularly on the blog.  We hope that this will prove more useful, timely, and interactive than a 10 page newsletter that comes out quarterly.

We will spotlight SAWE members’ careers and accomplishments, in a series of brief career autobiographies.  I believe that this will be most beneficial for newer, younger members to see where a career in Mass Properties can take you.  I also think that this is a great way to get to know some of the members of the society, as some of us only see each other once a year.  I hope this also leads to easier interactions at conferences.  This can also lead to mentoring opportunities as younger members may be very interested in the work and accomplishments listed in the blog post.

We will include articles related to mass properties, and occasionally may reference back to a paper from a conference.  We believe it is very important to promote the importance of mass proprietaries, and this forum should allow us to do so.  Being a public blog, this may be a way of reaching nonmembers.  Blog posts such as this will be connected to our LinkedIn page, hoping that cross traffic will bring in new members.

As to be expected, I am sure we will run into issues as we start using the blog.  Please be patient as we will work through any issues as quickly as possible.  If you have any questions or want to contribute to the blog, please contact me.

Melissa Rapier                                                                                           (melissa.rapier@sawe.org)