OwnTheCrowd works a bit differently from what you might expect with a community platform.There are a number of integrations critical to the smooth operation of your community.
MEDIA STORAGE AND OTHER INTEGRATIONS WITH AWS
- We want you to own, control and possess the media contributed by your members. This means that all photos and videos (and processing along with CDN serving) posted in your community will reside on YOUR Amazon AWS account. If you do not have an AWS account, setting one up is fast and easy. If you need help, we can assist.
- Once the AWS account is live, our team will help you configure it properly so that it is connected to your community.
- Email. The system will use your AWS SES email credentials.
- Translation. Your community is localized to support multiple languages using AWS’s translation engine along with a customizer that permits you to vary specific terms from AWS’s translations. You set this up here.
- Your AWS account will also handle file storage so that you always own and control the documents uploaded by your members (which is optional, of course).
OTHER INTEGRATIONS
- Login. The community allows users to login using Google, Facebook and Apple. Single sign on takes the friction out of the join process. To set these up, just click the SSO links above. These third-party sign-on methods are optional.
- Eventsquid. If you use the private label version of the Eventsquid platform, the system will automatically import events. If you use the standard version, you can still import events, but you may receive events you do not host in your feed. You would configure the category map to reduce the number of events to those in that category, but you still may end up with events you do not host. Chat with your contact at OTC for more help here.
SETTING UP YOUR CATALOGS
- OTC is built on the premise that information contributed by your community should be cataloged according to a universal taxonomy so that a) Members will always catalog posts according to a universal system vs self-generated hashtags or keywords, and b) Members will be able to quickly and easily access information no matter when it was posted.
- Setting up your hierarchies is the most important step in getting your community going. But don’t panic! You can always change, rearrange and remove categories from any hierarchy. To get started, visit this article.
COLORS, BRANDING AND OTHER PREFERENCES
- You can always tweak your community’s branding, colors and other attributes. Starting off with what you like, however, is always the best way to go.
- Start with your organization’s identity settings. These include logo, name, colors, icons and related items.
- Next, decide which features you would like to activate.
- The Labels & Phrases section enables you to customize a number of headers and titles used throughout the site.
- The Filter Setup section enables you to change not only your filter labels, but you will also be able to specify the minimum and maximum number of categories required to post in any of the main site sections (e.g. for a discussion post, you must pick at least 1 category from hierarchy 1, etc.).
- You do not need section banners, but they add color (and advertising) to your site. Check out the feature here.
- Home Page Setup sets the stage for your members and visitors. What will they see?
- Horizontal Tiles are those fun thumbnails that appear every X posts or every X events. Users can navigate through them left-to-right to see content in other areas of the site.
- We do not recommend that you mess with the Global Styles area unless you are facile with CSS. This area of the site allows you to override the site’s styles. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility!