The MMI website has been designed to facilitate team productivity by creating collaborative communities. Each team is assigned a section of the site, which can be used for collaboration, communication within the team, and produce various outcomes. The team is created electronically by a site administrator, but as the team lead, you are encouraged to customize "your space."

The first step in leading your team is to develop a complete description of the team, including a brief synopsis, welcome message, and membership option(s). This is accomplished on the default homepage for the group.

When you are established electronically as the team lead, you will receive an email notification, which includes a link to the "team homepage." To describe your team, click the link to open the page, then click the "Edit" tab. The information entered into this page will determine how your group appears on the MMI webpage. In addition, the "Welcome Message" will be used to generate the default group homepage.

The exact configuration of the group home pages, and the way to adjust that configuration, is going to be revised as we get experience with the site. The following sections explain the configuration as we prepare to make the site public.

Describing The Team

There are a variety of customizable fields on the default homepage. Each of these can be customized by the team lead.

Group Name

This is the full title for the working group. The Group Name appears as the title of the homepage, and in the Community Section of the site.

Description

A description is a concise explanation of the function of the working group. This description provides visitors with a simple characterization of the working group in the Community section of the site.

Group Short Name

Group short names are included in the URL for all group content, and presented in the URL Path menus. Group short names should be crafted so that the string of characters appropriately represents the group title, and are easily understood.

For example, the short name for the Technical Team is tech.

URL Path Settings

Please be sure the team homepage appears at community/teams/group_shortname . This should be set by default, and should not need to be changed.

Key Links

Key links allow pointers to useful content—on the MMI site or elsewhere—that is not collected in the Team Content. This can be sections on the public side of the MMI page (Tools, Guides, etc), or other content on the web. To customize the Key Links, click "Edit" on the team's homepage, and populate the key links section.

Note: If you are adding content on the MMI site as a key link, be sure to add everything after the first / only. For example, if you want to link to link to the FAQ Why should I NOT delete content?, enter help/faq/remove in the URL box.

Welcome Message

The blue block at the top of the team homepage is considered the welcome message. You can enter group-specific information by clicking "Edit", and populating the "Welcome Message" section.

Membership Requests

In this section, the team lead determines how MMI members can join the group. There are four basic options:

• Open: MMI Members can "Join" immediately - no team lead intervention is required
• Moderated: MMI Members can "Request Membership", which prompts the team lead to respond to the request
• Invite Only: Team Leads can extend an invitation to MMI members
• Closed: Team Leads add and edit membership, without MMI Member intervention

The second portion of the Membership Request Section determines how MMI and Group Members interact with the group section.

• Recruitment: The opportunity to "Join" or "Request Membership" can be placed in multiple locations:
  • Registration: New users can click a checkbox during their initial registration to initiate participation in the group
  • Groups Directory: MMI Members can click a link to initiate participation in the group
• Privacy: Since MMI is a community collaboration, group content should be available to site visitors. In rare instances, as approved by site managers, groups can be made private. This restricts access to all group content to only group members.
  
  • Private Groups: Access is restricted to group members. These groups will not appear in the Directory, and MMI Members will not be invited to initiate participation using any mechanism.
  • Invite Friend: In the Team box of the group section, an "Invite Friend." This option can be disabled, so MMI Members can not send email invitations to colleagues.