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Frequently
Asked Questions
Categories
Additional
Help Documents
Using
Your CommunityStew Stewdio
What is a
CommunityStew Stewdio?
Your CommunityStew Stewdio is a secure, private Internet
site where the people in your organization can quickly share information,
documents, and ideas with one another from anywhere in the world. Just as
important, your CommunityStew Stewdio is also a place where you can maintain
databases of private information important to your organization, such as your
member/employee information and your organization’s contacts. Your people will
have the ability to access and edit that information from anywhere in the world.
What databases
will my organization have in its CommunityStew Stewdio?
Your CommunityStew Stewdio comes with two ready-made
address book databases where you can store information about people:
·
Members— These are people who have full privileges to log on to
the private areas of your Stewdio. Typically, they are the members of an
organization or the employees of a business. They have the ability to
update their own personal information and thereby keep the database constantly
up-to-date.
·
Associates— These are people or other entities your group may
want to contact from time to time, but who will not have access to the private
areas of your Stewdio. Organizations typically use this database to store
information about their customers, publicity contacts, etc. (Note: only people
who are designated as Administrators of your Stewdio will have access to the
Associates database.)
For more information, see “Working with your
organization’s data”, below.
Can CommunityStew
replace the membership and telephone lists my organization already publishes?
Absolutely! By keeping databases of your people in your
Stewdio, they will always be up-to-date and available to all your members,
wherever they are. And since individuals can update their own information, there
will never be old or incorrect data.
Can CommunityStew
replace the newsletter my organization currently publishes?
Sure! You can publish and share documents in your Stewdio
(either privately to your members or to the whole world), including anything you
can do in a newsletter and more, but without the printing and mailing costs.
What’s more, when you distribute information to your group online in your
Stewdio it will always be up-to-date, and the people in your organization can
provide instantaneous feedback.
Can I use
CommunityStew to manage mailing lists and publicity for my organization?
Your CommunityStew Studio is the perfect tool for managing your organization’s email and
paper mailings. Your Stewdio allows you to keep databases with email and address
information on Members (your members and/or employees) as well as Associates
(your business contacts).
·
Email—It’s easy to use your Stewdio to email all of your
Members and/or all of your Associates. Just click on the “Send Email”
utility from inside your Stewdio. Using our email utilities you can also create
customizable email lists from either of these databases. For example, with the
names in your Members database you can create email lists for workgroups,
committees, officers, etc. From the names in your Associates database you could
create mailing lists of former Members, clients, etc. and be able to email those
groups with ease. (All we ask is that you have a working relationship with the
people you list in your databases. Our Acceptable
Use Policy prohibits you from using our services to send unsolicited
commercial and bulk emails.) Whenever you do an emailing from your Stewdio you
will be notified if any of your intended recipients do not have an email address
on file. That notice will include address and phone number information so you
can easily make paper mailings or contact them by phone.
·
Paper Mailings—If you want to do paper mailings, you can
generate mailing lists with ease by clicking on our “Download Data” utility.
Can my
organization also use CommunityStew as its website?
Quite possibly! When you set up your
organization’s Stewdio you will designate what information you want to share
with the public (an “Internet” site—accessible through a public home page)
and what information you want to keep confidential (your “Intranet”
site—accessible through a private home page). We allow you to make information
about your group, your group’s documents, and your calendar of events
available to the public. For many groups this will satisfy their need for a
public website easily and inexpensively.
My organization already has a website. How will our Stewdio interact
with our existing site?
If you already have a website we allow you to set
up a link to that site so it will be readily available to your members from
inside your Stewdio. You will also want to provide a “members only” or
“member services” link to your Stewdio from your website. Many of our member
organizations have found that with such a link their Stewdio functions
seamlessly with their website, providing a private area on their site for their
members only.
Can my
organization use it's own domain name and/or its own web pages with our
Stewdio?
Yes. Your
Stewdio, as well as any Member Pages in your Stewdio, are restricted to the
format supplied by CommunityStew. However, if you wish to have your own custom
pages used, you can do this by hosting directly with CommunityStew. There is a
charge (currently $15/month) to do this hosting and to link your Stewdio to
these custom pages. This fee also allows you to use your own domain name.
Alternately, if you only want your domain name to
direct people to your Stewdio (or to an individual Member page), this can be
done for a small "parking" fee (currently $5/mo.)
There is a one-time set-up fee of $25 for each
of these custom services.
Can I get a custom web page on
CommunityStew?
Yes. CommunityStew can do custom web site
development work for your organization to meet almost any need. Since we can
often utilize our proprietary "Stewdio" technology, our clients often find
that they can get more functionality for much less money than from independent
Web developers.
How do I get
member information into my organization’s Stewdio?
There are four easy ways to get your
organization’s people into your studio:
·
If you don’t already have
up-to-date membership database you can create one on-line by using the
“Add New Members” function and entering the information on your members. You
can add new members to your Stewdio at any time this way.
·
As an alternative, it may be easier to let your members enter
their own information on-line. They can do this by going to your Stewdio and
clicking on “Membership Application”. After they have filled in their
personal information an administrator must then approve them (the “Approve
Pending Membership Applications” function).
·
If you already have a
computer database in any standard format (Access, Excel, Oracle, etc.) just
send it to us at upload@cstew.com and we
will upload it to your site. There is a nominal $25 set-up fee for this service
that will automatically be billed to your account.
·
If you keep paper or word
processing records we will enter information into the proper database fields
for you. Just send us your records by email at upload@cstew.com
or by snail mail to Uploads at CommunityStew, PO Box 370611, Denver, CO 80231. There is a nominal charge for this service of $.50 per
name and address that will automatically be billed to your account.
Can I download my
data later for other uses?
Yes. One of
the big advantages of using CStew.com Stewdios is that when you create and
maintain your organization’s databases with us that data can be easily
downloaded for other uses. Many of
our clients find that our database management tools are as important as our
Intranet tools in managing their organizations. Administrators of your site can
download data by clicking the “Download Data” function. Our download engine
is intuitive and easy to use, and will guide you through the process so you can
get exactly the data you need, including pre-formatted mailing lists.
How will my
group’s members know about my Stewdio and get access to it?
Whenever anyone is added to your group’s
membership they will automatically receive notification by email telling them
where to go to access the site, and giving them their User Name (which will
always be their email address) and a computer-generated password. This will let
them log on to the site.
What if my
password doesn’t work?
First, make
sure that you type your user name and password exactly
as they appear in the notification you receive. User names are case sensitive. If you still have problems getting access you can
email our help desk for assistance at help@cstew.com.
What if I lose my
password?
Click the "Forgot Password?" link in the
header of the Stewdio homepage and we will send
you your password by email.
Can I change my
password?
Yes. You can change your password at any time by
following the “Change Your Password” link on the private homepage.
Security
Is my organization’s Stewdio secure?
We go to considerable effort to protect the
security of every CommunityStew Stewdio. However, no security system is perfect.
You need to do your part by carefully screening the members you allow on your
site and by encouraging your members to carefully protect their passwords.
Some of my organization’s members are concerned that their personal
information will be put on the Internet.
While this reaction is common, there’s really no
need for concern. On CommunityStew, all of the private information about your
organization and its members will be accessible only to your members and only by
password. Your information will be much
more secure on your Stewdio than it would be if you published it on paper
and distributed it to your membership.
What about CommunityStew employees and consultants?
We take our clients’ privacy very seriously. All
CommunityStew employees and consultants who may have access to your information
are contractually bound to protect the confidentiality of that information and
use it only for the purpose of servicing your account.
Will you sell my information to others?
No. CommunityStew follows a strict Privacy
Policy. Please see that document for specific details on how your
information will be protected.
How often will my site be backed up?
We back up all client data
daily. In the event of equipment failures we can usually restore the site to
operation in a matter of hours.
Troubleshooting
The hover buttons
(that operate my Features links) on my Stewdio are not showing. What do I
do?
- If you have a Microsoft Internet Explorer Browser:
You may have a corrupt Java Virtual Machine, which is the part of the
Operating System responsible for interpreting Java Applets. To see if this is
truly the case, browse to http://www.azpos.com/fptest/shoverb.htm.
If the hover buttons here do not display correctly then download and install the newest Java Virtual Machine, which can be
found by clicking on the following link - http://www.microsoft.com/java/vm/dl_vm40.htm.
- If you have a Netscape 6 Browser:
Your browser is not viewing Java correctly.
Upgrade your browser to the 6.2 version including Java from the
Netscape site.
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