FAQs

Frequently asked questions
Where can I get help immediately?

If you can’t find what you’re looking for or want to suggest an FAQ, visit our dedicated site forum here. Alternatively you can email us directly at admin@datacenterprofessionals.net.

Scroll down to find the most frequently asked questions for all the network features:

• Sign-up
• Making contact
• Latest activity
• Email Messaging (internal email)
• RSS Feeds
• Forums
• Blogs
• Live Chat
• Groups
• Videos
• My Page or Your Profile
• Events

Sign up
Why do I need to sign up or become a member?

When you sign up you’ll be able to visit all areas of the site, make contacts, message contacts and interact with other members immediately. Signing up is free and takes less than a minute. As a member you can take advantage of being able to:

• Take part in forum discussions
• Feature yourself and your business
• Add classifieds

Will people be able to find out my personal details?

No. You don’t have to reveal your real-world identity or email address to the community unless you want to. In all interactions your email is kept private unless you choose to reveal it.

Making contact
What are the benefits of adding contacts?

By adding a contact you can send internal private messages to other members. In this way you can also grow and develop your own personal network of Data Center Professionals.

How do I add a contact to meet other Data Center Professionals?

Invite people to be your contact by clicking on their name or picture. Then click the ‘Add as contact’ link under their picture.

How do I contact a Data Center Professional outside the network?

If you'd like to get to know someone better, consider inviting them to Skype with you. Your Skype ID can be added to your profile on 'My Page' and can be kept private or disclosed to your contacts.

How are members moderated?

• We have a zero tolerance policy to 'spammers' or any type of abuse to members. Members reported doing this will be blocked from this network.
• We will regularily review member profiles - if we see that members are adding suspect information, or that they don’t belong here, we first email them to confirm their interests in the Data Center Industry. If they don’t respond we will block their membership.

Latest Activity
What is the Latest Activity feature?

Almost any action you take in our network will result in a ‘Latest Activity’ item, including changing your profile photo, replying to a forum thread, or joining a group.

How do I show my Latest Activities?

On your profile page you can set which events appear in the Latest Activity stream. Your options include: new content I add, new comments I add, new friends I add, when I update my profile, my events and my RSVPs.

How do I delete my latest activities?

You can delete any one of your own activities from the Latest Activity stream on the main page, and on your profile page by clicking the ‘x’ next to the activity you'd like to remove. To change which categories of events appear, click the ‘Settings’ link in the right column of the network and go to the ‘Privacy’ tab.

Email Messaging (internal email)
How do I send private messages to someone on the network?

You need to be a member and create a contact before you can send and internal message anyone on the network.

Any messages you or your contact writes will be sent to your site inbox on the network, and also to your own email address inbox.

N.B Your own email address is never disclosed to other site members via the internal messaging system.
Where can I find my unique network email address?

To find your email-in address and to get started, click the "Settings" link in the right column of the main page. At the bottom of the page, locate the "Useful addresses" section. You'll find your email-in address under ‘Add by phone’. It should look like a combination of your name on the network and a few numbers, and the domain will be the URL of your network.

RSS Feeds
What happens when I subscribe to the RSS feed?

The RSS network feed keeps you up to date on all the latest activity, blog posts, news and events.

How do I subscribe to the RSS feed? 1. Locate the subject area you'd like to follow e.g The Forum. 2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find the "RSS" icon and link. 3. Copy the URL of this link. 4. Go to your external website or feedreader of choice. 5. Paste in the URL of the RSS feed you copied from your network and click the "Add" button
What happens if I don’t have a feed reader?

A good place to start is iGoogle. To add a feed to your iGoogle, click the "Add stuff" link at the top right of the page. Next, at the bottom of the left column, click the "Add feed or gadget" next to the RSS icon.

Forums
How do I stay up to date on discussions I’m following?

To be alerted by email whenever something is added to a forum discussion click the link at the bottom of the discussion that says ‘Follow this discussion’.

How do I start a discussion?

If you have a question that might be nourished by the collective experience of the network, start a Forum discussion by clicking ‘Start Discussion’ under ‘Forum’ on the main page.

How are forums moderated?

In general, we will leave it to you, the community, to manage your own conduct. You are professionals, so we ask that you treat other forum participants with respect. If this is the case we will take the appropriate action to prevent spamming and to make your community more comfortable.

Blogs
What can I use my Blog for? If you have an insight or link that would be useful or interesting to other people, the fastest way to share it is to post it in your blog.
What features does the Blog offer?

• Manage comments on your blog posts
• Categorise your blog post (using tags)
• Choose how to display your blog posts on your MyPage
• Blog posts may be featured on the main page
• Blogs can contain text, links, images and files. These can be added using the blog editor toolbar.
• Control Blog privacy - you select the privacy of your posts to allow: anyone, just your contacts, just you.

How do I post something in the blog area? 1. Sign in 2. Click on ‘My Page’ then click ‘My Blog’ 4. Submit your insights to appear on the main page of the network. These will automatically appear in headline form on the main page for a period of time.
Live Chat
What is the Live chat?

The Live Chat feature allows you to participate in a live, real-time network-wide chat room as well as chat privately with other members of the network.

How does it work?

Participate in the chatroom directly from the main page of the network, (By clicking Chat in the Members tab you can also see a full page view of the chatroom). When you sign into our network, you will automatically appear as "online" in the chatroom.

If I don’t want to appear ‘online’ what do I do?

If you no longer wish to appear as online in the chatroom, you can set your status to ‘offline’. Locate the dropdown menu in the top corner of the Chat feature and select ‘offline’.

How do I start a chat?

In the right column of the Chat feature, a list of members currently in the chatroom appears. Clicking their profile photo pops up a dialogue box that allows you to view their profile on the network or initiate a private chat with them.

When the member accepts, you will be placed in your own separate chatroom. You can navigate back to the main chatroom at any time by clicking the ‘Main’ tab.
When another member wants to start a private chat with you, you'll see a yellow message at the bottom of the chatroom to let you know.
Groups
What is a Group? People with common interests can set up groups to focus on those interests. You can set up an RSS feed for the group and group members can send messages to everyone in their group. How do I create a Group? 1. Go to the Groups tab and click the link at the top right of the page to ‘Add a group’. 2. Give your group a name and be sure to upload a group image that's roughly square in size. 3. Fill out a description for your group, which members will see when looking for groups to join. If your group has another website, or a location, you can add it here. 4. In the right side of the page, choose which features your group will have. 5. You can add a comment wall, discussion forum, text box, and RSS reader to your group. 6. Don't forget to choose the privacy settings for your group. 7. Choose whether members of your group can send broadcast messages to the whole group. 8. Click "Add Group" and your group will be added to the network!

Who can join my group? You can choose to allow anyone to join the group, or moderate the levels of membership. If you choose to moderate membership, new members will have to apply to join and you'll be able to review their request before they can join.
You can allow members to invite other people to join and allow people to request membership. If you turn off both of these options, the group will be invite-only and you'll be the only one who can send invites to join the group.
We don't mind competition, we believe its healthy and ultimately good for our users - so when creating a group we will need to approve it before it appears - this is sensible to avoid abuse of the network.

Videos
What can I use videos for?

You may want to upload tutorials, fun stuff, or company/product promotionals. Another good use of the videos section is to view or upload screencasts e.g. to show a product user interface.

How do I add videos? The fastest way to add videos to the network is to use the bulk media uploader.
There are 4 ways to do this:
Option 1: 1. Using the bulk media uploader, you can add up to 30 videos at a time. We support videos the following formats: .mov, .mpg, .avi, .3gp and .wmv formats. To upload videos, go to the Videos tab and click the "Add Videos" link.
Option 2: Use the ''Quick Add..." feature. You can find this in the sign-in box at the top of the right hand column of main page.
Option 3: Import Videos from YouTube or GoogleVideo. From the "Add Videos" page, scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the section that says "Add videos from YouTube or GoogleVideo." Click the "Add Video" link. Now copy the HTML embed code from your video sharing service and paste it into the box. N.B With the quick add method, this will automatically copy the description for the video from YouTube. This can save alot of time if you’re adding multiple videos
Option 4: Send in videos by email. You can use your unique email address to send photos and videos to our network (one at a time). If your phone has a camera and email, this is a great way to add camera phone videos to your network whilst you’re still on the move.
Any photo or video you send in to your unique email-in address will be added to the network as if it were directly uploaded by you.
How do we moderate Videos or Photos?

Obviously we don't want to run the risk of abusive videos/photos being put on the network. All videos and photos will need approval from the site moderators before they are displayed.

My Page or Your Profile

Each member gets a 'My Page'. This contains your customisable site profile. You can add anything you'd like to your text boxes, including text, images, widgets, and links.

How do I personalise my site profile?

Add your own text and content boxes; these stretch to fit the content you place in it, so get creative! Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Add Widgets Create Links Add Photos or Videos Upload a file Add key Word Documents, PDFs, and even PowerPoint presentations to your text box, a great option for sharing presentations from a conference or distributing a PDF.
Do I have to upload a picture? Its always nice to be able to put a face to a name - especially in a professional network such as this. If you don't have a picture yet, the site uses a default.
Events
What kind of events are featured here? The Events feature is a great way to let members know about upcoming conferences, exhibitions, meetings, or event online chat sessions.
You can organise either online or offline events at any level - nationally or locally and publicise them here. You can even organize in-person meet ups.
Who can I invite? Invite anyone to join your event, even people who haven't yet joined the network.
How do I create an event? Each event can include a description section, a comment wall and a list of RSVPs. As an event creator, you can choose the features and privacy settings and send a broadcast message to everyone who has been invited to the event. 1.Go to the Events tab 2.Click the link to ‘Add an Event’. 3.Fill in the required information about your event. 4.Upload an image that's roughly square in size.
How do I change the event organiser? By default, any event you add to the network will appear as organized by you and will link to your profile page. You can change who the event is organized by in the ‘Organized By’ field.
How do the privacy settings work? Don't forget to choose the privacy settings for your event. Anyone can RSVP to a public event, while only invited people can RSVP to private events. Some information about private events will still be visible to all members of your network, including the title, start time, event type, and organizer. You can also choose to disable RSVP altogether or hide the guest list.
How do I send invitations? To spread the word about your event, invite people to attend it. You can invite people by typing in email addresses, selecting from your list of contacts within the network, importing from your web address book, or importing from an address book application. To invite people to an event, go to the event page and click the ‘Invite More People’ link.
How do I create an RSVP for an event? To RSVP to an event you've been invited to, head to the Events tab and click on the event you want to RSVP to. On the right side of the page, locate ‘Your RSVP’ box. Choose your RSVP option.

Classifieds
What are the classified listings for? Any kind of ‘for sale’ or ‘wanted’ request can be submitted to the appropriate category in the classifieds listing. You can post classifieds for free. These are monitored by site moderators.
What if I can’t find the category I want? If you want more categories added please let use know by emailing us at admin@datacenterprofessionals.net
How do I add a classified advertisment or post? To add a classified please go the classifieds section and click ‘Add a listing’ on the right side of the page. Currently Classifieds will display for 21 days. Contact us if you'd like your ad featured here.
Anything we’ve missed?
If you have any questions of your own, feel free to ask at admin@datacenterprofessionals.net Sign up now to get started. Already a member? Sign in.
Read some of the benefits of building your network of contacts on the Data Center Professionals Network.