Starting an activity

Create an activity to provide a place for the people involved in a project to share resources, such as tools, Web sites, and files, to share information, and to assign tasks.

1. From the My Activities view, click Start an Activity.

   If you have an activity open, you will not see the Start an Activity button in the navigation pane. Click the Activities tab to exit the open activity first.

2. In the Title field, type a short name that describes the purpose of the activity, for example, a project name.

   If you do not provide a name, the activity is given the name Untitled. You can give it a name later by editing the activity.

3. In the Description field, add a description of the activity. Provide a sentence or two that summarizes the goal of the activity, its audience, or the type of content you want members to add to it.

   Provide enough information about the activity goal to help members distinguish among activities with similar names. The information in this field is searchable and is displayed in the notification message that a member receives when invited to join the activity. You can format the text of the description using the toolbar.

4. In the Tags field, type a tag term. As you type, a list of matching tags from the tag cloud is displayed. Click a tag to add it, or keep typing to add a tag that is not in the list. Separate multiple tags with commas.

   A tag is a single-word label or keyword that you assign to an activity to categorize it. After the activity is saved, the tag is added to the tag cloud. Later, you can use the tag to find this activity by clicking the tag from the tag cloud. Not only will this activity be returned in the resulting list, but any similarly tagged activities will be included as well, thus helping you to discover related content. Keep in mind that the tag cloud is composed of tags created by you and your colleagues; if no one has created any tags, you will not see a list of matching tags as you type into this field.

5. In the Due date field, add a date by which this activity must be completed. Either type the date or choose the date from the calendar control.
6. Add members to the activity by adding a person or group to the field labeled with the appropriate role..

   To add a member to a role other than the default role of Author, expand the Member options section, click the down-arrow beside the Author field, and then select Owner or Reader. The access level options are defined as follows:

   • Authors – Authors can view content and add entries.
   • Owners – Owners have the same level of access that you have as the creator of the activity. As the activity creator, you are automatically added to it as an Owner.
   • Readers – Restricts access to viewing content; readers cannot contribute to an activity.
   Begin typing the group or person's name or e-mail address into the second field. As you type, a list of matching names is displayed. Click a name in the list to add that person. If the person's name is not displayed in the list, type their full name or e-mail address into the field and then click the + sign next to the field to add them.

   Repeat this step to add additional members.

7. To create the activity from a template, perform the following steps.

   A template captures the tasks required to complete a specific job. For example, a patent template might link to the files, databases, tools, or Web sites an inventor seeking a patent would need. It might also capture a list of To Do items an inventor would need to complete as part of the patent application process.

   1. Expand the Template options section.
   2. Click the down arrow to see a list of available templates. When you select a template, a description of the template is displayed.
8. Click Save to finish creating the activity. After the activity is created, the server sends an e-mail message to the people you added as members to notify them that they were added to an activity.