The new "Community" is an interesting cross between a support database and a conventional internet forum.
Congrats on evolving with the times. It'll be interesting to see if the same sort of user-to-user conversations take place on the "Community" that occur regularly here. Peter K1PGV -----Original Message----- From: Flexedge [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison, W4TME Sent: Monday, August 05, 2013 7:36 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [FlexEdge] Announcing the new FLEX-6000 / SmartSDR User Support Community We are excited to announce our new on-line user support community, the new authoritative place to share ideas, give feedback, ask questions, or report issues with the FLEX-6000 and SmartSDR! So I know you are asking "what exactly is a user support community?" Well, a user support community represents the best of all worlds for providing Internet based support and is the reason we chose it to support the new FLEX-6000 and SmartSDR. Historically, internet based support could be delivered via different means such as reflectors, knowledge bases, and forums. Each had its advantages and disadvantages. Reflectors and mailing lists offered a convenient notification mechanism of new posts and direct user participation, but lacked the ability to easily search its contents and topics were not logically organized. A Knowledge Base contains authoritative information, is easily searchable and the content logically organized by products, but users could not directly provide their own feedback or knowledge to the static articles. Forums provide direct user participation and searchable content, but lacked a convenient notification mechanism of new posts and the content provided by the users has no method of validating which answer is most correct or authoritative. It seemed like there wasn't a good overall solution until the best of all worlds were merged together into "user support communities". Since FlexRadio Systems is providing you a best in class ham radio, we made a decision to do the same with how we support the FLEX-6000 and SmartSDR. Therefore we have chosen to use a user support community solution. We understand that it will take a little time to migrate from some of the previous methods of Internet based support to this new paradigm, not unlike the paradigm shift that the FLEX-6000 is doing to ham radio. And change can sometimes be frustrating, but we honestly believe in and are 100% behind the user support community concept. You will directly see proof of our dedication by receiving authoritative answers to your questions from different FlexRadio Systems employees and savvy users such as yourself. As a matter of fact, we have a FlexRadio Support Community Elmer program that rewards and identifies users who provide the best answers in the community. A little more on that aspect of the community below. Also, the user support community does *not* replace the HelpDesk or the ability to call our Tech Support phone line for personal one-on-one assistance directly from FlexRadio Systems. The user support community is intended to augment our current integrated support delivery mechanisms for the FLEX-6000 and SmartSDR. So let's get started using the community! NOTE: The FlexRadio support community will be replacing the Preview mailing list very shortly, so please join soon and begin participating. ================================================================================= Follow this link to visit the support community: http://community.flexradio.com/ ================================================================================= Using your favorite Internet browser, use the link or URL above to access the FlexRadio Support Community. The first thing you need to do is create a user account in order to log in and begin posting and answering questions from fellow Flexers regarding the FLEX-6000 and SmartSDR. To do this, click on the link at the top right hand corner that says "Sign Up" to display the Login dialog box. You will not be initially presented with the options to create a new account. You must click on the link at the bottom of the Login dialog box that says "Or, create a new Get Satisfaction account..." to create your account unless you have an existing account with another GetSatisfaction community which in that case you can log into the FlexRadio community without creating an account. (GetSatisfaction is the community software solution we selected as our support community provider) To create a new user account, enter the name you want displayed as a support community member. Then enter a valid e-mail address and a password (must be at least 8 characters) that must be entered twice to verify it was entered correctly. The last step is to enter the CAPTCHA verification phrase exactly as it is shown in the displayed image. Then click on the "Sign Up" button. If your login was successful, the link at the top right hand corner of your web browser will show "Your Dashboard & Account". You may want to take this time to edit your FlexRadio Systems Community profile by clicking on the "Your Dashboard & Account" link and then clicking on the Edit Profile button. You can enter any profile information of your choosing. Just click on the "Save Details" button when you are done. To return to the FlexRadio Support Community just use the community URL: http://community.flexradio.com/ One of the first things you will notice when you access the FlexRadio Support Community is a listing of FLEX-6000 products at the top of the page. This allows users to post questions and get answers for specific FlexRadio products, such as a particular radio model or one of the several SmartSDR software packages. One of the conveniences of the e-mail list used for discussing SmartSDR Preview and FLEX-6000 information is instant notification when a new topic has been posted by a Flexer. The FlexRadio Support Community provides the same benefit, but at a more granular level. For instance, say you only want to receive information regarding the SmartSDR for Windows Preview version but do not really want to receive notifications when topics are posted about SmartSDR CAT. With the FlexRadio User Community you can subscribe to or "follow" specific topics that are product centric. Just click on the product you want to follow and click on the "Follow" button on the right hand side of the screen. If you want to stop getting product notifications when topics are posted or updated, just click on the "Unfollow" button. It really is that simple. For more information on how to use the features of the Support Community, please see the following community topic: http://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/how_to_use_the_flexradio_systems_support_community NOTE: E-mail notifications will be sent from the e-mail address: [email protected] so make sure you either whitelist the domain, mark it as not junk or SPAM. You may also want to set up an e-mail filter so that all replies are sent to a specific e-mail folder. One last thing about the new FlexRadio Support Community - we encourage you to help others and will reward you for doing so by making some of you Support Community Elmers. Our team does our very best to help out as fast as we can but it's always beneficial to get input from the people who are using our products on a regular basis. This is how you can support your fellow Flexers by answering questions and sharing your experiences. And for those who provide the best and most frequent answers, you can achieve FlexRadio Systems Elmer status! Just click on the following Community topic to learn more about the FlexRadio Elmer program: http://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/become_a_flexradio_support_community_elmer We are eager to hear what you have to say, so join us and get started by using and posting in the community today! In advance, thanks for your participation. We greatly appreciate it. -Tim -- Tim Ellison, W4TME Product Management, Sales & Support FlexRadio Systems^(TM) 4616 W Howard Ln, Suite 1-150 Austin, TX 78728 Phone: 512-535-4713 Ext. 223 Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Web: www.flexradio.com <http://www.flexradio.com> logo _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software innovation and other technical SDR topics. _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software innovation and other technical SDR topics.
