Last update: February 1, 2021

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Welcome

CCCTechnology.info provides an online community forum for California Community Colleges faculty and staff seeking technical support, news and discussion around systemwide information technology applications and initiatives developed by the CCC Technology Center.

Designed to facilitate self-service online support, CCCTechnology.info is monitored by support representatives, implementation engineers, product management, and subject matter experts for all pre-and post production CCCTC systemwide technology applications.

In This Guide

About CCCTechnology.info

• A powerful community-based support forum

• CCCTechnology.info delivers a modern, cloud-based community user experience for California Community Colleges faculty and staff, providing easy access to product news, discussion channels, release announcements, and 24/7 online support for all CCCTC systemwide technology applications and services.  

• CCCTechnology.info is the one-stop shop for fast and efficient online support from CCC Technology Center support engineers and qualified product experts.
  
  

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CCCTechnology.info Home Page.

Features & Benefits

The CCCTechnology.info is a powerful community forum with tons of features designed to promote user participation and engagement while encouraging feedback and discussion in a user-friendly way.

• Request support by posting a new Discussion in any Category

• Ask questions about technology products and services

• Comment, bookmark and/or share Discussions

• Set notifications to stay informed on CCCTC System Alerts or any/all available Categories.

Technology News & System Alerts

CCCTechnology.info provides a single source for outgoing support information related to all CCC systemwide technology solutions and initiatives. From outgoing communication for systemwide technology applications and initiatives. including product news, release announcements and system alerts. Users can set their email preferences to send an email for one or more categories, including the “all products & services” System Alerts category to stay informed of systemwide issues and product announcements.

Connect with Technical Support

CCCTechnology.info community forum is the primary point-of-contact for reporting issues and requesting technical support for systemwide technology solutions college faculty and staff more than outgoing news and alerts from the CCC Technology Center; it maintains the point-of-contact

Share & Discuss with Colleagues

User-generated content is defined as a Post within Vanilla. The initial post in a thread is referred to as Discussions, replies or follow-ups to those Discussions are called Comments. Each Discussion can have many Comments, or they could have none. 

Getting Started Guide

Getting There

The URL for the online community support site for California Colleges faculty and staff is http://ccctechnology.info.

Faculty and staff of the California Community Colleges are encouraged to visit the site and register for an account in order to post questions, add comments, and request support for all CCCTC technology applications and services.

Register & Sign In

To get to the account registration page, click the Register button in the upper right hand corner of the CCCTechnology.info homepage.

On the Register page, follow the steps below to complete the Registration form to setup your account.

1. Email: Enter your email address.

2. Username: Enter a username of your choice.

3. Password: Enter a password of your choice.

4. Confirm Password: Enter your password again.

5. Security Check: Check the box “I'm not a robot” and wait for the green reCAPTCHA confirmation checkmark to proceed.

6. Terms of Service: Check the “I agree to the terms of service” checkbox.

7. Remember Me: Check the “Remember me on this computer” checkbox to ensure your user credentials are stored for this site (optional).

8. Click to “Sign Up” button to complete the registration process.

Sign In with Social Media

As an alternative to the direct registration process in CCCTechnology.info, users may sign in using one of the approved social media accounts, such as:

• Google

• Microsoft

• Facebook

• Twitter (Coming soon)

To sign in with one of your social media accounts, you must first have an account already setup with the application.

If you are already signed in to your Google account, enter your account password to confirm your identity.

User Profile & Preferences

Your CCCTechnology.info account provides a user Profile with preferences that can be customized.

Editing Your Profile

Customizing your Profile includes:

• Editing your Username and Email address

• Changing your account Password

• Adding or changing your profile picture

• Setting up your social media account connections

Setting Notification Preferences

Notifications are options that users set to control how they are notified. While some users may prefer to be notified by pop-ups, other users may prefer to be notified by email. Users can access their individual "notification preferences" on their profile page, and set their preferences for when and how they are notified, either by email or pop-up message, or not at all.  

To set your Notification Preferences, click on your Profile icon in the header toolbar and follow the instructions below.

1. Select Edit Profile from the User menu.
   
   
   

   
   
   

   
   
   

2. Select Notification Preferences from the preferences menu on the left side of window.
   
   
   

    

3. To set your Notification Preferences, check boxes to receive Email or Popup notifications under General and Category Notifications options. To set your preferences for Category Notifications, so you can stay informed of new posts, system alerts, upcoming releases & maintenance windows,
   
   
   

   
   
   

4. Once you've set your preferences be sure to click the Save Preferences button at the bottom of the screen.

Changing Your Profile Picture

1. Select Edit Profile from the User menu.

2. On the Edit Profile page, select Change My Picture from the menu.

3. On the Change Picture page, click on the Upload New Picture button to select a picture image from a local drive.

Connecting to Your Social Media Networks

CCCTechnology.info integrates with a number of social applications that can be used as SSO solutions, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (coming soon).

To share your activity with your friends and followers - or to be notified of activity from this site on your social media sites - connect your profile to your existing social media networks.

To connect, click the Connect button for available social networks.

Using the CCCTechnology Support Site

For California Community Colleges staff and faculty, CCCTechnology.info is an all-purpose support and communication site for systemwide information technology applications and services developed by the CCC Technology Center.

Navigating the Site

Getting There

To get to CCCTechnology.info online support site, visit CCCTechnology.info.

Home Page

The CCCTechnology.info homepage is presents a forum-style landing page for both registered users and visiting guests. The layout a slightly different look for un-registered users, but for the most part provides that same functionality for all visitors.

Below is the homepage that new users will see when they visit the site. The “Register” and “Sign-In” buttons appear at the top of the screen and in the right sidebar.

Registered users will see current messaging, alerts, and notification links in the right-tool bar.

The Toolbar

The MeBox

The MeBox shows your profile picture and username when you are logged in and provides several vital links to other areas of the platform. You can view your notifications, bookmarks, visit your own profile page.

Notifications

Side Panel

The side panel includes widgets, quick links, and pockets of content that are easily accessible in our support community.

Categories: Categories are how posts are organized within this community. 

Recent Discussions: A list of all discussions across all categories in the community, ranked by the date they were published or last updated.

Activity: A feed that displays all recent member activity such as; who has joined, who has changed their picture, status updates, etc.

My Bookmarks: Bookmarks or My Bookmarks are discussions that have been “starred” or bookmarked by clicking the star icon to the right of the discussion. Bookmarks are added to the Bookmarked Discussions Box in the Panel element (sidebar). This will only populate if the user has bookmarked at least 1 discussion. The My Bookmarks link will not appear in the side panel to Guest or users with no bookmarks.

My Discussions: A list of all discussions the currently signed in user has published. This will only populate if the user has authored at least 1 discussion and will not appear to Guests.

Unanswered: A list of unanswered questions that you have permission to see.

Best Of: The Best Of link displays a showcase of the best content in the CCCTechnology.info community that other members or our moderators have voted as the best content. Moderators can also promote certain content to the Best Of page, which will constantly be refreshed as new content is published.

Groups: A list of Groups that the user is a member of as well as a list of Popular Groups and All Groups.

Categories & Discussions

Categories

A category is a discussion space within the support site where admins and users can initiate questions or requests around a specific topic or product set. Categories appear listed on the home page for easy access. Users can select a category by clicking on the category title. Note that a category can have subcategories. If this is the case, then users will be able to post discussions in both the parent category, and the (child) subcategories.

Discussions

Discussions are questions, comments, or messages posted to one or more Categories within the community. “Posting” - or commenting - on a discussion is the primary way users interact within our community. There is a range of discussion types available to suit your needs.

At the bottom of each discussion, there is a text field where users type their comments and submit them by hitting the “Post Comment” button. That comment will immediately appear at the bottom of the discussion, adding it to the conversation.

Creating A New Discussion

To create a new discussion, click on the New Discussion button in the right side bar of any category.

Below is an example of what you will encounter on the New Discussion page:

1. The user starts a new discussion by selecting the category in which the new discussion should be posted.
   
   

2. The discussion title is required and what will appear at the top of your post once it’s been submitted. It will also identify the discussion on the category index.
   
   

3. The text editor field is where the user will enter the main body of their post.
   
   

4. The user has options to assist in formatting the text, inserting emojis and images, and attaching files.
   
   

5. Once the user has finished creating their post, clicking the Post Discussion button will immediately publish it. Clicking Save Draft will store the post under “My Drafts” in your user’s profile menu. Cancel will return the user back to the category previously viewed.

Types of Discussions

There are several different types of discussions that users can select when adding a new discussion post in an available category. When creating a new discussion, start by clicking the down-arrow on the “New Discussion” button to reveal the available options:

The New Discussion option is used for adding a general discussion topic or idea.

The Ask A Question option can be used when looking to get an answer or specific information. The screen for posting a question looks identical to the New Discussion screen. When a question is asked, the bottom of each subsequent comment will provide an option for the commenter to mark it as an answer.

The New Event option can be used to post information about an upcoming event.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks or My Bookmarks are discussions that have been “starred” or bookmarked by clicking the star icon to the right of a discussion. Bookmarks are added to the Bookmarked Discussions Box in the Panel element (sidebar). 

Bookmarks can allow users to keep track of a favorite or important discussion. Users can choose to be notified via pop up or email when other users comment on their bookmarked discussions.

Cutting-Edge Features

CCCTechnology.info is powered by Vanilla Forums - community-based support platform.

• Discussion types: In addition to standard discussions, Vanilla allows users to post questions and polls.

• Private messaging: Users can have private one-on-one discussions, or they can bring multiple people into the conversation.

• Powerful search: Autocomplete helps users find what they are looking for quickly. Search results include images and videos added to posts. Relevance is based on keywords, word order and post quality.

• Mentions: Users can mention each other in discussions by writing an "@" before a username. Mentioned users are notified so they can quickly jump into the discussion.

• Rich content: Users can format posts with html, markdown or bb code. Images are automatically resized and YouTube and Vimeo videos are automatically embedded. Tweets, Vines and Pins are also automatically recognized when pasted into a comment.

• Advanced Editor: Advanced Editor recognizes HTML, BBCode and Markdown. Images, videos and other rich content are easily embedded, files can be uploaded and code blocks can be prettified.

• Auto-save: The platform auto-saves your content as you are entering it so that you can close the window on purpose or by accident, and your hard work will not be lost.

• Smart history: The platform remembers everything you've seen, keeping you up to date with which discussions have new content.

Contacting Technical Support

To report an service incident or product related issue:

For assistance with student support
Online: ccchelp.info
Email: support@openccc.net

For assistance with staff & faculty support
Online: ccctechnology.info
Email: staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com