Managing contacts and sending messages

On ARIS Community, BPM experts and ARIS users from all over the world meet every day to discuss current BPM topics and exchange ARIS tips. Sometimes, community members want to continue a discussion in private or exchange contact data. To support this, a messaging functionality is provided, which is described in the following.

Before a user can send a message to another user, both users must agree that they are contacts of each other. Therefore, it is not possible to immediately send a message to every single user on ARIS Community, but instead a contact request must be send first. After both users confirmed being contacts, they can send messages without further restrictions. Creating a contact relationship is only required once.

Adding a user as contact

You can add a user as your contact by visiting the user’s profile page. On the user profile page you will find an icon with a plus sign:  If you click this icon, the user gets notified about your contact request. The screenshot shows where this icon is located:

After you added the user as your contact, the icon turns into a new one:  This icon shows that you already sent a contact request to the user, but that the user has not confirmed your request yet.

After the user confirmed your contact request, the following icon is shown on the user profile:  If you click this icon, you are forwarded to a page showing you all your contacts and open contact requests.

Confirming contact requests

If another user is adding you as a contact, you are asked to confirm this contact request the next time you log in. You are also receiving an email notifying you that someone wants to add you as a contact. If you log in, a message is shown to inform you about the new contact request:

If you follow the link in the message, you get to a page where you see all contact requests you received so far. On that page, you can approve or disapprove the contact relationship. It is also possible to block a user in case the user requested several times to be your contact. Use this option with caution, e.g. if you think the user is a spammer. We will review blocked users from time to time and terminate their membership in case they proof to violate the ARIS Community Guidelines. You can access this page following this link.

Managing your contacts

You can manage your contacts on a specific page. You can access this page directly from the navigation menu in the right sidebar:

The page is structured in three parts:

• list of confirmed contacts
• list of pending contact requests you send
• list of users blocking you

Each list provides action links for the list entries. For example, the list of confirmed contacts allows removing the contact, sending a message to the contact or even blocking the contact.

If you click on the name of a user in the lists, you get to the user profile of the selected user.

Sending messages

Contacts can send messages to each other. The messages are currently not stored within ARIS Community, but instead forwarded to the receiver’s email address. To send an email to one of your contacts, go to the contact’s profile page and click the message icon . The following screenshot shows the location of this icon.

If you click this icon, you get to a form where you can enter your message. You must enter the following data:

• message subject
• message body
• decide, whether you want to receive a copy of your message by email

After submitting your message, the message is sent to the user by email. This email does not include your email address. If the user wants to reply to your message, he must use the message form on ARIS Community, too. Note: The sender and receiver are not able to get to know the email address of the other side.

Learning by doing

Now it is time for testing what was written so far. Go to my user profile and add me as your contact. I will confirm your request allowing you to send me a message. Also, after adding me as your contact, visit your “Manage Your Contacts” page as described above.