Learn More About How to Use BLI Connect

BLI Connect is civilized public discussion

Please treat everyone you interact with with respect and professionalism. Think of Connect like driving: it only works when people obey basic rules of the road, common sense, and shared politeness. When these things happen, this tool works well!

Learn more at our Community Guidelines page.

Access BLI Connect via this website or email

You can start new topics or reply to existing one using the online forum or via email. When you get an email message with a new post on a topic you are following, you can give your public reply to that post just by replying to the email. Your post will appear as a threaded reply online in the forum page as well.

Email messages and notifications are customizable

Using the website or mobile app, you can choose which posts to follow and how you’d like to follow them. Some users want an email for every reply to every topic. Some prefer daily summaries. Others want to see replies only to the topics that they have already participated in. It’s all up to you.

Most members of a community choose one of these options:

• “Watching first post” will email you every time a new topic starts, but you will not see every reply to that topic (unless you’ve already replied or interacted with the topic yourself).
• “Watching” will email you every time there is a new reply to any topic in the particular community.

These email notification settings also control the alerts and notifications that will appear to you on the website view of BLI Connect. See more about Advanced Notification Preferences below.

How do I join BLI Connect?

If you have an account on blionline.org, then you are already a part of BLI Connect, and you can start participating in all the communities you have access to.

Log in to blionline.org to access BLI Connect.

Which communities can I access?

BLI Connect offers many different communities, each organized around a broad theme or shared professional experience/role.

Your access to any community is based on your BLI membership settings. Some Connect communities are open to all BLI members; other communities are only available to those who are members of specific groups, committees, etc. These memberships are indicated in your account profile at BLIonline.org. Questions about how to participate in any Connect community can be answered by our member service team.

To access a community, click on its name from the BLI Connect welcome page.

How do I post a new topic?

Post a new topic to start a new discussion, ask a question, or share your insight.

Steps to post a new topic:

1. From any community home page, click the “Create New Topic” located above the list of existing conversations.
2. Give your new topic a title.
3. Select a category or sub-category for your topic.
4. Write the body of your topic. This can include text and images, and multiple formatting options are available to you.
5. A preview of how your post will look with formatting is provided next to your message.
6. Click “Create Topic” when you’re ready to post. Your post remains editable after you publish it.

How do I interact with existing topics and posts?

There are several ways to engage on BLI Connect.

Ways to interact with a post:

1. “Heart” a post to like it, or as a way to show appreciation or agreement.
2. Click the Bookmark icon to save a post to your bookmarked posts list.
3. Click Reply to respond to a post.

How do I "flag" a post when content is inappropriate?

You are helping the community when you flag a post that is inappropriate for any reason. Sometimes, a post or message might simply be irrelevant in the wrong category. Other times (we hope rarely, if ever!), content might be rude, abusive, or explicit.

When you flag a message, you will presented with the option to message the user who posted it in order to address the behavior or content you find objectionable.

Learn more about our Community Guidelines.

Advanced notification settings

There are many ways to customize your experience on BLI Connect to make sure you are seeing the content you want in the way you want it. Alert, notifications, and emails are are customizable on a per-topic basis, and with global settings on your account.

Options for following a post:

• Watching: You will be notified of every new reply in this topic, and a count of new replies will be shown.
• Tracking: A count of new replies will be shown for this topic. You will be notified if someone mentions your @name or replies to you.
• Normal: You will be notified if someone mentions your @name or replies to you.
• Muted: You will never be notified of anything about this topic, and it will not appear in latest.

Note that you have many other ways to customize your experience in your account settings. You can also see exactly how you are following posts in each of your communities.

How do I upload a profile picture?

A profile picture can help other users get a sense of who you are. It helps “put a face to a name.”

Steps to add your profile picture:

1. Go to your account settings.
2. Click the edit pencil next to the profile picture field.
3. Upload your photo and hit “Save Changes.”