Note: This orientation is for people who have Owner permission level. Unless you have this level of community permissions, you will not be able to carry out the tasks below. To get owner permission, contact an owner of your community.

You have just created your own Cospire Community! Because you created this community you automatically have full permissions (Owner Permission) so you can do things like:

• Create the beginning infrastructure of your community. For example, the title of your community, its purpose, categories to store information in, create the community home page, and much more.
• Invite people to your community. Although you can have your own private Cospire Community where only you have access, the word "community" is a bit of a misnomer without inviting others to join.

Content that you share in your community is stored in what is called Knowledge Objects (KOs). Before you can create content (Knowledge Objects) in your community, you need to create one or more categories to contain your KOs in. Categories are like labeled containers for your community's content and are similar to folders on your computer except with categories, one category can be listed under more than one parent category. Besides enabling greater organization for your knowledge, categories can serve as guidance to community members about the types of things they might create Knowledge Objects about. Also, you can allow others in your community to create and change categories, therefore, do not worry about creating a perfect categorical hierarchy immediately. Like everything in an Cospire Community, let it evolve! To learn more about categories and how to work with them, see Categories.

To get started, let's create a category to contain the home page for the community.

1. Mouseover the Create & Modify menu item at the top of the screen and then click on Create/Modify Category (see figure below).
2. This will take you to a category editor introduction screen with buttons to either "Add Category", "Edit Category", or "Delete Category". Click on Add Category.
3. This will take you to the category editor. First, create a short but intuitive title for the category. Let's call this one "Introductory Pages". Note: you can change this later.
4. Give a short description for the category. For example "Articles found in here introduce you to the community".
5. Check the checkbox labeled Root Category. A root category is one that appears at the top of the category hierarchy and has no categories above it. This is the first category created in the community so it has to be a root category.
6. If you don't want the category to be a root category (true for most categories), then select one or more categories for your new category to be under.
7. Click the Add Category button.

Create/Modify a Category

Now that you have a category to put a Knowledge Object (KO) in, let's create a KO and make it the home page for the community. The home page is the page that everyone who goes to your community will see first.

1. Mouseover the the Create & Modify menu item at the top of the screen and then click on New Knowledge Object (see figure below).
2. You will now be in the Knowledge Object Wizard. This wizard guides you step by step through the process of creating a Knowledge Object. A Knowledge Object is what is used in a Cospire community to store information. For now, you are creating a Knowledge Object that will serve as your community home page.
3. In the wizard, you are first asked for a title and abstract. Give it a title like "Exotic Dog Lover Community", or "ABC Consulting Home Page", or whatever is appropriate for you and then click the "Next" button. Note: don't worry too much about getting this perfect because you can change it later. In fact, any Knowledge Object in your community can be used for your home page so you can swap this one for another later on if you want.
4. You are now asked to associate your Knowledge Object to a Category. For now, select the category you created earlier.
5. Now you can create a body for your page. This is typically where most of your content goes. Type in some content for your home page. Perhaps you will have a message welcoming people to your community, listing upcoming events for your community, etc.
6. Go through the rest of the steps in the wizard to see familiarize yourself with the different components of a Knowledge Object. When you get to the step Provide Settings, check the checkbox labeled Make this KO our Community Home Page.
7. When you are done, click Finish.

Create a Knowledge Object

You now have a home page and more importantly you know how to create Knowledge Objects. Whenever there is a new piece of knowledge that you want to publish (i.e. a recipe, a company policy, a manufacturing process, whatever) you create a Knowledge Object. There is a great deal members of your community can do with these Knowledge Objects including revising them, annotating them, rating them, and more. For more information on Knowledge Objects, see Knowledge Objects.

Now that you have a basic infrastructure for your community, you will probably want to invite others to participate in the community. How people join your community will depend on the security level of your community. See Invite People to Join your Community

What's Next

You now have a basic infrastructure for your community and have begun inviting people. To learn about getting started with day-to-day use of Cospire, see Getting Started (Members). In addition, there is still a great deal more to an Cospire Community. Most of these features will become apparent to you as you continue to explore the software. However, for an overview of the main tasks and concepts of Cospire, read the Cospire Help.