Insights

One of the key contributions of our community is the collective experience we have gained. The insight tracker is a new feature of the site that allows community members to record and share their observations.

The insight tracker feature is initially available to select teams for beta testing and to start building a database of insights. You’ll only see the insight system if you are a member of one of these teams or if you’ve been tagged in an insight someone has posted. Once the feature has been more thoroughly tested and we’ve built up a database of published insights, the feature will be available to everyone. Make sure you are logged in to be able to access the insight features.

What’s an Insight?

An insight post represents an observation made by members of the community. It consists of:

• A short summary (which may be the entire insight). This is the "title" of the insight and is how it will appear in the main listing and in search results. There’s no hard limit on length, but keep to the basic concept and elaborate in the main body of the post.
• The main body of the insight. This is a freeform document where you can include any additonal relevant information. This uses the editor, so you can include photos, links, etc.
• Tags. You can use tags to classify observations by learning theme, type of engagement when the observation was made, or any other purpose. When searching for insights you can filter by tag, so this is an easy way to find everything with the same theme.
• People. Insights are associated with the people who made the observation (the observers) and the person making the post (the reporter). (Note that these may be the same person).
• Places. If the insight is related to specific locations, such as a property or a sampling site, these can be added as well. Like tags, insights can be filtered by location when searching.
• Teams. Every insight is owned by at least one team. Other members of the team will be able to see and comment on other team members’ insights. When searching for insights, you can also filter by team.
• Comments. Team members can post comments, creating a discussion around every insight. This can be used to follow up or add additional points relevant to the initial observation.

Insight Visibility and Lifecycle

When you post a new insight, it is initially visible to your team members, but not to the public or to other teams. This lets you share observations within your team that might not be fully developed yet.

In the future, you will be able to mark an insight as published, which will make it visible to all visitors of the site.

Browsing and Searching Insights

You can view your teams’ insights by selecting Insights from the main menu at the top of any page, which will take you to the insight browser and search page. Initially, the browser will show every insight that you are allowed to view. Insights that have been posted more recently (or that have recent comments) will appear at the top of the list. The title of the insight is shown in large text and clicking on it will take you to the page for that insight. Tags, places, and teams are shown below the title. You can click on any of these to limit the display to only insights with a particular tag, location, or team. When you have selected a topic to filter by, this will appear underneath the search box at the top of the page. If you want to go back to viewing all insights, you can click the X next to the filter to remove it.

You can also search for terms in the title or body of the insight and in comments by typing into the search box and clicking ‘Search.’ If any tags or other filters are selected, the search will be limited to these.

You can clear all tags and search terms and return to viewing the full list by clicking the ‘Clear’ button.

Viewing and Commenting on Insights

Clicking on the title of an insight in the browser or search results will take you to the page for that insight. In addition to the main body of the insight, metadata including the related people, teams, and places will appear in the right column (or below the main body on a mobile device).

Any comments that have been posted on the insight will appear below the main body in chronological order. At the bottom is a text field which you can use to add your own comments.

After you have posted a comment, you can edit or delete it by clicking the pencil or trash can icons in the heading.

Posting a New Insight

You can add a new observation by clicking the “New Insight” button at the top of the insight index. This will take you to the editor for a new insight.

In the “Make an observation…” field, enter a brief overview of the observation. There’s no specific length limit, but try to keep it short enough that it will be reasonable when scrolling through the list of insights.

If you have more to say, you can elaborate in the box below. You can also use this area to include photos and links. If the insight is simple enough to fit in the summary, you don’t have to put anything here if you don’t want to.

In the “Themes and Tags” box, enter key words that categorize this insight, pressing the return key or clicking the Add button after each one. If you want to remove a tag, you can click the X button next to it.

Note: The insight system currently lets you enter any tags you want for maximum flexibility. In order to make searching for particular themes easier, try to use consistent tags. A future will add a database of common tags to help facilitate this.

Every insight must be associated with at least one team. Your team memberships are listed under the “Teams” heading. Check at least one; if more than one team is relevant, check all that apply.

The “People” heading lets you specify who should be credited with the observation. Since you’re making the post, you’re automatically credited as the “Reporter.” If you’re also the person who made the observation, leave the "Observer" box checked next to your name. You can add other people by clicking the “Add Attribution” button and searching for their name. Check the Observer and Reporter boxes as appropriate.

Note: In order to attribute someone, they must have a profile on the site. Let us know if there’s someone we should add.

Under the “Places” heading, you can add locations relevant to this observation. Places are optional; if they are not relevant you don’t have to add any. You can also add as many as you like. Any location in the database can be added, such as a property or an individual sampling location.

Once you have finished entering your insight, click the Create Insight button to post it.

Editing an Insight

From an insight page, you can get back to the editor by clicking the “Edit Insight” button at the top of the right column (or below the main body on a mobile device). This will let you edit the title and body of the insight, as well as add new tags, people, and places.

Before editing an insight, consider whether your edits would be better posted as a comment. If you are significantly editing the body of an insight, you may also want to leave a comment letting others know what you’ve changed.

Deleting an Insight

It shouldn’t happen often, but on occasion you may want to delete an insight. For example, you might realize that there’s already an existing insight on the same topic as one you just posted.

In this case, you can delete an insight by navigating to it, clicking on the "Edit Insight" button, and then clicking the “Delete Insight” button at the bottom right of the editor.

Deleting an insight will make any associated comments and media inaccessible, so you should generally think twice about deleting an insight that already has an active discussion. If in doubt, get in touch with us for advice.

Closing Remarks

We hope you find the insight tracker helpful for your team and look forward to building a collective database of learnings about wetland restoration practice. Please let us know if you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions for improvement.