You consistently ranked networking with other members as one of the primary reasons to belong to MGMA. You asked for file repositories so you can easily share documents with your peers. You asked for the flexibility to network with the membership at large or to create groups for more targeted discussions of your choosing. You asked for the ability to form study groups, and to extend the networking opportunities surrounding educational events. We are committed to keeping you on the forefront of technology by providing you with 21st Century tools to meet your 21st Century challenges. The MGMA Member Community is one of the first of its kind, providing the features you asked for and allowing you to define the way you network.
Here are answers to common questions and tips on how to make the most of your new MGMA Member Community. If you require additional assistance, please contact us or view our short video tutorials.
Login Help
My Profile
Contact requests, community invitations and messages
Managing Your Contact List
Communities
eGroups (Discussion Forums)
Directory
Resource Libraries
Login Help
Q: Why can’t I log in to the site?
You will need to log in using your mgma.com ID (which is the same as your member number) and password. If you haven’t created a new password for mgma.com since March 2008, you can log in using your last name as your password; the system will then prompt you to create a new password that is 8-20 characters long and includes at least one letter and one number. If your last name doesn't work, visit the MGMA login help page and click the "forgot password" link in the middle. This will reset your password and send you an e-mail with instructions for creating a new one.
Q: What is the "Remember me" option?
If you check the “Remember me” option next time you log into the MGMA Web site, you won't have to log in again on future visits unless you (or your IT department) clear your "cookies" or click on "Log out." "Remember me" creates an encrypted cookie, using the latest .NET authenticated technology, which is stored on your PC. The cookie allows you access to mgma.com, the store, the Member Community and the survey site.
Q: Why do my community e-mails contain the message "Your private login information is embedded in this message. Do Not Forward."?
To make it easier for you to respond to messages posted to the discussion groups, we have embedded sign-on information in the e-mails. If you pass on a message to a colleague using your regular e-mail client "Forward" feature, the recipient will be able to log in as you if they click on any of the links contained in the e-mail. This auto log-in feature expires when the message is more than five days old. If you are responding to a message that is more than five days old, you will be asked to log in -- unless you've chosen the "Remember me" option on the site described above.
To safely forward messages to colleagues, please use the "Forward message" link found next to each post in the HTML version of the e-mail.
My Profile
For additional guidance, please view the brief “My Profile” tutorial.
Q: How do I update my contact information?
From your profile, click the “edit my contact information” link. This will take you back to mgma.com, where you can make any changes necessary by clicking on “About me”, “My addresses” or “My organization.” When you change information here, it will be updated in all of our systems.
Q: How do I update my organization’s information?
From your profile, scroll to “My Organization” and click the “Edit organization details” link. This will take you back to your organization’s profile at mgma.com, where you can make any necessary changes. If someone else in your organization is an MGMA member, they will also be able to update this information. If that person has made changes, the system will display his/her name and the date he/she updated the profile. Again, when information is changed here, it will be updated in all of our systems.
Q: I made changes to my contact or organization information. Why doesn’t it show up right away?
In order to allow you to change all of your information in one place, we designed this update protocol to synchronize the information across all of our systems. During busier server times, the system could take up to 30 minutes to reflect your changes. Also, if you have made a significant change to your organizational information (e.g., changing your FTE count from five to 150), a notification is automatically generated for our Service Center to manually review and approve this change before it is implemented.
Q: How do I control what information is shown in My Profile?
Under “My Profile”, click the “Preferences” link in the left navigation. This will let you control what information is visible to whom. Please note that selecting the “public” option will make your profile visible to anyone on the internet; we recommend you do not use this option unless you’d like to use your profile as an electronic resume. After you’ve made changes, click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page. If you would like to hide your e-mail address or phone number, please contact the MGMA Service Center at membership@mgma.com or by calling 877.275.6462, ext. 1888.
For additional information, please view the “Privacy Settings” tutorial.
Q: Are my ACMPE credit hours visible to anyone else?
No, this information only appears on your own profile.
Q: My picture won’t upload. What’s wrong?
The dimensions of the image must be no larger than 600 pixels wide by 600 pixels high. The file size (kilobytes, megabytes, etc.) does not matter. You can check the dimensions in programs like Photoshop, Microsoft Paint and Microsoft Photo Editor. The image must also be saved in a .jpg, .gif or .bmp format.
Q: What if I don’t have a good photo of myself?
Have fun with it. The images enhance the collegiality of the MGMA Member Community, so feel free to include any image that reflects your personality, hobbies, pets or the like. Just make sure that the image you include is neither offensive to anyone nor protected by copyright, if you have not obtained permission from its owner or copyright-holder.
Q: Do I have to enter start and end dates for my education?
No, just leave the date drop-down boxes set to the blank option.
Q: I clicked on the “edit my contact information” link, and I’m being asked to log in to the mgma.com website. I thought I was already logged in.
If you are accessing the MGMA Member Community from the links in an e-mail you received, you are logged into the Member Community, but not to mgma.com. To protect your information, we have not enabled the automatic login to access this area of the site.
Contact requests, community invitations and messages
Q: How can I receive messages, contact requests and invitations from other members in my e-mail inbox?
Under “My Profile”, click the “Preferences” link in the left navigation. Your notification settings are at the top. By selecting “Forward Immediately”, you will receive the notifications in your e-mail inbox. If you select “Do Not Forward”, you will receive notifications only when you log in to the Community. After you’ve made changes, click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page.
Q: I received a contact request that I don’t want to accept. What happens if I decline?
When you receive a contact request, you will have the option of accepting, declining or sending that person a message. When you choose to simply decline, the request disappears from your contact requests; the person who sent it to you is NOT notified that you have declined. If you’d like to tell the person why you’re declining their invitation, choose the option to send them a message first. After the message is sent, you can click the “Decline” button.
Managing Your Contact List
Q: How do I add contacts to my contact list?
There are several ways to add contacts to your list. When you perform a search in the Member Directory, you will see an “Add as contact” link next to each person in your search results. Just click this link to send a contact request. If you click through and view someone’s profile, you can click the contact request link just to the right of their profile picture. Clicking any of your “Peer Groups” links, either from your profile or under “My Communities”, will yield a similar list.
Q: Why should I add contacts to my contact list?
Creating this virtual address book makes it easy to send your contacts messages through the system to stay in touch, ask questions or solicit advice. Additionally, when you view another member’s profile, you’ll be able to see any contacts you have in common with them. Your contact list makes it easy to send invitations if you create a community, and you can also choose to let only your contacts view and/or comment on your blog.
Q: I noticed that I can rate my contacts based on a five-star system. Can people see how I rated them?
Don’t worry – this information is only visible to you. Since you can sort by rating, this feature provides a way to organize your list of contacts. We suggest you give the people you contact most five stars and the ones you contact least one star. Your highest-rated contacts will show up in the left navigation under “My Profile”, making it easy to access their contact information and send them messages.
Communities
Q: How do I join a community?
Under “My Communities”, click the “Join/Leave communities” link in the left navigation. Here, you will see a list of available communities. Select one of the delivery options (Real Time, Digest, PDA or No Email) for any communities you wish to join and then click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page. You will get a red message confirming that your subscription options have been successfully updated. This can take around 30 seconds if you change your settings for several communities at the same time.
Q: What options are available for e-mail delivery?
At the top of the “Join/Leave Communities” page, there is an option for “Text” or ”HTML”. By default, this is set to “HTML”, and we encourage you to leave it set to this if your e-mail client can support it. However, if you are having problems viewing the HTML version or if it takes too long to open, please switch to the text version.
Under each community, you have the following delivery options:
- Real time: sends an e-mail every time a new message is posted
- Daily digest: sends one e-mail to you each morning, consolidating all of the posts from the previous day
- PDA: sends real-time text versions of the posts, which are compatible with Blackberries and most other handheld devices. This option also allows you to reply without logging in to a web browser, but it does NOT allow you to include attachments with your post.
- No E-mail: allows you to be part of the community without having e-mails sent to you. You can still post and read other’s messages on the integrated online discussion board.
Q: I’d prefer to have certain forums go to a different e-mail address. Is this possible?
You can use different e-mail addresses for different forums. For example, you could have one forum go to your personal e-mail and others go to your work e-mail. On the “Join/Leave Communities” page, under each community to which you’ve subscribed, you’ll see “subscribed as [e-mail address]. Change.” Just click the “change” link, enter a different e-mail address, click “OK”, and click “Save” at the bottom to confirm the change. If you change your main e-mail address in your profile or with MGMA, it will update all of the forums that used your former e-mail address. Those that use a different e-mail address will remain the same.
Q: How do I leave a community?
Under “My Communities”, click the “Join/Leave communities” link in the left navigation. Here, you will see a list of available communities and those to which you’ve subscribed. Select “Not Subscribed” to the right of the community you wish to leave and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page. You will get a red message confirming that your subscription options have been successfully updated. This can take several seconds if you change your settings for several communities at the same time.
Q: How do I create a new community?
Under “My Communities”, click the “Create Communities” link in the left navigation. Please view the brief Create a Community tutorial for more details.
Q: Why am I receiving an error when I try to create a community?
If you have included certain punctuation (like apostrophes) in the name of your community or if you choose a community type other than "member-created community," you may receive an error. Please try to create your community again omitting all punctuation from the name and selecting the "member-created community" type.
Q: How do I invite others to join my community?
The easiest way is to add them to your contact list. You can then send a mass invitation out to all of your contacts when you create your community. You can also do a search in the directory and send messages to those individuals you’d like to invite and/or post a notice that you’ve created the group on any related, existing discussion forum.
Q: Why are you allowing members to create their own communities?
There is tremendous value in having access to a large number of other practice administrators with whom you can share ideas, experience and advice. There are also topics you’d like to discuss that only interest a smaller subset of the membership. Rather than having these conversations on the larger forums, you can now create your own community for those that would like to participate in that discussion. Versus one generalized member e-mail forum, we have been providing specialty- and interest-area specific lists for years. This is an extension of the same principle. You can create these groups for a sub-specialties, specific business concerns or even study or work groups.
Also, since you are the ones “in the trenches,” you may recognize the need for a new community sooner than we would. Additionally, this feature makes it easier to find information pertaining to a specific area by narrowing the topics that are discussed within one forum.
Q: What are “Peer Groups”?
These are networking groups that are automatically created based on demographic information in your profile. They help you locate other members who live in your city or state, share your interests, have the same job title and more.
eGroups (Discussion Forums)
Q: How do I respond to others’ posts?
From a received e-mail or the online discussion board, you can click either the “Reply to eGroup” link to send your message to the entire forum, or the “Reply to Sender” link to send your message only to the sender; both links are located just to the left of the posting. We recommend replying only to the sender for comments like “me, too” that add little value to the discussion.
Q: How do I start a new discussion thread?
In an e-mail (HTML version) from a particular discussion forum, you can use the “Post Message” link in the right navigation bar. You can also use the “Post Message” link found in the left navigation under “My Communities”. We recommend bookmarking or adding this link to your favorites list in your web browser to make it easily accessible.
Q: How do I change my subscription settings in the discussion forums?
Under “My Communities”, click the “Join/Leave communities” link in the left navigation. Here, you will see a list of available communities. Select one of the delivery options (Real Time, Digest, PDA or No Email), then click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page. You will get a red message that confirms your subscription options have been successfully updated. This can take around 30 seconds if you change your settings several communities at the same time.
Q: I’m having trouble viewing the HTML e-mail messages. How do I fix this?
If images are not appearing, it is likely that your e-mail client is set to suppress images. This should be something you can change in your security or viewing options. If you would rather receive text-based e-mail, go to the “Join/Leave Communities” page and select the “Text” format option near the top of the page. Be sure to hit “Save” at the bottom of the page once you’ve made this change.
Q: Why do I have to post messages and reply to them through the website?
There are many features in the Member Community that are made possible because of the Web interface:
- When you send an attachment through this new system, it automatically places it in the Community library and sends a link to members instead – no more blocked attachments because of file size or type, which was a huge problem in the old forums.
- Auto-responses like "out of office" won't clutter up this new system.
- Since the system automatically adds your signature, there are no more anonymous postings. The "transparency" of the community (being able to see who is posting info) should be a huge improvement.
- In the old forums, everyone's disclaimers and marketing messages at the end of their e-mails filled pages upon pages, making you scroll through all of it to get to the next message. That's all a thing of the past now.
We are working on an enhancement that will permit these features to use a typical direct reply option from your e-mail, which we hope to introduce later this year.
Q: Why do my e-mails contain a warning that says I shouldn’t forward them?
To make it easier to post and reply in the discussion forums, we have enabled an automatic login feature. This means that your login credentials are encrypted in the e-mails you receive from the forums. If you forwarded this to someone else, he/she would be able to click any of the links and log in to the Community as you. For this reason and for your protection, we strongly advise against forwarding e-mails.
Q: I clicked on the links in the e-mail a few days ago and it logged me into the Community automatically. Why isn’t it working now?
Our highest priority is protecting the information with which you have entrusted us. Because the automatic login potentially allows someone else to log in to the Community as you, we have set these links to expire five days after the message was posted.
Q: Can I search for postings across all the forums?
Yes. Click “Advanced Search” in the left navigation. This will let you search based on keywords in the posts, search all or specific forums, and select the date range in which you’d like to search.
Q: How do I see a listing of all of the posts to my discussion forum?
If you go to “My Communities” and click “View the eGroup” for the community you’d like see, it will take you to the forum digest – a listing of the most recent postings. At the top right of this page are links to view messages posted in the last 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days. If you see an interesting post, you can click “View Thread” in the left navigation, which will take you to the entire thread. “Show original message” at the bottom of all of the posts in a thread will display the original message that started that discussion. The “Author’s Messages” link will show you all of the posts that particular member has contributed to the forum.
Q: All e-mails now come from the same e-mail address. How can I sort them into different folders in my inbox?
If you have rules set up to sort e-mails to different folders based on the e-mail address, you should be able to easily change those rules to look for the forum abbreviation or acronym that appears in the subject line.
Q: How do I change the information showing up in the signature block?
This automatic signature block helps to deter the anonymous postings that were prevalent – and in violation of the MGMA Terms & Conditions – in the retired e-mail forums. We have set a default signature, but if you would like to change the information that appears or the order in which it appears, click the “My Signature” link in the left navigation under “My Communities”. You can add, delete or reorganize the fields that show up in your signature. Please note that the content of these fields is pulled directly from your profile, so if you want to change the information itself, you will need to make the change to your profile.
Directory
Q: How do I find other members?
Click the “Directory” link found in the main navigation bar at the top of the site. The Directory lets you search for other members based on:
- Name
- Location
- Membership type
- ACMPE certification level
- Board/committee participation
- Assembly/society participation
- Organization type
- Practice type
- Practice setting
- Specialty
- FTE count
- Interest areas
- Education (including university, degree, area of study and dates attended)
Q: How do I find a listing of MGMA staff?
In the Directory, leave the “Group Type” field set to “Members.” In the “Group Name” field, select “MGMA Staff” from the bottom of the list.
Q: Why can’t I change the “group type” or “group name”?
If you are not a member of ACMPE or MGMA (e.g., a conference attendee who does not also belong to the associations), your directory search is limited to the group to which you belong.
Resource Libraries
Q: How do I access my group’s resource library?
Click “My Communities”,find the community you’d like to access, and click its “View Library” link.
Q: Can I search for specific file types?
Yes. When in the resource library area, select “Advanced Search” from the left navigation. This search will let you specify file type: PowerPoint, Excel, image, video, etc.
Q: On what other properties can I search?
The advanced search option allows you to find documents based on keywords within a document title or description or even within its content. You can also specify which libraries you’d like to search, by which author, date posted, tags and more.
Q: How do the libraries get populated?
Your resource libraries are populated in two ways: you can upload documents directly by using the “Add Document” link found in the left navigation. Alternately, when you include an attachment in a forum post, the system automatically places it in the library and sends a link to it to all subscribers. This eliminates the issue of blocked attachments because of file size or type, which was a huge problem in the old forums. It also makes the attachments easier to find.
We’ve pre-populated the libraries with any attachments that were shared on the retired e-mail forums within three months prior to the launch of the MGMA Member Community.
Q: How do I upload a document?
In the resource libraries area, click the “Add Document” link in the left navigation. Please note that uploading a document is done in three steps and each step must be completed before you can move on to the next. First, you will choose a title for your document, include a description (if you’d like) and select the library to which you’d like to upload it; then hit “Save”. “Step 2” then activates, allowing you to browse for and upload your file. After uploading, you will have the option of adding tags or keywords to your document so it is more easily searchable.
Q: What kind of documents can I upload?
The system supports literally dozens of file types: PDFs, Powerpoint, Excel, Word, images and even video. You are, however, prohibited from uploading copyright-protected documents that you do not have the rights to post.
Q: What are the “tags” for?
Tags are another way of organizing and searching for documents. You can help others find the file you uploaded by including tags when you upload it. We have given you a few sets to choose from, but you can also add your own. Other members can also add tags to your document, further enhancing this search feature. This comes in handy because the name of the same policy or procedure often varies between practices.
Q: I have several related documents. Do I have to post them individually?
No. You can post related documents together, and we encourage you to do so. Follow steps 1 & 2 to upload your first file. Then, rather than saving, perform step 2 again to upload another file. Continue that process until all of your related files are uploaded, then add your tags and hit “Save.”
Q: Can someone else edit or delete my file?
As the owner of the document, only you or a system administrator can delete your document. If you’d like to delete it, just click the red “X” that appears when you view the document details.
Q: Can I download documents?
Absolutely. That’s why they are being shared. However, please note all of these documents have been submitted by your peers and have not been reviewed by MGMA. You must evaluate and bear all risks associated with the use of any content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of such content.