Hylo User Guide
This manual provides users with relevant information on the ins and outs of Hylo from a user perspective.
- You can join Hylo by accepting an invite email from an existing Hylo community or clicking on a Hylo community invite link that someone shares with you.
- If you haven’t been invited to an existing community, you can sign up to create your own community https://hylo.com/signup.
- You can sign up or log in to an existing account using an email address and password.
- When you join you will be asked to upload a profile photo and share your location.
To change anything about your profile, you must go to “Settings” in the upper right corner by clicking on your photo icon.
Make sure to click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the form if you make any changes
Creating a rich member profile builds trust and helps users connect with others. We strongly recommend users put time and intention into this!
Editing your Hylo Profile
To change your profile picture or banner image, hover over the image and click the icon at the bottom of the image.
Enter a short & sweet summation of who you are and what you are about!
Share a bit more about yourself. What is your story? Why are you a part of Hylo?
Update your location here. Please ensure when you are typing your location that you click the location from the list that pops up.
- What are your interests? What are skills you can share with a community?
- Hover over a skill/interest tag and double click on the “x” to delete.
- Click on the Add a Skill or Interest button to enter a new one.
What are you learning right now?
- This list automatically shows which groups on Hylo you are a part of.
- Click “Leave” to exit the groups you no longer want to be a part of.
- Add Affiliations to include organizations you are also a part of. You have the option of sharing your role and the website of the Affiliate organization.
This section contains all open requests and invitations to join groups.
- You have the option here to Decline or the Join groups you are invited to.
- You can also Cancel requests to join other groups.
- Change how often you receive a daily email digest - daily, weekly, or none. This email digest will include new posts in your communities, as well as if posts you are following received new comments.
- Change how you want to receive notifications about new comments on posts you are following. You can receive notifications via email, mobile, by both email and mobile, or no notifications.
- Change whether you want to receive direct messages (DMs) by email, mobile, or by both.
- You can turn on or off push/email notifications individually for each group you are a part of. Simply click the downward arrow adjacent to the group and toggle on/off notifications by mobile/email.The mobile/email ions will be highlighted if notifications are turned on for them
- Click on the bell in the upper right of your screen to see a stream of notifications, including new posts in your communities, and new comments on posts you are following.
- You can filter the list to see only Unread notifications, and Mark All of them as Read at once.
- When you receive an email notification about a new comment on a post you are following, you can reply to the email to add your own comment to the post.
Change the email associated with your Hylo account and update your password here.
Deactivating your account means you will not be able to use Hylo:
- You will not receive notifications.
- Your profile will not show up in member searches or in the group members section.
Note: Your comments and posts will remain as they are when you deactivate your profile.
This action is reversible, just log back in to activate your account.
If you delete your account:
- Your account and its details will be deleted.
- The content of your posts and comments will be removed.
- You won't be able to use Hylo unless you create a brand new account.
Saved Map Searches
The Activity Dashboard lives on the left panel of your screen. There may be additional icons here if your Group Admins have set Custom Views. You can learn more about Custom Views in our Moderator Guide.
The primary interface of Hylo is a lot like other social media platforms. You see a stream of posts from the community you are looking at, and can scroll down to see previous posts.
- Sort the stream by Latest Activity, the Post Date and by “Popular” posts, that have been “upvoted” or liked by the most people.
- Filter the stream by the post type - “Discussion”, “Events”, “Offers”, “Projects”, “Requests”, or “Resources". Learn more about the Types of Posts.
- Adjust your Stream View using the icons in the upper right of the stream. Chose between between a Card view, List view, Large Grid, and Small Grid views.
- Search the Stream by keyword by using the magnifying glass icon
How you can adjust your stream view
The “Explore” view is another way to see activity within your group. This page offers a centralized view of Announcements, Recently Active Members, Open Requests & Offers, Recent Posts, Community Topics, Upcoming Events, and Recently Active Projects.
Click "About Us" in the upper right corner of the Group Banner Image to learn more about your Group. If your group has an "About Us" video, it will display here.
Group Explore Page
Click on the leaf icon on the left side panel to view a stream of “Projects” within the group. Clicking on a project will expand it on the right side of your screen. Here, you can comment, upvote, or JOIN the project. Project posts may include a project link, which links out to an external project management solution, as well as a donation link.
To create a project, see How to Post.
Click on the calendar icon on the left side panel to view a stream of “Events.” Clicking on an event will expand it on the right side of your screen. You can RSVP to the event and also invite others.
To create an event, see How to Post.
Click on the “Members” icon on the left sidebar to view a list of all group member
- You can search by name or by skill/interest.
- You can sort the member directory by name or location.
- Clicking on a person will bring you to their profile.
The Member Directory
Click on a member to view their profile.
- You can see a person’s location, tagline, “about me” text, skills & interests, and links to other social accounts, if they are linked. You can also see Hylo Groups they are a part of.
- Clicking on a person’s Skill or Interest will search Hylo for posts, comments, or people tagged with that Skill or Interest.
- You will also see a stream of all of their recent activity - including posts, comments, upvotes. One can navigate to their own user profile to see this stream of their activity!
- To block a member, click the three vertical dots below their header image. This will allow you to block this member so that you don’t see their content. You can unblock a user in your settings.
What you can see on a member profile
While in a group, you can see affiliated groups by clicking the “Groups” button. You can join affiliated groups by clicking the join button. Learn more about group nesting.
Click on Groups on the Activity Dashboard to see all the parent and child groups associated with that group. At the moment, you will only see one generation of parent or child groups.
You can see the visibility and accessibility settings and whether or not you are a member. Click on a parent or child group to join and see activity!
Click the world icon on the left side of the screen to view a geographic map of all group members and posts with a specified geographical location.
You can zoom in & out of the map by scrolling on your mouse or trackpad. You can move around by clicking and dragging.
Single color dots represent different types of objects - Discussions (blue) Requests (purple), Offers (green), Requests (yellow), Projects (orange), Events (red), Members (pink), Groups (grey).
- Click on the “post types” button in the bottom left to choose which types of things you’d like to see on the map.
- Clicking on a post will open it up on the side, so that you can interact with the post. Read more about interacting with posts.
Clusters of elements will appear as a bigger circle with a number inside. The color around the circle will indicate aspects inside the cluster.
- Clicking on a cluster will zoom in on that cluster.
Users can change the base layer of the map to satellite or street view. We are excited that we can now display indigenous territories as a layer on the map using data from native-land.ca.
You can access the map layers by clicking on the Base Layers icon in the lower right corner. You will see options for Basic, Streets, Satellite, and Satellite + Streets.
You will see the option to toggle on/off the Native Territories layer here as well.
Navigate to the upper left corner of the map and click the “Search for a Location” button then type the location. Ensure you click the correct location from the drop-down menu.
Clicking on the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the upper right of the map opens up the sidebar, which shows you all of the Posts, Groups, and Members in the current view.
- You can click the search box to filter by Topic or Keyword. You can choose your top 10 topics to filter by, or search by typing.
- Sort posts by Latest Activity, Post Date, or by Popular posts.
You can filter the map by Post Type, Group, or Members by navigating to the lower left corner and clicking on "Features". Toggle on and off what you would like to see/what you would like to hide.
To create a post directly on the map, click and hold for a couple seconds on the location you want the post to appear OR click the (+) button in the bottom right corner of the map and then pin-point on the map where you want the location for that post.
Saved map searches allow you to save a view on the map either in the Group view or Public view. Navigate to the map by clicking on the world icon and notice the heart icon in the upper left corner. Clicking the heart will allow you to save this view.
As an example, say you want to save a map view of all the members in a certain bioregion.
- 1.Navigate to the “Search for a location” and enter the region you want to search within
- 2.Click on “Post Types” in the bottom left corner and toggle “Members” to the on position. Toggle the post types you don’t want to view on the map to the off position.
- 3.Click the heart icon to and provide a title of this view.
- 4.Click “Save”.
Note: You can delete this saved view by clicking on the trashcan icon on the map or by accessing your Saved Searches in your account settings and clicking “Delete.”
The hashtag button on the bottom left panel takes you to all the topics currently being used in a group. #Topics help organize Posts so everyone stays notified and up to speed on the things they care about. You can sort topics by Recent, Popular, or by Name.
Clicking on a topic shows you all the posts within that topic. You can filter by Discussions, Requests, Offers, and resources. You also have the ability to unsubscribe from a topic here.
Click “Subscribe” to follow a topic. You will receive notifications when someone creates a new Post with that topic. You can unsubscribe from a topic from this area as well.
Adding a Topic
There are multiple types of posts on Hylo:
Share something that is important to you! What do you want to discuss with your group or the broader Hylo community?
Share your event on Hylo and invite people to join. This could be a virtual or live event. Click on the calendar icon on the left side panel to view events. RSVP to events and invite others.
What do you want to offer or share with the community? This can be something physical or a service you offer. You get to specify how long this offer is available. (i.e. job offer)
Let others know about available resources. A resource is a physical thing or digital resource that you want to share with your group. (i.e. article, book, video)
Create a project that your group or Hylo community can help you with. Click on a project to join it! Click on the leaf icon on the left side panel to view “Projects”.
What can your group or the Hylo community help you with? Put a request out for members in your community to offer support.
There are multiple ways to post on Hylo:
- 1.Click on the box on the top of the stream that says “Hi [Name], what's on your mind?”
- 2.Click on the “Create” button on the left side panel
- 3.Create a post directly on the Map! Either click and hold for a couple seconds on the location you want the post to appear OR click the (+) button in the bottom right corner of the map and then pin-point on the map where you want the location for that post.
What would you like to share? Choose the type of post!
- Add a title and description to the post. You can bold and italicize the text by highlighting the text and clicking the desired option.
- You can select a timeframe for an event, offer, resource, project, or request.You can also add an optional location for these types of posts.
- With Projects, folks can now include a Project Management Link and Donations Link, which display uniquely on Project posts. These use custom icons for certain websites like Trello, Asana, GitHub, PayPal, Open Collective and more. Make sure you click the location from the dropdown menu after you type it out to ensure it shows up on the map.
- Select which Topics the post should be linked to. Topics are a bit like hashtags on Twitter. They are for categorizing the post or making it easy to find. You can add up three topics.
- Choose which Groups you want to post into. You can share the same post in multiple groups you are a part of.
- Choose whether you want your post to be PUBLIC or not, (meaning that anyone in any Hylo Group can see it by clicking on the Public Stream view under the groups drop down menu in the upper left corner).
- Attach images and/or file attachments. For Images, the optimal ratio is 1024x768, between 4:3 to 19:6 aspect ratio (1080 wide)
- Moderators have the option to create an ANNOUNCEMENT on a post using the megaphone icon at the bottom. An announcement makes the post go out as an email and push notification to all members of the group.
Clicking on a post will open it in a window to the right side of your screen, so that you can interact with the post. Each post shows:
- When it was posted
- Whether it was an announcement or not
- Comments on the post
- Upvotes
- These are similar to “likes” on Facebook
- The more upvotes a post increases it’s popularity, which will make the post more visible
- You can see which groups it was posted in (if posted in multiple groups).
Clicking on a post will open it up on the side, so that you can interact with the post.
Write a comment on a post by clicking the box that says “Add a comment.” Tag a friend by typing “@” followed by the individual’s name. A list will appear so you can select a person. They'll be notified about your post or comment.
You can reply to a comment by clicking on the message icon.
You can edit/delete comments and sub-comments on other's posts.
Popularize or highlight the post by clicking on the green arrow in the bottom right corner.
If you are the poster, click on the three vertical dots at the top right to edit or delete your post.
If you click on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the post, you will see the option to "Copy Link", which you can share. Keep in mind, only public posts can be seen by non-Hylo users.
You can flag inappropriate or offensive posts by others. Click the three vertical dots at the top right to flag a post.
Either you can be invited to a community or can find groups organically. Some groups are Open, while others are closed and require an invite. You can join a Restricted group, but you will be required to answer “join questions” before you can enter the group. Join Questions are set by Group Admins.
You can see your invitations from Hylo groups and your open requests to join groups by clicking on your photo icon in the upper right corner, clicking on Settings, then clicking on Invites & Requests. Here you can accept or decline an invitation to join a group and also cancel an open request to join a group.
Leave a group by clicking on your photo icon in the upper right corner → Settings → Groups & Affiliations. You will see a list of groups you are a part of and can leave a group by clicking on the red “Leave” button on the right of the group.
If you already belong to groups or communities, you can access and toggle between them by clicking on the icon with three horizontal lines in the top left corner of your screen. You will see a red icon adjacent to the Group if there is new activity.
Explore "who's doing what, where" in the PUBLIC STREAM, by clicking the top left icon. This is an aggregate of all posts that have been marked as Public from any group within Hylo anywhere in the world!
The Group Explorer is a directory for public groups, which will allow users to discover groups based on very refined criteria. Users have the option to search a directory of Groups with a keyword and sort the list by Group Name, Member Count, and by those Nearest to them. Keep in mind, only publicly visible Groups will be displayed.
The Group Explorer has expanded to now include Farms, and users can now use this feature to connect with farms and get involved with their local food system.
Search for Farms by Keyword and Sort by Group Name, Member Count, and those Nearest. You can also filter the list of Farms by the Farm Type, Operation (what is being produced) and Land Management techniques.
View a map of all Public Groups and posts that have been marked as Public from any group within Hylo anywhere in the world. Keep in mind, “Members” will not be displayed on the Map, as this is not a group specific view.
Click on a farm to learn more about it.
Farm profiles include comprehensive data about the farm. You will see:
- Keywords
- Social Links & Website
- Farm Description
- Farm Details (including farm size, climate zone, soil type, and farm type)
- Farm Offers and Requests
- Farm Events and Projects
- Farm Map
- Hours and Location
- Public Offerings
- Farm Moderators
In this section, land stewards share ways they want to collaborate and users can send a message to connect and offer their support.
Users can send a group message to all farm moderators from the Opportunities to Collaborate widget. This feature is currently available only for Farm Groups, though we plan on extending this to the broader Hylo community soon.
As an example, let's say I have time to volunteer on a farm and I see that this farm is seeking farm support. I can click on the message icon to the right of that field and send them a direct message offering my support.
Click on the three horizontal lines in the top left corner, then scroll to the bottom and click Start a Group. Learn more about Creating a Group.
- Click on the magnifying glass in the upper right of the screen to go to the search page
- You can choose to search among all people, discussions and comments or just one of those categories
- Click on the Chat bubble in the upper right corner of the screen to see your recent messages.
- Click on a message or on the Open Messages link to see all your recent chats.
- Click on the New Message icon to start a message.
- You can then start typing the name of the person you want to message or click on one or more people in the list that appears below.
- You can message one person or create a group chat with multiple people.
- When you have selected who you want to message, type a message in the box at the bottom of the screen where it says “Write something…” to start the conversation.
- To exit, click the gray “X” at the top right.
- You can also direct message an individual directly from their profile, by clicking the message icon below their banner image.
To block another user, first navigate to their user profile. Next, click on the button with three vertical dots on the banner image to the right of their name. Click "Block this Member".
To unblock a member, navigate to your account settings by clicking on your photo icon in the upper right corner and click on settings. Navigate to "Blocked Users" at the bottom of the menu, and click the unblock button next to their name.
Note: the Blocked Users section will only be displayed if you have blocked another user.
You can access Feedback & Support by clicking on your photo icon in the upper right corner → “Feedback & Support”.
Click the “Send us a message” button to contact Hylo with your feedback, feature requests, bugs, etc! You can attach images using the paperclip icon in the lower right corner.
You will find tutorials in this section. Click on “Search Articles” and browse our collection of articles. You can also visit the Hylo Help Center to access these articles.
Have questions about a group you are a member of? Send a direct message to your group’s moderator! To find a moderator, open the respective group and navigate to the right side panel. You will find group moderators here. Click on the moderator to open their profile, and click on the envelope icon under their banner image.
Stay in conversation with us! Join the Building Hylo group on Hylo to stay up to date on bug fixes, new features, and the product journey. You can also contribute your suggestions within this group!
Other useful links:
- More powerful events: Public event pages, ticket sales, event production tools
- Collective Governance Tools: Polls, voting, and decision-making systems
- Ecosystem Mapping: Making visible relationships between communities, projects, and participants
- Project Management Tools: Roles, tasks, assignments, goals
- Wiki / Content directory: Collaboratively editable pages for your community group
- Financial Solidarity Tools: Co-budgeting, crowdfunding, and loan pools
- Community Onboarding Tools: Community design support and onboarding wizard
- Learning Platform: Educational courses with subscription fees, modules, quizzes, etc.
- API / Data Interoperability
Last modified 12d ago