How I customized my own "home page" for QB
 

When I was working for a large municipality, I found some software upgrades sort of overwhelming, even when I liked the new features. To feel more comfortable while I learned the new environment, I always created a sort of “home page” to get comfortable with the new views and organization.

I will post the steps I took and a couple of more screenshots, in case you’d like to try this approach.

This post has a screenshot of my “home page” for QB. It has restored my comfort level even though I haven’t mastered too many of the new tools that are now available. It shows only the Threads and Forums I want to see when I log in to QB.

I will post the steps and other screenshots in other posts, so read on if you think you'd like to do this.

When I opened QB and clicked on HOME, I saw a list of all of the forums and a green circle with a check mark to the right of every forum, indicating that I was subscribed to that forum. But, none of them showed up as “subscribed forums” under my SETTINGS.

It seems that you need to populate your “subscribed forums” list manually…but it seems you only have to do this once. So I went to HOME and opened each forum one at a time. At the top of each forum list there is a cream-colored bar and toward the far right on that bar is FORUM TOOLS.

Click on FORUM TOOLS and choose SUBSCRIBE TO THIS FORUM. Then you’ll see the screen below.

Choose whether you want to receive notifications from this forum only through the “control panel” (the Board) or whether you want to be notified by email. I chose “control panel” to cut down on the number of emails I receive. Be sure to click the blue ADD SUBSCRIPTION button when you’ve made your choice or your choice won’t “stick.” Do this with each forum. Now you’ve populated your “subscribed forums” list and can customize it as you want.

To customize it, go to SETTINGS (at the far upper right of your screen, next to LogOut) and click on it. You should then have a screen that includes a list of “subscribed forums.”
Notice the green print below the description of each forum that says “Unsubscribe from this Forum.” Click on it to remove any Forums you don’t want to see on your own “home page.” You’ll see a little notice that you have been unsubscribed, then you should be returned automatically to your “home page.”

Okay...I still have a lot to learn about posting and pictures and this is several steps, but you can have your own “home page” and have filtered out the forums you don’t want to see on a regular basis. You should also have your “subscribed threads” at the top of the page. You can unsubscribe from any threads that you no longer want to watch. This doesn’t affect your bookmarks.

Now, each time you open QB and log in, click first on SETTINGS to see your own “home page.”

Of course, you’ll still need to make some other choices about how you want to view Threads, how many days’ worth of Threads to display etc. Those choices are under SETTINGS-MY ACCOUNT-GENERAL SETTINGS.

Any time you want to see the full list of all available forums, just click on the Home button.

When I finish reading posts in a forum, I click on FORUM TOOLS and select MARK THIS FORUM READ. The threads will still be there, but the little envelope will be gray to show I’ve read that thread or marked it as read.

This “home page” has helped restore my comfort level again….now I can work on learning all the other tools. Using my SETTINGS page makes QB feel like home again! Now I can learn the cool new features!

AnitaSt

Sorry that the pictures are so large, but it was the only way I could get the screen to be legible. If you'd like to have these steps by email, drop me a PM and I'll send them to you in a Word document.

AnitaSt

Well, aren't you helpful? A kind soul.

I previously thought of doing that, but did not want ANY notifications, through control panel or otherwise. do you get notifications?

through control panel = this essentially just recreates the Watched List of the old board (except with the additional annoying feature of listing threads where you were the last poster).

But I get no emails/PM's notifying me of new posts - I'll see the threads listed when I click on SETTINGS up on top.
I can't imagine getting emails each time. Yikes.

On the plus side, one nice thing that it does (that the old board didn't) is give you the option to see ALL of your subscribed threads.

BLESS YOU!!! I was considering writing and asking how we could do something like this!!!! LOVE IT!

thanks for the clarification and your original helpful post. i copied it to the QB Help Center and put a sticky on it.

I do get notifications through the Board. I didn't see a setting to decline notifications. I guess you could Bookmark the thread and then Unsubscribe from it. I tried that yesterday and Unsubscribing did not seem to affect the Bookmark.

Thank you! So much appreciate your kind help. Am still finding my way around site & you took one difficulty off my list :o

Thanks so much. I will try this!

Again, thank you for this!! Now I'm getting "sub-forums" when for instance I go to "Main" Arghhhh. :hunf:

I couldn't figure out a way to subscribe to a Forum without getting the sub-forums also. Let me know if you find a way!

Thank you for taking time to post these instructions - awesome information.

Thanks for sharing. :thumbup:

I think I love you - Thanks

Thank you so much for doing this for me and others. I am going to do it right now.

Yes, thanks for taking the time to post these instructions. Very thoughtful of you!

Thank you very much for this tutorial. I found this very helpful and have started my own homepage. I hope others find this information soon.

Thank you for the information, I sent you a PM.
Hopefully this will get me less lost here.

Thank you for taking the time to share all this information, like to try new things. I am pretty slow but usually get there in the end. All help appreciated.

Thank you so much for the great advice! I am going to try this!

I use to get emails on every thing that I posted on and yes, some I wanted to but others I'd just delete if I recognized them but most of the time I had to go and click on them to remind myself what they were. Even though this is an extra step from what I'm hearing you only get notified on the ones you subscribe to; is this correct.

If you want to subscribe to a forum but not one or more of the subforums, you may unsubscribe from the subforums separately as described by Anita above. For instance, I Unsubscribed from the Vintage subforums.
Thanks, Anita for doing this.

Thank you for sharing such helpful information. I appreciate others sharing ways to make this transition easier.

Thanks for the tip! I am to the point of tears with trying to figure this board out. I'm a member of several different types of forums, and unfortunately this one seems to be the most difficult to navigate.
I honestly feel like a dummy. For instance, I am not sure what the difference is in just clicking on "Home" icon, then going to topic, or clicking on "Settings" is (after I set up my preferences). Somehow it just isn't clicking for me (brainwise) although I managed to set it up.

HOME is the "generic" listing of all the forums on the Board. Clicking on SETTINGS will show your customized list of the forums you subscribed to. Good luck....you'll get the hang of it and find your own shortcuts.

Thank you so much very helpful.