How to use the system

1. Your dashboard

• Overview — calendar (published events feed in automatically), recent pending items, your assignments, your submissions and activity.
• Pending — everything awaiting review. Needs my action shows only items you can personally approve or vote on.
• Programmes — the teams you belong to or lead (see §5).
• Create — propose articles, events, programmes and projects (see §4).
• Votes & Decisions, Finance, Members, Groups & Meetings, Mail — appear according to your roles and capabilities.

2. Finding things

• Programmes — the Society's standing workstreams, each with its lead, projects, events and team.
• Events — upcoming events plus a month calendar view; past events stay browsable. Open an event to RSVP, join the waitlist or add it to your personal calendar.
• Knowledge — published articles, observing reports and educational pieces.
• Members — who holds which office; vacant seats show an Express interest button.

3. Taking part

• RSVP to an event from its page (members) — or sign up as a guest with just a name and email, no account needed. Events marked Members only are invisible to the public everywhere (lists, search, sitemap, share previews) — sign in to see and join them.
• Full event? Join the waitlist — you're promoted automatically when a place frees up.
• Want to work on something? Open a programme, look at its projects, and contact the project team — or apply to join the programme and a lead will place you.
• After attending, organizers mark you as attended — that's how participation history is built.

4. Sharing content: the approval pipeline

Everything you compose goes through review before it appears publicly. Track yours under Overview → My Submissions; reviewers work from Pending. You can edit your own drafts anytime from the item's details view.

Article

Anatomy of a good UAS article — open with a scene (a real moment, not a thesis), say why you are writing it, develop the idea in depth, spell out what it means for Uganda, end with the reader's next move and sign your name. Three examples to copy the shape from: the founding story, the classroom reflection, and the infrastructure argument in Knowledge. Attaching a related project or event at composition shows it as a linked card on the article — and the article under Related reading on the project page.

Event

Project

Programme

• Rejected or sent back? You'll get the reason by notification. Edit the item, then Revise & Resubmit from its details view.
• Editing a published item goes live immediately — double-check dates and venues.

9. Inbox, notifications & mail

• The bell icon and dashboard Inbox carry approvals, decisions and mentions — click through to act.
• Office mail (info@, programmes@, …) is available if your role grants an inbox; compose and reply from the Mail tab.
• Broadcasts (Mail tab → Broadcast): one message to a whole member class, an event's subscribers (members, guests, waitlist), a project team, a role, a committee, or all members. Preview the headcount first; sending runs in small batches with a progress bar and can be resumed.
• Event discussions happen in each event's chatroom, not by email.
• Account changes by email: approval, rejection, suspension or reactivation of your membership also arrives as an email from the membership desk (plus the bell notification) — so applicants waiting on approval should watch their inbox.

10. Meetings & videos

• Joining a meeting: open it under Dashboard → Groups & Meetings and press Join video room — the meeting plays inside the page with your name prefilled. Nothing to install; it also works from the Jitsi mobile app.
• Hosting: the organizer opens the room first and signs in once with a Google/GitHub login on Jitsi's side; everyone else joins as a guest, no account needed. The room link is stable and unguessable.
• Moderators: every auto-created room has a passcode visible only to the organizer, programme lead and approvers (meeting details / event Manage card). Whoever arrives first signs in as moderator, sets that passcode as the room password inside Jitsi, and admits everyone else from the lobby — so the organizer and the programme lead are interchangeable hosts.
• Names filled in: members joining from the site or their reminder emails arrive with their display name prefilled; guests join with the name they signed up with.
• Scheduling: organizers can generate the room link in the meeting details, or paste their own Jitsi link when scheduling.
• Virtual events: events marked Online show a Join button alongside the venue and map link — but only to logged-in members, and only while the event runs (from its start time until its end, or one hour after start). Before that you'll see when the room opens.
• Meeting links: paste any link — Jitsi, Google Meet, Zoom or Teams all work. Leaving it blank on an online event auto-creates a Jitsi room with the link sent to the organizer (this auto-creation is currently paused pending an organization Jitsi account — paste a link for now). Hybrid events can list both a venue and a link. Untick Online to opt out.
• Guests (no account): sign up with name + email and the join link is emailed to you twice — immediately on signup, and again about 6 hours before start. It never appears on public pages.
• Visibility: set an event to Public or Members only when creating it. Members-only events are hidden from the public everywhere — lists, search, sitemap and share previews — while any signed-in member can see and RSVP them.
• When it ends: an event counts as ended at its end time; without one it runs to 23:59 of its day. Signups (member RSVP, guest signup, waitlist) stay open until it ends — multi-day events accept signups while running. Guests sign up with just a name and email, no account needed.
• Questionnaires: attach a question form to any event or article — right in the create form, or later via open → Questionnaire — to collect info: dietary needs, expectations, feedback. Members answer signed in, guests with name + email; responses are private to organizers and exportable as CSV.
• Videos: nothing is hosted here — paste a YouTube or Vimeo link (event video field, or the video button in the editor) and it embeds. Any other iframe or script is stripped on save for everyone's safety.

11. Troubleshooting

• Page looks outdated? Hard-refresh: Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac). The site caches aggressively for speed.
• Button missing? Actions appear only when your roles allow them — check Your access above, or ask a lead/approver.
• Save failed? The message explains why (usually a permission or a missing required field). Drafts are never lost — just retry.
• Locked out or wrong role? Contact the Secretary via the contact page or membership@astronomy.ug.