Frequently Asked Questions


What is the ‘Engagement Studio’
The Engagement Studio is the web portal used by App Owners and Content Channel administrators to access all the features of the Application as a Service platform.
App Owners and Content Channel administrators login to their ‘Engagement Studio’ to control their members/followers, to engage in communications, to manage their app and the associated functionality links.
What are ‘Content Channels’?
As an App Owner you can setup information channels for your followers/users that they can optionally follow. There are two general cases where these Content Channels are commonly used:
- When app owners themselves form a group. Imagine, for example, churches under a common denomination. Each church deploys an app for their congregation. The leadership of the church denomination may also decide to deploy a variety of Content Channels that all denomination members can elect to follow if they wish.
- When an app owner has a large number of members of their community and they want to assign engagement responsibilities for specific topics or initiatives to unique leadership groups within their organization. In this case a Content Channel may be preferred to an Open Group.
Content channels, like Apps, are administered via a dedicated Engagement Studio access.
What are ‘Hierarchical Leadership Accounts”?
Often App owners and their communities of members are themselves subsets of a larger entity. Consider the church example of the previous section. Often enterprises may be structured such that separate departments or geographical markets may like to operate their ecosystem communities of employees and suppliers and customers independently and therefore deploy separate Apps to serve each community. If desired such organizations can implement Engagement Studio access at any levels within their organization. These Hierarchical Leadership Accounts then have purview over all subordinate apps or groups of apps.
Leadership Accounts do not need to be strictly linear in their hierarchy. Indeed any permutation of apps can be defined to form the subordinate group for a leadership account.
How secure are the Apps, Content Channels and Leadership Accounts?
The base product is very secure. All database content is encrypted and all messages are encrypted in transport.
In an upcoming release we will incorporate multi-factor access to address exposure related to compromised access credentials.
Using these industry-standard security measures the standard platform meets all but the most demanding and sensitive scenarios. For customers with specially heightened security needs there are further measures we can implement.
Are there any limits to the number or geographical locations of members/followers?
In principle there are no limits where internet access is available. In practice there are a very few countries where the Google Playstore and the Apple App Store are blocked or highly restricted. In those cases your custom applications cannot be downloaded or installed.
Member Benefits: Can I add items?
Yes
Member Benefits: Can I remove items?
Yes. Provided you have reasonable cause.
How do ‘Push Notifications’ work?
When you compose a message (text, graphics, audio or video) you define the recipients for that message. Then when you send the message the mobile devices of all the recipients you have selected will ‘notify’ their users that your message has arrived by vibrating or audible alerting. Your recipient users will then see your message title and description in the ‘notification panel’ of their mobile device even while your app is not ‘open’. Your recipient users can then tap on the entry in their notification panel and your message will automatically display for them.
Can I add live streaming video?
Yes.
How can I get help when using the Engagement Studio?
You can click on the ‘Help & Support’ link within your engagement studio and help will be provided.