Finding your way around Hives
Hives has a simple layout: a bar at the top, a Home page, and pages that lead to collections and surveys. What you see in the top bar depends on your role. Admins and Managers get a few extra tools for creating and running things.
The top bar
Everyone who is signed in sees:
- Your organisation’s logo, on the left. Click it to go back to Home.
- The magnifier, to search the hive. See How to search in Hives.
- Your picture or initials, on the right. This opens your profile menu.
Admins and Managers also see:
- Menu, at the far left, with links to the tools they use. See The Menu below.
- +, to create a collection, survey, page or announcement, or to invite people.
- Ask Ida, at the far right, when AI features are on for your hive. See What is Ida?
Home
Home is the start page of your hive. From top to bottom it shows:
- A greeting with your first name.
- A cover image and a welcome message from your organisation.
- Announcements: up to three news posts, newest first. Click See all to read more, if there are more than three.
- The hive’s pages, either as sections one below the other or as a grid of cards.
Sometimes an announcement opens as a pop-up when you arrive on Home. Close it and it won’t appear again in that browser.
Pages, collections and surveys
A page groups collections and surveys for a team, site or initiative. Click a page’s heading (or the arrow next to it) to open it. A page shows a cover, some text, any attached files, and its collections and surveys.
A collection is where people share ideas around one question. Open one to see:
- its title, description and any attached files,
- a button to add your idea, usually called Contribute,
- every idea you’re allowed to see, newest first,
- a Filter button to sort the ideas or narrow them down.
Some collections call ideas feedback, posts, insights, solutions or suggestions instead. They work the same way.
Click an idea to open it. You’ll see its step, its answers, a Like or Vote button and the comments. The ⋯ menu has Copy link, so you can send the idea to a colleague.
Click a survey to answer it. See Answering a survey.
If you can’t see a page or collection a colleague mentions, it probably hasn’t been shared with you. Each page has its own audience.
Your profile menu
Click your picture or initials in the top right corner. A red number on it means you have unread notifications. The menu has:
- Profile: your name, picture, group and your ideas. See Your profile, language and dark mode.
- Notifications: what’s happened to ideas you’re involved in. See Notifications and emails from Hives.
- Settings: language and dark mode.
- Hives: switch to another hive you belong to. See Joining a hive and switching between hives.
- Sign out.
The Menu (Admins and Managers)
Click Menu at the far left of the top bar. It has:
| Item | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Home | Back to the start page |
| Search | Search the hive (only on small screens, where the magnifier moves here) |
| Managed by me | The collections and surveys you manage. See Managed by me. |
| Dashboard | Statistics about your hive. See The Dashboard. |
| Folders | Where collections and surveys are filed. See Folders. |
| Admin | Users, groups, workflows and, for Admins, hive settings. See Roles and permissions. |
Members and guests don’t have a Menu, because these are tools for running the hive. A Member who manages a folder can still open Folders to work in it.
The + button (Admins and Managers)
Click + in the top bar. A window asks What do you want to do? and offers:
- Collection: collect ideas or feedback around a question. See How to create a collection.
- Survey: ask a set of questions. See How to create a survey.
- Page: group collections and surveys. See Pages.
- Announcement: share news with the hive. See Posting announcements and pop-ups.
- Invite: invite colleagues to the hive. See Inviting people to your hive.
View, Manage and Edit
On a computer, anyone who manages something sees tabs at the top of its screen, whatever their role. A Member who is a collection manager gets them too.
- On Home: View and Edit, for Admins and Managers. Only Admins can save changes to Home. See How to edit the Home page.
- On a page you manage: View and Edit.
- On a collection you manage, directly or through its folder: View, Manage and Edit. View shows the collection as everyone sees it. Manage is where you review ideas and change settings. Edit changes how the collection looks. See Managing an idea: the Manage tab.
On a phone or tablet
Hives works in the browser on phones and tablets. A few things are different on smaller screens:
- For Admins and Managers, Menu sits at the left of the top bar and Search moves into it.
- The View, Edit and Manage tabs, and Ida, are only available on a computer.
Keyboard tips
- Press Tab once on any page to show Skip to content.
- Ideas can be reached with Tab. Press Enter to open one.
- Press Escape to close a form or dialog. If you’ve typed something, Hives asks before throwing it away.