Hi Brad,
Sorry to add one more idea to your list. But you all are stars at doing magic!
One of my class members pointed out that when he gets an email notice of a profile update and clicks on the link, he gets an error message telling him to go to the log on page. I understand why that happens. The reason is not the problem. It would be much more convenient if that link took him directly to the home page where he could log on.
I stay logged on all the time, but when I get an email that there is a new message for me, I also get sent to a page requiring me to log on. It is a little time consuming and gets annoying after awhile.
Because the email tells the person the reason they are being notified (updated profile, new message, birthday, etc.), I don't see a problem with going directly to the Home Page.
So, could you have all of that type of email link to the Home Page so people may save a step or two? Thanks so much!

Thanks,
Diana

No. Trust me if we did that we'd get about 10,000 complaints in 2 seconds.

The majority of the users have selected the "stay logged in" option, and will always be logged in until such time that they click the "log out" link on the left.

When somebody selects the option to stay logged in, our system sets a login cookie on the user's computer, and that cookie is what allows the user to bypass the login screen every time they come back to the site.

So, for the vast majority of users that email link takes them exactly where they're trying to go. If we all of a sudden routed them to the home page, then there would be several things to click on in order to get where they were really trying to go.

So the real question here is why isn't your personal login cookie sticking. There could be a variety of reasons for this:

1) You've set your browser to clear cookies every time you exit the browser.

2) Somebody else who users your same computer possibly clears cookies.

3) Your default browser and the browser you use to browse your web site are different. Your login cookie is for one browser, but clicking your email link launches a different browser.

4) You log in from different computers, such as at home and at work. The stay logged in option only works for the computer you've selected that option on. You'd need to select it on both computers you log in from for it to work on both.

Do you have any of the 4 scenarios above? I'm going to run a test just to ensure nothing changed in our system. I won't know until tomorrow though because our system only scans for Profile updates once every 24 hours.

But as to the issue of clicking on the new classmate or update notice and getting the message that one must be logged on. How about adding that nice little log on box that you post on the web pages that require it, when the person isn't logged on. Right on the screen giving that message, along with "Sorry, you must be logged in to view this Profile. Please log in from the home page."

Brad, why can't we just put a login form right on the page when they're not logged in rather than making them click on the homepage link, log in there, then find their way back to the original page? Or just automatically redirect to the login page like the threaded forums do. I don't know if you've noticed it before because it doesn't do it when you click on "Class Forums" in the site navigation, but look at what happens when you click directly on a forum link:

forums.brookfieldcentral63.com

I'm with Diana, here I hate it when I have to click to log in.

Rick did it. It's in there. Thanks Rick.

Diana,

Please forward one of your Profile Update emails that's resulting in being asked to log in directly to mail@classcreator.com, I'd like to see the exact email you're clicking on.