How to Use ACTA's new Website

How to use ACTA's new Website

There is a lot to see and do at ACTA's new website – your new website.

Go to acta.ca. Begin this journey through the site and, later, the new ACTA consumer directory, with a close look at the website homepage.

At the top of the page ‘Select Language' to choose English or French. Move to the right and use ‘Contact Us' to locate ACTA staff or council members in your region. ‘Sign In' to get to the secure member's area after you look around the homepage. And if you are the head of an agency that is not a member of ACTA now, ‘Register' to become a member of this great organization.

Move down to the Blue ribbon. You can use ‘Home' to return to this page anytime you want.

‘About Us' has a drop-down menu that leads to information about our Board of Directors, Staff, Code of Ethics and ACTA's History and more.

You can ‘Join ACTA' here too after you click through this menu to learn about our fees, the benefits that turn our fees into a true bargain. Just click Register to sign up as a member agency or to add your personal information as an qualified employee of a member agency. .

‘Events' leads you to the Official Calendar of the Canadian Travel Industry, shared with ACTA by Baxter TravelPress.

Our ‘Media Centre' contains more solid information about ACTA and the people on our Board. Studies, research and more.

‘Travellers Assistance' means what it says with a long list of resources of considerable use to you and to your consumers. This is just one reason why the public will be coming to acta.ca as well as to our Travel Directory.

But the public can't penetrate the secure pages that are just for Members. In your members' area, you will find more detailed lists of the benefits you get from ACTA membership, member advisories, answers to your questions and a great deal more. We'll talk about this a bit later.

‘Travel Directory' takes you and the consumer to a whole new, state-of-the-art technology platform. We'll tell you all about our directory in another document but let us say that it is here that your agency or allied member company is listed along with several thousand others. This is Canada's best resource for finding and checking details about the nation's finest travel agencies and other resources.

Moving down on the homepage of the website, you will see our own rotator banner that tells consumers where to find an ACTA travel agency and why ACTA members are tops in this industry.

Moving to the right hand column - what techies call the ‘right rail' - you'll find a way to search the site.

You can ‘Sign In' with your username and password.

You can click on the ‘News and Articles' from ACTA and click any headline you want to see the rest of the story.

Check out the ACTA ‘Calendar' for unforgettable dates like our regional Golf Tourneys – they sell out early.

Next is a feature that is extremely important to ACTA. This area contains ‘Surveys' and/or ‘Quizzes'. Here is where we ask you for your opinions and experiences. We will use your input to develop a great deal of research about our sector of travel in Canada so please participate for the good of your industry.

You also will find a feature in the right rail that is very important to you. Here we will post our current ‘Featured Benefits.' These may be benefits available to you through your ACTA ID Card, or goodies offered as benefits of your ACTA membership. Whatever is featured here, you can be sure it will be of value to you so take heed!

Back in the main section of the Homepage, you find short introductions to pages containing lots more about ACTA member benefits and reasons to trust and use our members.

Oh, there's more. You can click on the ‘badges' to go to places like the page describing our valuable ACTA ID Cards or the websites of our Sponsors and Partners represented by the logos at the bottom of the Homepage. And this is just page 1 of the website!

When you login as a Member, you begin to see that the new ACTA website is far more than just a one-dimensional information site. It is an interactive platform, a place from which you can jump into a large number of activities related to both your business and your social interests. This is your gateway to the ACTA community.

Look at the menu in the right rail – the blue box headed ‘My Profile'. You are on your ‘Manage Profile' page. When you enter data here, it will be placed in your Profile Home section – your headquarters for all you do in this area.

It is vital that you enter your data through this page if you want to make the most of your new website.Start with the first item on the Manage Profile page – ‘Edit Bio' under ‘Information and Settings'. Click on ‘Edit Bio' and fill in the form. Note that some of the information you enter can be seen by others and some is private – to be used when data is sorted by ACTA. After entering your personal information, go to ‘Profile Home' to see the results.

Go to ‘Preferences' on your Manage Profile page, click, and set the various ways you want to receive and deliver information to friends, colleagues and visitors to your profile pages. Subscribe as well to ACTA newsletters.

Under ‘Content and Features', you can manage your ‘Favorites' – these are pages throughout the site marked with Stars. Click on a Star and store that page link here.

Link your profile to any of a long list of Social ‘Network' sites from Bebo to Xing and including, of course, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Create your own ‘Blogs' or subscribe to other blogs.

Add ‘Pages' to your profile on which you can post your own articles or pictures or … well, get creative.

Add a ‘Photo Gallery' of your own pics and add more to your gallery at the drop of a link.

Speaking of links, use ‘Files and Links' to build and keep track of your own File Library.

Under the general heading ‘Community', you can create and take part in a whole neighbourhood of friends and business contacts. ‘Messaging' creates and maintains contacts between you and other ACTA members; ‘Groups' shows you what ACTA groups you belong to and a whole bunch of information about your group. In ‘Connections', organize your contacts into categories and finetune your own area within your neighbourhood within the nationwide ACTA community. Invite others into your community through ‘Referrals' and use ‘Subscriptions' to join and organize Blogs, Forums and Email notifications.

Looking for a new position or for new employees? Visit our ‘Networking & Careers' section to Search for Openings, post a Resume/CV, Submit an Opening or receive an email alert when a new opening is posted.

There is a lot on the new ACTA website, but all of it is easy to use and to maintain. Over time, you'll see your Profile Home fill with all the things that will make you part of the broad ACTA community and that will enrich the ACTA community by your presence.