What are your first steps with your new Tiki installation?

First of all, congratulations and thanks for your interest in Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware. We hope Tiki will meet your needs for a highly configurable web platform. If there is anything we can do to help, be sure to let us know.

User groups in a new Tiki

When first installed, Tiki has three user groups — admin, registered, and anonymous. At the last step of the site installation process, the person doing the installation signs in as "admin" and is by default in the admin group of the site. Everyone else who signs up at the site belongs to the Registered user group. More groups can be named and added, and given permissions as needed, and site members can be assigned by admins to groups freely, or can join groups organically if that feature is turned on.

So if you installed the Tiki, you are the first member of the site and the first administrator. If you are registering at an existing Tiki installation, then you will be a member of the Registered group at least, and maybe others that have created.

Configuring a new Tiki installation

Tiki has many configuration options covering all aspects of the website's features, user roles and so on, so the initial site configuration is very important (although of course anything can be changed at any time). There are several paths to take to configure a new website:

• One, use the configuration wizard, which is a series of topic screens on which options can be selected and saved. This is a good method because it presents to you the available options in a systematic way.
• Two, use a configuration profile. In Tiki terminology, a profile is a set of preference options. You can apply one of the several profiles to configure the website for a particular use case. This may be useful if one of the configuration profiles matches your site's expected use case. You can of course deviate from the profile's option choices to best suit your needs.
  • Three, configure the site "manually," which means activating all the features, feature options, permissions, and so on individually by going through the site administration screens. This works fine but takes time and success assumes that you don't miss anything that you need to set, so it may be better to use a configuration wizard instead.

First steps at a configured Tiki website

Default content features

After installation, the website by default will have the wiki feature and file galleries active, so pages can be made and files uploaded, including images to go in pages. Other features may have been activated in the initial site configuration process. These have further configuration options to fine-tune their functions and so on, so you probably should visit their administration pages.

Transversal or support features

In addition to the content features — wiki, galleries, articles, blogs, forums, and trackers — there are transversal or support features, which the new user or admin should become familiar with, including categories, community features for site members, social media features, and so on. In this category is site navigation. When created, the site has what is called the system menu, which is default navigation for all activated features, but typically another simpler menu is made for visitors to use for site navigation.

Your role at the site determines how involved you can be in feature setup and use. Members of the default admin group can make any changes. Registered users (people who are members of that group only) are restricted to the activities defined for them by the site administrators. Other groups may be created such as assistant administrators, editors, or content-area teams, etc. that have site powers beyond the default Registered user role, and the site admins can provide information about that.

Where to get help

Tiki is bit complex, with many features and preference options, and some things may be done differently than in other similar software, so familiarization may take some time. Please visit the documentation site for details on feature use, etc. Also make use of the sources of help listed on Get Help, in particular:

• Ask questions in the forums or in the Matrix chat.
• Get involved in the Tiki community.
• Please feel free to participate in our monthly roundtable meetings.