Regulatory Open Forum

As a RAPS member, you have been automatically subscribed to the Regulatory Open Forum discussion on RegEx, with your default preference set to "daily digest." You can change your settings or unsubscribe at any time at http://connect.raps.org/RAPS/RAPS/Discussions/MySubscriptions/Default.aspx. You will need your username and password to access these settings. Please note that you can stop receiving daily digest emails while retaining access to the discussion forum online by selecting "no emails."

Key features of RegEx exchange include:

• Your personal profile page
• RAPS member directory
• Discussion groups
• Resource libraries

A little about each of these features follows, and other helpful information can be found in the "Regulatory Exchange Resources" library once logged onto RegEx.

 Profile

One of the first things you will probably want to do is to view and/or update your profile. You will find your profile already includes information from the RAPS member database. You can update this information by clicking the add/edit links from your profile page or upload a profile picture.

To make it even easier, if you have a LinkedIn profile, you can easily import information from LinkedIn directly into RegEx. You can also include links to your personals profile on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other popular public social networks, or link to your blog if you have one.

Your profile is only viewable by other RAPS members and you can control what is displayed to them on your profile by clicking on "My Privacy Settings," either in the column to the left of your profile or on the drop-down menu under "My Profile." If you click any of the links to edit your contact or demographic information, a new window will open and you will edit the information directly on RAPS.org. When you've finished, save the changes and close that window. Once back on RegEx, be sure to click "Refresh Member Information" at the top of your profile page to update your profile. If you don't click the refresh link, your profile will still update, but it may take up to 30 minutes before it does.

Member directory

Click on Directory from the top navigation menu to search for other RAPS members. If you wish to search based on expanded criteria, such as geographic location or other demographic factors, select the Advanced Search option. Once you locate another member, you can view his or her profile, send a message or add that member as a contact.

Discussion groups

One of RegEx's most useful features may be the discussion groups. As previously mentioned, you have been added to the Regulatory Open Forum group, but you may join and even create others based on your interests. At any time you can control your group subscriptions through the link included above or by selecting "My Subscriptions" from the drop-down menu under the Discussions item on the main menu.

The default view for discussions is chronological, but you may wish to view all posts in a particular thread together. To do so, simply click "View Thread" from the menu of choices to the left of any given discussion item. You may also reply to a post in the discussion or reply to a specific sender privately to a specific person.

Resource libraries

The resource libraries enable RAPS and RAPS members to share documents and files. These can be associated with a particular community or discussion group within RegEx or posted separately. Content may be tagged to make them easier to categorize and find, but tags are not required.

In the near future, RAPS plans to upload archived, searchable Regulatory Focus articles, RAPS special reports and other exclusive RAPS member content to special RegEx resource libraries. An upgrade to this functionality is expected to come this summer that will allow even more flexibility in the types of content that may be shared and how it is accessed and displayed.

We hope RAPS Regulatory Exchange becomes an indispensible resource to you and that it adds great value to your membership. As Sherry mentioned, it really is more than just another social network; it is an extension of your membership and we invite you to connect, communicate and collaborate.

Kind regards,

Zac