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Getting Started — Navigating METIS

This orients a brand-new user in the METIS shell. Other guides link back here for the navigation and Focus vocabulary rather than re-explaining it.

METIS is the platform The Gathering runs on: a CRM for people and organisations, plus product apps built on top of it — Coherence (conversations and the IRIS publishing pipeline), The Gathering (camps and local gatherings), Audax (quests and missions), and Outreach (LinkedIn outreach). What you see depends on your access; not everyone has every app.

Some UI details below (exact labels, icons) are described from the app's structure. If anything doesn't match what you see, trust the app — layouts evolve.

The sidenav

Everything is reached from the sidenav on the left. Top to bottom:

  • Focus selector — at the very top: a holon logo (or a globe for "All") next to a Focus label and a dropdown. This sets your current scope and is important enough to have its own guide.
  • Search — global search across the app (see below).
  • Activity and Calendar — these are focus-scoped (bound to your current Focus, shown with a left accent line).
  • People and Orgs — the core CRM lists. They appear only when your current Focus actually has people or organisations under it.
  • Per-app nav groups — Coherence, Gathering, Audax, Outreach, etc. Each group only appears if you have access to that app and your current Focus has the relevant records.
  • Footer — Admin (Django admin, staff only), Report (report a bug or request a feature — opens in a new tab), Settings, and Logout.

Because most nav items are focus-scoped, switching your Focus changes where these links take you and which of them appear at all. That's covered in the Focus guide.

Search finds People and Holons (organisations, camps, events, …) by name. Results are grouped by kind; pick one to jump to its detail page.

Activity

Activity is your landing page — the feed of what's been happening (notes, updates) for your current Focus. With no Focus selected ("All"), it spans everything you can see; with a Focus set, it's scoped to that holon.

Calendar

The Calendar shows dated items (for example, camp and gathering dates). It offers a list view and a calendar view; what populates it depends on your current Focus.

Settings

Settings holds per-app configuration cards. Which cards you see depends on your access — for example, the Journeys settings card and the Chrome extension download card appear only for users with broad edit rights. See Access and permissions for why a card or nav group might not be visible to you.

Reporting a bug or requesting a feature

The Report item in the footer opens a form for bugs and feature requests. Use it whenever something's broken or missing.

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