Site Features and Layout
The Michigan Townships Association (MTA) Web site is built on and functions using Community Center™ Software. The Web site offers a wealth of information about MTA, MTA’s services, priorities, events and Michigan’s 1,242 townships. In addition to a vast amount of information, the Web site offers users the option of customizing their Web experience by using a set of unique features only available to registered users.

Why Register?
Registered users can sign up to participate in Groups. Groups are just as the name implies—groups of Web site users. They can be organized around functional areas (e.g., township clerks) or events (marketing committee). Within groups, users have the ability to communicate amongst themselves (quick notes) and see important contact information. Registered users can also participate in Forums and use the My MTA features (described below).

How to Register
To register, click on the Register link. This brings you to the User Profile pop-up window where you are prompted to enter information about yourself (Note: You must supply your first and last name and e-mail address) and select a password. Fill out these fields and click the Submit button. You are now registered and logged on to the site.

My Profile
You’ll notice the log in link has changed to My Profile and your name is displayed below the link. The My Profile area is where you go to accomplish most administrative tasks such as updating your contact information or changing your password. You can also subscribe to available groups through the My Profile interface.

My MTA
My MTA is a unique feature of the Michigan Townships Association Web site that allows you to personalize your experience here. My MTA allows all users to easily bookmark pages and map views as they browse. Each page or map bookmark the user saves can include notes or comments about that link. The collected links can easily be sent via e-mail, allowing the recipient to quickly link to the pages or maps recently viewed by the sender. For unregistered users, these links are available only for the duration of the current browsing session. However, My MTA allows registered users to save their lists of links between sessions, creating an intelligent set of bookmark links that will be always available for future reference.
Registered users can also create custom map views and save these views for future use. Custom map views can be drawn to include self-placed icons and notations. These map views can then be e-mailed through the My MTA interface.

How it works
To use My MTA, browse the site as you normally would. When you find information you would like to save for future use or sharing, click on the Add to My MTA icon. ( ) This loads a pop-up window where you can title the link and add descriptive text. Once done, click the Save this Link button. Continue browsing the site. When you would like to access your saved links, click on the Use My MTA icon ( ), which brings up the My MTA management interface where you can edit, delete or e-mail your links.

Possible uses
My MTA gives frequent users of the vast resources available on the MTA Web site an easy means to quickly get to the resources they use most often and share these resources with other interested individuals. For example, if you frequently reference information pages within the site (e.g. sample ordinances), My MTA provides you with a convenient way to manage the links and share this information with other interested individuals. Another convenient use is with the mapping program also featured on the site. If you regularly need to share geographic information about your township (e.g., simple directional maps or maps of land use), add these common map views to My MTA and you can then easily e-mail the links to others.

Using the Township Maps
There are a number of interactive maps on the MTA Web site. To start your search for maps, first navigate to the Maps and Data page under the At Your Service link. Here you will find the listing of maps available on the Web site. Click through to the type of map you would like, and the maps will launch in a new browser window. From within the mapping interface, you can zoom and measure, overlay different layers of data and search by township or county. For more map help, click on the question mark in the upper right corner of the map page.