Frequently Asked Questions

Nine is an exclusive, private social networking app for alumni from the men’s campuses of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and schools. It offers a curated social experience on a secure and vetted platform, bringing together relevant content, connections and conversations that matter to alumni.

Sai alumni have deep emotional connections with each other given the bonds we developed in our student days. We believe universal platforms and apps are not suited to provide the sense of community and the focus on helping others, and each other, that the Sai alumni need.

Some examples:

– Nine currently supports groups of up to 5000 members. By comparison, Whatsapp can support groups of only up to 256 members

– Nine facilitates community-wide announcements specially tailored to the alumni community – thus eliminating duplication of messages across groups (a major frustration of Whatsapp)

– Enables an advanced Search for alumni by real, actual details like: name, batch, current location and employer.

To explore even more of the benefits that joining Nine provides, see ‘How will Nine benefit me?/Why should I join?’ below:

Nine provides the ability to:

– chat with alumni across the globe in-app, without needing to add them to your phone contacts

– search for alumni by name, batch, location and employer

– stay engaged in community activities and discussions

– find career guidance and mentors from your community who’ve been where you want to go

– participate in a community-wide newsfeed

– help or get help for a non-profit

The unique benefits of Nine for alumni:

– Real-time chat – One-to-One, join a Group of like-minded individuals, or create a Group of your own design

• Group sizes not limited (membership up to 5000)
• Chat history will be available to any new member

– Community Updates posts

• Apart from individual and group chat, an Updates Newsfeed will provide unique content for all alumni to view in the form of news, articles, blogposts and albums

– Real-time community-wide Announcements

• Important info can be shared with all alumni at once, as an Announcement
• Announcements can be sent as push notifications. At any time it would be possible for every user to see how many alumni have read   the Announcement

– Profile details – Extensive, real information for verified members of the alumni community

• Full name, batch, areas of study, current or permanent location, etc. are available to view
• Find old friends and reach across batches, using real info for the people you know, and those you may want to connect with

– Search for relevant connections

• Alumni Search: by Name, Employer, Batch and Location – In the future o Ability to create and share events, allowing for event-specific discussion, registration for attendance and/or volunteer participation
• Many more exciting features are also coming, stay tuned!

Nine is built by a group of alumni as a voluntary effort and is offered to the alumni community as a free service.

Nine uses a VPS server located in US and also third party service( for implementation of chat ) which uses AWS for storing and retrieving data.

You can use your smartphone and/or tablet (either Android or iOS).

The recommend RAM for Android is 3GB or higher

Nine is a free app.

Any alumnus from these qualifying men’s campuses at Prashanti Nilayam, Brindavan and Muddenahalli in India as well as the Sri Sathya Sai Higher Secondary and Primary Schools (Prashanti Nilayam and Ootacamund campuses) is welcome to join.

At the moment, membership is limited to alumni of the qualifying institutions (see Who can join).

Yes.

At the moment, membership is limited to alumni of the qualifying institutions (see Who can join).

We are so much stronger together. We can always use enthusiastic, talented individuals of just about any background to help support our efforts to run and manage Nine for the Sai Community. If you’re interested in helping, we’d love to hear from you! contact@nineapp.io

Click the ‘Invite Friends’ option in the main menu (three horizontal lines on the top left of the screen). You will get options to send an invite to your friends through any messaging apps already installed on your phone.

Register and validate your account on the Sai Students portal at men.saistudents.org. Download app from the app/play store and use your portal credentials to login.

Tap the Main Menu (three horizontal lines at top left of screen). Now tap the pencil icon to the right of your Status line. (You can also find the pencil edit icon directly on your Profile screen.)

Tap the Main Menu (three horizontal lines at top left of screen). Now tap the Profile button. Next, tap the pencil icon in the top right of the screen.

Tap the Main Menu (three horizontal lines at top left of screen). Now tap the Profile button. Next, tap the small square avatar above your name, which provides a list of available options for adding or editing your avatar image, or for taking a new pic.

Currently you cannot see who is online in real time.

No, your message once sent cannot be recalled.

Emojis/emoticons are supported on Nine. Gifs and stickers are currently not supported.

Currently, Nine does not support audio and video calling. We expect to introduce this option in the near future, based on user demand.

Yes, you can share photos and many file types in the Think Boards, Chat Groups as well as in individual Chats. File types supported include PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, images, videos, screenshots, audio clips, links.

Yes, you can post content in your One-to-One and Group chats, and on the Think Boards (4th tab). The Updates feed is a curated content feed produced by the Nine team, and while you cannot publish content for this area, you can express yourself within the comments section of each Updates post.

By ‘sliding left’ on a member’s or a group’s name, or by tapping the ‘more’ (three verticle dots) menu in the top right when inside a chat, you can find one or more available options. The ‘broom’ icon, or “Clear chat” option, clears all messages within the selected chat and you are effectively deleting the entire chat from your device. The ‘speaker’ icon, or “Mute chat” option, mutes all new incoming Notifications from new messages in the selected Group chat or Think Board. If you Mute the Group or Board, you will still be a member in the Group or Board, and be able to see all past posts/messages and participate in the Group or Board, but will no longer receive notifications of new posts/messages.

Tap Main Menu (three horizontal lines at top left of screen). Tap the dropdown arrow to the right of the Notification Settings. Here, you can choose to allow chat notifications to vibrate or not vibrate, to make a sound or no sound, and whether you will see a Preview of the incoming message in your Notification dropdown.

Tap Main Menu (three horizontal lines at top left of screen). Tap the dropdown arrow to the right of the Notification Settings. Now tap the “+” next to Updates. Here you can choose whether to receive Notifications for several items regarding Updates Posts.

The Updates feed is a post-format news-type feed curated by Nine Team members, populated with news, articles, blog posts, shared albums and other types of community-relevant content. Any member can view, comment on, like, and share the content in this feed.

Announcements are community-wide informative posts curated by the Nine Team, which are directed to all members. They will show up at the top of your Updates screen. Just click the highlighted box to enter and read the Announcement. Individual members cannot independently create community-wide Announcements, but if you feel you have something which fits this category, contact us to see if it is something we should feature here.

Tap the Search feature (the magnifying glass icon at the top right) in your Updates screen. You can search by entering keywords in Updates post titles in the Search field. We do not currently support searching for keywords within posts or chat messages, but this feature will come in future builds.

One or two checks will appear in your sent message boxes within your conversation in a One-to-One chat or Group. A single check means that your message has been delivered. This also means that others in the chat have recieved a notification of your new message, if they have notifications turned on. Two checks (in the One-to-One chat only) means it has been read by the other member in your chat. An exceptionally long delay in the appearance of the second check could mean that the person has not yet clicked into the app and read your message.

Tap the Search feature (magnifying glass icon at the top right) in your Chat tab. You can search for specific conversations by the first or last name of the person, for example if you want to find your conversation with Aaron Jardin, start typing “aar…” or “jar…” into the Search field. You can Search for entire Group chats by typing in keywords in the Group’s name. For example, if you want to find the group called ‘Job Openings for Fresh Batch’, you can input any of the keywords in that group chat name into the Search field. We do not currently support searching for keywords within posts or chat messages, but this feature will come in future builds.

At this time, we do not support muting an individual One-to-One chat, but this may be incorperated into a future build.

Absolutely. Click into the Chat Tab. Click on the floating “+” button at the lower right. Next, click the floating “group +” button in the lower right. Now choose who to add to your new group from the Contacts listing by clicking each member you wish to add. Once you’ve chosen who to add (you can add more later at any time) click the “right arrow” button in the bottom right. Now give your group a Name, and an optional Group Icon. Finally click “Create Group,” and you’ve done it!

Nine currently supports groups of up to 5000 members. By comparison, Whatsapp can support groups of only up to 256 members.

Tap the Search feature (magnifying glass icon at the top right) in your Chat tab. You can search for specific conversations by the first or last name of the person, for example if you want to find your conversation with Aaron Jardin, start typing “aar…” or “jar…” into the Search field. Or you can Search for entire Group chats by typing in keywords in the Group’s name. For example, if you want to find the group called ‘Job Openings for Fresh Batch’, you can input any of the keywords in that group chat name into the Search field. We do not currently support searching for keywords within posts or chat messages, but this feature will come in future builds.

Unfortunately, not at this time, but we are looking into this feature for possible future builds.

Not currently. But this feature will come in future builds of Nine.

Yes. As an existing administrator of a chat group, you are able to select and award any group member

Navigate into the Group you wish to add to. Tap the ‘more’ menu (three verticle dots in the top right of the screen). Tap the “Group Info” option. Now in the Group Info screen, tap the “+” floating button in the bottom right of the screen. You’ll see a listing there of all members in the community with a grey check next to those already in the Group. Now simply tap on the avatars of those members you wish to add now, and when you’ve finished adding new members, tap the “right arrow” button at the bottom right to finish the adding process.

Navigate into the Group in question. Tap the ‘more’ menu (three verticle dots in the top right of the screen). Tap the “Group Info” option. Now in the Group Info screen, find the member you wish to remove and ‘long tap’ (hold your finger down for a second) on their name or avatar to see a list of options. Tap “Remove (person’s name)” to remove them from the Group chat.

Navigate to the Chat tab. Locate the Group chat you’d like to Mute. Slide left on the name of the Group and you will see a few options available. Tap the ‘no speaker’ icon and then confirm that you wish to mute this group. Now, you will no longer receive new notifications for posts and comments from this chat but will still be a member and still be able to participate in the Group. (You can also find the “Mute” option in the ‘More’ (three verticle dots in the top right) menu inside the Group chat, and proceed with the steps above.)

Nine’s default tab is the Chat tab (tab 2) which houses all your chat conversations, whereas tab 4 houses
only your group chats. In the future, we hope to replace tab 4 with a new and unique feature that serves
you better

Tap the Search feature (magnifying glass icon at the top right) in your Contacts screen.
NAME: Search by first or last name of the member (the default option). Free-form type in the name you are looking for.

Alternatively, click on the profile of anyone from the batch your classmate is from. You will see the year-
campus-batch details below his profile pic. Click on the the year-campus-batch relevant to your search
and you will see a list of all the batch members registered in Nine

No. Nine is a closed, private community app and as such, we use your real name for member identification and search/contact purposes. Your real name is linked to your information at the University? and on the Sai Students Website, and our 5-Star vetting process relies on actual, honest identification of you, including your real name and credentials. If you have legally changed your name since leaving the University?, please contact us and we can make the change for you.

By tapping the “Profile” button, you will navigate to your Profile screen and here you can edit your Status (in the same manner as above), your Profile information, and your avatar image. To edit your Profile info, tap the pencil icon in the top right of the screen. To edit your avatar image, tap the small square avatar above your name, and you will see a list of available options for adding or editing your avatar image, or for taking a new pic.

Other Profile details such as your avatar image, batch/year/campus, contact information etc. will be different, so other members will be able to distinguish you with this information.

No. Nine is a closed, private community app and as such, we use your real name and information for member identification and search/contact purposes.

All information transmitted on Nine is handled over encrypted (SSL) connections. The servers that host the website and the API, and any of our other services, are secured using industry-standard security practices.

Your Information is stored on our dedicated, secure, service-specific servers, categorized by Chat and Updates/Profile information.

You can view the Privacy Agreement here  and the Terms of Service here

No. Your privacy is our first concern and our app is designed to protect you by automatically opting you OUT of any sharing or selling of data. We believe that your data is yours, and we will never use your data to track you online, to target advertising to you, or sell it to a third party without your express permission.

At this time, you can Report inappropriate conduct or content to our Support Team by email at contact@nineapp.io and we will personally look into the issue. We do not currently support Blocking other users because we are working within a closed community which has been pre-vetted. Within this structure, we anticipate the need to Block other users to be very low, but we may incorporate this feature in future versions of the app if it becomes necessary for user confidence and safety.

Feel free to email us with your issues at contact@nineapp.io and we will open a support ticket for you and work to resolve it.

App upgrades can sometimes cause instabilities.

If you face such issue, and have an Android phone, please clear the Nine app data from the system settings. To clear the data, go to Phone Settings>apps> nine>storage>clear data. Now simply login again. If you are experiencing further difficulties, please contact the Support team at contact@nineapp.io.

iPhone users should contact the support team directly at at contact@nineapp.io

We are aware of this issue and expect to get a fix in place by March end, 2018. We thank you for your patience in continuing to use and enjoy Nine till such time this fix is implemented.

At this time, Chinese law has banned apps which have a Calling software, therefore Apple will not allow us to offer Nine to members using IOS/iphone platforms in China. If regulations change, we will be sure to make Nine available to our members in China.

In future builds, we are planning to expand the power of the Search feature to enable it to search by keywords within an Update post, a Think Board post, or a chat message. We think this will greatly enhance your ability to find even more relevant information you want on Nine.

In a future build, Nine will facilitate event management with the ability to create and share events, allowing for event-specific discussion, registration for attendance and/or volunteer participation.

In a future build, you will have the ability to tag friends and members on posts across the Nine platform.