Short answer

You're almost certainly in Manage Account rather than in Civic.ly itself. Civic.ly has two parts: the main app, where you do the actual work — assets, the map, inspections, jobs, defects and routines — and a separate Manage Account area, where you set up the people who use it.

If you're looking at a screen headed Select Organisation with your council's name on a card: click the card. That's what activates your council and takes you through. It looks like a heading rather than a button, which is exactly why people sit and stare at it.

Detail

Manage Account is a genuinely separate area, so it doesn't look like the rest of Civic.ly: no map, no sidebar full of assets and inspections. That's why it's disorientating to arrive on it unexpectedly. You can end up there without meaning to — by following the Manage Account link from the menu, by clicking a link in an email, or by bookmarking a page while you were last in there and returning to that bookmark the next time you log in.

There are two screens people most often get stranded on:

  • Organisations (headed Select Organisation) — one card per council your login belongs to. For nearly everyone that's a single card with your own council's name on it. Click it. The screen exists so that anyone who looks after more than one council can pick between them, and it asks the question even when there's only one possible answer. The card is muted rather than brightly coloured, and it carries no "Continue" button, so it reads as a label describing where you are instead of a control that takes you somewhere. It is a control. One click and you're in.
  • Users (headed User Access Management) — a list of everyone at your council with a login. This is where you add people and set what each of them can do. It is not where you look at assets or at your work.

From the Users screen, or any other Manage Account page, open the app switcher (the grid icon in the top-right corner) and choose Civic.ly. You can also go straight to your council's web address — https://yourcouncil.civic.ly — which lands you on the dashboard.

Once you're on the dashboard, that's the page worth bookmarking. Bookmarking a Manage Account page is the most common reason people find themselves back on the wrong screen every time they sign in.

Watch-outs

  • Looking inactive is not the same as being blocked. The council card on the Select Organisation screen is easy to read as greyed out and unavailable. It isn't — it's the button. There's no point waiting for an administrator to grant you access you already have.
  • This is different from not being able to sign in at all. If your email and password are rejected at the login page, use the Forgot Password link there instead.
  • If you reach the main app and the asset register looks empty, that's a separate matter — it's usually the permissions set on your account rather than a navigation problem. See the Q&A below.