A group is a mini-community with its own membership consisting of up to one blog, media gallery, and forum. All of a group’s content is accessible by members of the group.
Community Server allows the site administrator to set up three types of groups:
- Public Open Membership – Community users have visibility of group members, group activity, and additional group information in the sidebar.
- Public Closed Membership - Community users have visibility of group activity and additional group information in the sidebar, but not of group members.
- Private - Community users have no visibility of users or group activity.
Some group activity and functionality may be invisible to you based on group type and your group membership status. All of a group’s content is accessible by members of the group. You will note that the Your Groups section contains a list of the groups to which you belong.
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Non-Members - In private groups, non-members cannot view or interact with any content. In public groups, non-members can view (but not interact) with the group's content.
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Members - Members can view and reply to existing content (blog posts, media files, forum threads) and view pages. If enabled (via the "Edit Group" form), members can also start new forum discussions or post their own media files.
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Managers - Managers can do everything that regular members can as well as the following:
- Post new pages
- Edit and delete their own pages
- Post , edit, and delete blog posts
- Start new forum discussions (including sticky posts, announcements, polls, and video)
- Edit, delete, and moderate forum posts
- Post, edit, delete, and moderate media files.
- Owners - Owners can do everything that managers can do as well as edit the group and group theme, add and remove members, and edit pages.
Theming Groups
You can theme each individual group, similar to the way you theme blogs. The owner of each group can select a theme for the group and configure any options exposed by that theme via the Edit Group Theme link in the administrative sidebar of the group.
Customizing Group Themes
The group-related themes are located in the web/themes/hubs/ folder (groups are called hubs within the API and themes). Within theme files, you can use the same <CSMedia:, <CSForum:, and <CSBlog: controls that are used for media gallery, forum, and blog content outside of groups to reference the group's content from these application types. Additionally, the <CSHub: control prefix identifies group/hub-specific data and functionality.
Accessing Groups Functionality
To administer a group, you must log on to Community Server with an administrative account. From the home page, navigate to Control Panel Dashboard > System Administration > Group Administration. The group administration control page looks like this:
Group management provides you with two workflow tabs:
- Groups and Categories
- Configuration
Each workflow tab contains sub-tabs. When you select a workflow tab, the user interface provide you with access to workflow tasks. The following example shows the sub-tabs for the Group and Categories workflow.
Groups and Categories Workflow
The Groups and Categories workflow allows you to add groups and edit groups.
New GroupTab
The New Group page allows you to specify group properties such as group name, URL, group type and group category.
Group Categories Tab
The Group Categories page allows you to manage or edit the group categories.
Group Tab
The Groups page displays the list of groups in the workspace, from which you can edit or delete groups.
Configuration Workflow
The configuration workflow allows you to specify user permissions, presentation properties, and enable or disable applications for your group.
Permissions Tab
When you select the Permissions tab, the Permissions page displays.
Click here for additional information about user permissions.
Default Presentation Tab
When you select the Default Presentation tab, the Default Presentation page displays.
The Default Presentations page allows you to specify the theme properties for your group.
Enable Sub-Applications Tab
When you select the Enable Sub-Applications tab, the Enable Sub-Applications page displays.
The Enable Sub-Applications page allows you enable or disable the group applications, such as pages, blogs, media, and forums.