Release

User Groups now available!

Related products: CC Groups

Community categories are great to bring members together to interact on specific topics. However, they are more focused on the topic that is being discussed rather than on the shared interests that members have in common. That's why we invested in a new module: Meet Groups!

Groups are a place where members can engage based on what they have in common. Where categories are completely anonymous, groups focus on the social aspect of group members. When joining a group, users will appear in the group member list.

 

Check out groups on InSpired

 

Groups can be used to segment users who have the same:

  • Job or position (e.g. Designers)

  • Industry (e.g. healthcare)

  • Region or location (e.g. EMEA)

  • Interests (e.g. Drones)

 

Within these groups, members are free to interact on any topic and share best practices. As a moderator, you can share content tailored for them including creating events. You can make groups publicly accessible or private. A common use case for Private groups is to have one for users testing features in BETA. 

 

With groups you can:

  • Manage groups in a specific overview page in Control

  • Create groups

  • Make groups public or private

  • List and export members of groups

  • Grant remove access to a group to a specific user

  • Have Featured topics within groups that are relevant for member

  • Create events in a private group

 

Members of your community can:

  • Browse groups

  • Join or send a request to join a group 

  • Receive notifications about a group activity

  • See events in a private group

 

How can you start using group?

Please reach out to your Customer Sucess Manager to see how best you can use groups in your community.


We’ve prepared a whole new suite of documentation to help you navigate the new groups feature - learn more in our groups knowledge base.

Please share your feedback with us so we can improve further this new feature!

Thank you, @Marion Frecaut!

Just to confirm – there is no way to send all current group members an email, correct? We were thinking of a weekly newsletter to members of a specific group.


@LPortalupi Thanks for your question - indeed, currently there’s no simple way to email all members of a group (although it’s under consideration!).


Is there also a possibility, e.g. through customization that hides your members? We want to open a group, but not that no members of the group can see the other members. This is only possible when you join a group. 

And suppose somebody joins a group. Does such a person first need to be approved by the moderator? 


@Moller Toma I'm not sure I fully understand your use case. You mean hide members of a group to other members of that group or hide them from non-members of that group. This seems to be an idea, so I suggest you can create one so we can gather votes on it.

 

To answer your second question, if the group is public no approval by the moderator is needed. However, approval is needed to join private groups


@Moller Toma I'm not sure I fully understand your use case. You mean hide members of a group to other members of that group or hide them from non-members of that group. This seems to be an idea, so I suggest you can create one so we can gather votes on it.

 

To answer your second question, if the group is public no approval by the moderator is needed. However, approval is needed to join private groups

We want visitors to be able to see different groups and show the content that is shared in a group, but not the group members. The members are only visible when you are a group member after you joined the group. 


How do the events in a private group work? I created an event and published it in the only private group I currently have. After publishing, the event isn’t to be found anywhere in the frontend. There is no new activity in the private group, there is no event widget in the group’s sidebar, there is also no event on the “Events landingpage”. The only place where I can see that the event exists is in Control in the Events list.

How can I get the event to be shown anywhere in the private group where I thought I had published it into?

How can I add the “Events” sidebar widget in the group?


Hello @bjoern_schulze I think these KB article will help you out. Let me know if you have any extra questions

 


Hi @Marion Frecaut, thank you for the quick response! The first link answered my question regarding having the event shown “anywhere” in the private group. Are there plans on letting customers configure the group sidebars with widgets? Right now the sidebar is hardly being utilized as a tool to show contextual content, like:

  • Events module (show all upcoming events, such as: Deadline for alpha version feedback, new beta version expected, Q&A session with the project owners, official launch expected)
  • featured topic(s)
  • HTML widget (e.g. to create a customized URL list for the current group projects, to create a direkt link to download a beta software)

@bjoern_schulze indeed that would make total sense to make more out of the sidebar and show the most relevant content there. Unfortunately, due to prioritization, here is no short term plan to add customization to groups. However, we are currently reviewing ideas to make groups go to the next level, so could you create an idea for it? Thanks a lot

 


Hi all,

Can I have a page designed exclusively for a specific group of users?

Example: I have 2 products within my company and I want the main page of group 1 to be "home page 1" and the main page of group 2 to be "homepage 2."

It's possible?

 


Hello @Rodrigo. At this stage this is not possible. However, we are considering adding the customization mode to the groups overview page, which would allow you to group your groups based on specific criterias. Would such a solution suit you? If now why having specifically different pages?


Thanks for the feedback Marion.


Yes, that would be excellent. But I would be able to get around my need, if I applied the same solution that the people at Freshworks used. How to build a structure like this? Each product with a "home page"?

https://community.freshworks.com/freshdesk-10000
https://community.freshworks.com/freshservice-10001
https://community.freshworks.com/freshworks-crm-10003


Hello @Rodrigo , the links you shared are community categories. You can create as many categories as you'd like. From what I understand of your use case, it is better indeed to create categories for each product. 

Groups serve a different purpose and are more centered around interaction between similar personas. 


@Marion Frecaut Has anyone suggested the feature to assign community members as “leaders” or “managers” of a user group yet?


Hello @security_lion yes there is this idea 

I believe you found it since I see your vote but still I'm sharing if other are interested :)