Groups are member-driven "micro-communities" within your larger Vanilla community. They provide focused spaces where members can connect around shared interests, roles, or projects, enabling more intimate and targeted conversations outside your main public discussions.
NOTE: You must enable the Groups and Events addon to leverage the Groups feature in your community. See Groups and Events to learn how.
This article focuses on how to create and manage Groups.
Create a Group
1. On the Groups page, click New Group.
2. On the resulting page, configure the Group's high-level details.
- Give it an appropriate name.
- If you'd like to provide extra information or context for the Group, enter a description. This displays on the main Groups list and the Group's page.
- For better organization and searchability, assign one or more Tags to the Group. Tags make it easier for users to find similar Groups when searching or filtering, and are a useful way to organize Groups by type, audience, region, or any other classification your community uses.
3. Optionally choose an icon and/or banner image to represent the Group.
NOTE: Refer to the Group images section below to learn where these images display in your community.
4. Select the Group's privacy setting:
- Public: All users can see the Group and its content. Anyone can join.
- Private: All users can see the Group but only members can see its content. Users must apply or be invited to join.
- Secret: Only members can see the Group and its content. Users must be invited to join. Secret Groups are completely hidden from non-Group members.
5. When finished, click Save to create the Group.
Group images
When creating a Group, you can upload both an icon and a banner image. These images can be used by various Group-related widgets. For example, the Groups widget (available in any layout) allows Admins to choose whether it displays a featured image, and whether that image should be the Group Icon or Group Banner.
How these images display depends on whether your community is configured to use Legacy or Custom Group Layouts.
If set to Legacy Group Layouts:
- The Icon displays in the list of Groups on the Groups Directory.
- The Banner displays as the large header image at the top of the Group’s page. For most themes, a Banner size of 1000 × 175 px works well, but we recommend testing on staging before applying to production.
If set to Custom Group Layouts:
- Similar to the Groups widget discussed above, Admins can configure the Groups Directory widget to determine which image (if any) is shown—Icons, Banners, or no image.
- If a Banner widget is added to a Group Homepage layout, you can configure it to use either the Group’s Banner image or a Custom image.
- When a layout is applied to multiple Groups, the Banner widget will automatically display the appropriate image for each Group.
Manage Groups
From a Group's page, click the ellipsis (…) icon to access the following management options.
NOTE: If your community is configured to use Legacy Group layouts, you will instead click the Options dropdown.
Edit Group
Select Edit Group to edit any of the Group's details and settings, such as its icon or banner, or privacy setting.
TIP: Refer to the Create a Group section of this article to learn about each option.
Leave Group
If you're a member of a Group, select Leave Group, followed by Leave in the confirmation popup, to revoke your membership status.
Delete Group
Select Delete Group, followed by Delete in the confirmation popup, to permanently remove the Group from your community.
IMPORTANT: Deleting a Group removes all of its associated content. This action is irreversible.
Invite Members
Select Invite Members to display the associated dialog.
By default, Group owners, Leaders, and any user with the Groups > Moderation > Manage permission can invite users to join by:
- searching and selecting registered usernames.
- inviting users via their email addresses is available to any user with the
Groups > Email Invitation > Add permission. This option allows users to invite registered community members to join your group and/or invite unregistered users to join the community and the group.
Invites function differently depending on whether the recipient is a registered or unregistered user:
- Registered users will receive a notification letting them know they've been invited to the Group. The notification includes a link to the Group where they can accept or reject the invitation.
- Unregistered users will receive a notification letting them know they've been invited to the Group. The notification includes a link to your community's registration page where they can create their accounts before accepting or rejecting the Group invitation.
Manage Members
Select Manage Members to view the Group's dedicated member management page.
The Social Groups Category
The Social Groups Category is automatically added when the Groups and Events addon is enabled. This is where users can go to see all Group post content they have permissions to view.
WARNING: Do not delete this Category because it's required for the addon to properly function.
- By default, users should have only the
Social Groups > Comments > Add and Social Groups > Discussions > Add permissions for this infrastructure-only Category. - Administrators and Moderators should have ALL permissions except
view.
You can update this by editing any Role and modifying permissions for the Social Groups Category:
Or, you can update permissions for all Roles at once by editing the Social Groups Category itself:
For more information on this Category, or if you have accidentally deleted it, contact Vanilla Support.