As with other areas of your Higher Logic Vanilla Community, you can choose to configure your Group pages with either a Legacy or Custom layout (on the Appearance > Group Pages > Group Layout Settings page).
Your chosen layout impacts how your community's Group pages look and function, as well as how their content and members are managed.
IMPORTANT: For the best Groups experience, we strongly recommend using custom Group layouts. These layouts provide the latest features for your staff and community members and enable you to create fully custom layouts for your Group Directories and Home pages.
With this in mind, this article guides you through the steps to manage a Group's content and members for both layout types, so reference the sections below according to your community's configuration.
Manage Group content (Custom layouts)
On a Group's page, users with the appropriate permissions can post content, including announcements, posts, and events.
NOTE: If your community is configured to use the Custom Create Post layout, you have the ability to create custom Post Types. If this is the case, the options in this menu may be different than what you see below.
By default, a Group's contributed content is displayed as follows:
NOTE: This article references the default Group page layout; your Group pages may feature a customized layout.
- posts are displayed in the Posts list;
- posts flagged as announcements are pinned to the top of the Posts list, and feature an Announcement label, ensuring they're not overlooked or buried by other content (refer to the image below);
TIP: Announcements will also display in an Announcements widget if one is added to the Group's Home page.
- events are displayed in their own dedicated area, shown below. Check out this article to learn more about creating and managing events.
Post an announcement
A post can be flagged as an announcement in two ways:
- When creating or editing a post, select the Announce in [Group] option at the bottom of the create page.
- On the Group's home page or an individual post's page, click the post's ellipsis (…) menu and select Announce. In the resulting dialog, select the Announce option and click OK.
Manage Members (Custom layouts)
On a Group's page, click the ellipsis (…) menu and select Manage Members to view the Group's dedicated member management page.
TIP: Alternatively, you can click the Members: number highlighted below.
A Group's members page is organized into three tabs to make managing its members, applicants, and invitations simple. Click between these tabs to access specific management actions.
TIP: In large Groups, use the search field and Sort By options on each tab to make it easier to locate specific members.
NOTE: In Groups with a lot of members, only a maximum of 30 members are listed at a time; use the page-selection buttons at the bottom of the page to navigate between pages. This limit applies to the Applicants and Invitations tabs as well.
Let's learn about a few important actions available to you on each tab.
Members tab
The Members tab is a Group's member directory, which serves two functions:
- it's where all members—Owners, Leaders, and members alike—can go to view a Group's members;
- it's also where Owners, Leaders, and those with the proper permissions can go to:
- Promote members to Leader (a Leader tag is displayed for easy identification)
- Demote Leaders back to regular members
- Remove members from the Group
NOTE: By default, Group Owners and Leaders can manage Group membership, invite users to join, and post content, while Owners can delete the Group (additional permissions can be granted via Global Group Settings). The Group’s Owner cannot have their Leader status removed. If you need the Owner of a group reassigned, contact Vanilla Support.
Profile fields
On the Global Group Settings page (Settings > Posts > Groups), you can manage which default and custom user profile fields display on the Members tab.
Check out the article below to learn how to create and manage custom profile fields.
Applicants tab
NOTE: The Applicants tab is only accessible to the Group Owner, Leaders, and users with the Groups > Moderation > Manage permission.
Groups configured with the privacy setting, Private, require users to request to join them. For these Groups, the Applicants tab is where you'll go to perform two primary actions:
- Accept users' requests to join the Group
- Reject users' requests to join the Group
Invitations tab
NOTE: The Invitations tab is only accessible to the Group Owner, Leaders, and users with the Groups > Moderation > Manage permission.
Group Owners, Leaders, and users with the Groups > Moderation > Manage permission can invite folks to join any Group (Public, Private or Secret), and those invitations are managed on the Invitations tab.
NOTE: Groups configured with the privacy setting, Secret, cannot be joined manually: an Owner, Leader, or user with the proper permission must specifically invite users to join them.
The Invitations tab is where you'll go to perform two primary actions:
- Resend invitations to users
- Delete invitations in instances where you no longer want a user to be invited to join a Group (or they don't want to join)
Bulk actions
Each tab allows for bulk actions to make member management more efficient. Check one or more boxes to enable the bulk-actions menu at the bottom left of your browser.
- On the Members tab, you can bulk-remove members from a Group (shown below).
- On the Applicants tab, you can bulk-approve and bulk-reject users.
- On the Invitations tab, you can bulk-delete and bulk-reinvite users.
TIP: Selections remain as you navigate a tab's pages, allowing you to bulk-select users across disparate pages.
Export member data
NOTE: Only users belonging to a Role with the Garden > Exports > Manage permission can export users.
Each tab includes an export option in the ellipsis (…) menu, as shown below.
On the Members tab, the export spreadsheet provides users':
NOTE: The fields listed here are those included by default. If Admins add other profile fields in the Global Group Settings page, those will also be included in the export of Member data.
- Email address
- Join date
- Membership status
- User ID
- Username
On the Applicants tab, the export spreadsheet provides users':
NOTE: The fields listed here are those included by default. If Admins add other profile fields in the Global Group Settings page, those will also be included in the export of Applicant data.
- Email address
- Application date
- User ID
- Username
On the Invitations tab, the export spreadsheet provides users':
NOTE: User ID and Username data will only be included for invitations sent to registered users. For technical reasons, the invitations can't include additional profile fields.
- Email address
- Invitation date
- User ID
- Username
Manually add members to a Group
NOTE: The ability to manually add members is limited to communities configured to use Custom Group Layouts.
Users belonging to a Role with the Garden > Settings > Manage permission can manually add users to a Group, making it easy to quickly add important uses or bypass the invitation process.
To do so:
1. Navigate to a Group.
2. Click its ellipsis (…) menu at the top right.
3. Select Add Members.
4. In the resulting dialog, click the dropdown and select a user.
5. Repeat this process to add additional users, as needed.
6. Click Add.
Invite members via Automation Rules
When creating or editing an Automation Rule, the Invite to group Action is available for most User Management-based Triggers.
Use this Action to set up scenarios in which your users are automatically invited to various Groups across your community, such as users who have a specific email domain or profile field.
Manage Group content (Legacy layouts)
On a Group's page, users with the appropriate permissions can add content, including announcements, posts, and events.
Each content type is displayed and managed in its own section of the page, as you see below.
Announcements
This is you can make announcements about important Group-related information. Click the New Announcement button to navigate to a new page where you can create your announcement using Rich Editor.
Announcements are similar to posts but are generally made less often. Because they're displayed at the top of a Group's page in their own section, they're afforded greater visibility to group members; essentially, announcements enable Admins and Group Leaders to "pin" important information to ensure it's not easily overlooked.
Posts
Group posts have all the features regular posts do. Members of the Group, depending on the permissions you have set, can also ask questions, create an event, or start a poll for the Group.
NOTE: If your community is configured to use the Custom Create Post layout, the options in this menu may be different than what you see below.
Upcoming Events
Events can be created for the Group. Check out this article to learn more.
Manage Members (Legacy layouts)
On a Group's Home page, click Options > Manage Members to view the Group's dedicated member management page.
- Use the search field to search for members (useful for locating specific people in large Groups).
- In the Members area, click Leader to make someone a Leader or Remove to remove them from the Group.
- The Leaders area lists all of a Group's Leaders. You can "demote" a Leader back to a member at any time by clicking Make Member.
- For private and secret Groups, this is also where join requests are listed.
NOTE: By default, Group Owners and Leaders can manage Group membership, invite users to join, and post content, while Owners can delete the Group (additional permissions can be granted via Global Group Settings). The Group’s Owner cannot have their Leader status removed. If you need the Owner of a Group reassigned, contact Vanilla Support.