What is it?

Groups are used to collect and organize people in your community. They can be used to control access, assign administrative roles, and manage notifications. You can create as many groups as you want, and people can be in as many or as few groups as you need.

Use Cases

Organize people into departments to control access

You can create a Group for each department in your company. This makes it easy to define who is allowed to read, write, and edit content throughout your community.

Alternately, if you are creating a space for each department, you can use the member groups from those spaces for the same purposes.

Create specialist roles for individuals or small groups

You may find that you want a few people to have extra authority inside your community, but don’t want to make them full Administrators. You can make groups for these special cases. Within that group, you can assign Roles that will allow members of that group access to some parts of the Control Panel. You can also set up Access rules for them, giving them extra power in specific areas within your community.

Set up mailing lists for notifications

You can send out Broadcasts and set up Subscriptions using Groups. Broadcasts are emails that you can craft in your community and send out to whichever groups you choose. You can also choose who has the ability to send Broadcasts by using Roles.

Subscriptions send automatic emails to followers when new posts are added or edited. As an Administrator you can set these up on any article, document, or channel.

Features and functionality

There are several places throughout your Igloo community where you can create, manage, or use Groups.
-Manage Groups
Add/remove people from groups
Add a new group
Manage roles
Add people to groups in Invitations
Add people to groups in Add *Members*
Add/remove group membership in Bulk *Member* Upload
Create an Access rule using Groups
Create a Subscription
Send a Broadcast
Manage Space Members’ control in the Space *Administration* panel

How to create member groups

Follow these steps to create a new group through the Control Panel

Step 1: Open the Control Panel

In the top right corner of your screen there is a gear-like icon. Select it.

Step 2: Select Manage Groups

In the Control Panel menu, select Manage Groups from the Membership column.

Step 3: Select new group

At the bottom of the list of existing groups is a new group link. Select it.

Step 4: Name your group

In the dialogue that appears, enter a unique name for your group. It cannot share a name with another group in your community.

Step 5 (optional): Add people to your group

You can add as many people to your group as you wish before creating it. Enter the name of a person you wish to add in the Add User field. Matched results will appear below. Partial names and emails will also return results.

Select the member you wish to add to your group and repeat as many times as necessary.

Step 6: Select Create

Select the Create button at the bottom of the group creation dialogue.

How to delete a group

If you wish to permanently remove a group from your community follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the Control Panel

In the top right corner of your screen there is a gear-like icon. Select it.

Step 2: Select Manage Groups

In the Control Panel menu, select Manage Groups from the Membership column.

Step 3: Select the Action Button

Select the small Action Button next to the group you wish to delete.

Step 4: Select Delete

Select Delete from the options provided. Your browser will prompt you for confirmation of your decision.
Note: Deleted groups do not go to the Trash Can and cannot be recovered.

How to create a space group

Administrators and Space Administrators can create space groups.

Step 1: Navigate to your space.

Navigate to any location within the space to which you want add a group.

Step 2: Open the Space Administration Panel

On the right-hand side of the space navigation bar, there is a gear-like icon, select it.

Step 3: Select Manage Members

Select Manage Members under the Membership heading.

Step 4: Create your group

From here, follow the same procedure as outlined from step 3 onward in * How to create member groups* above.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many groups can I have?

You can create as many Member Groups as you want. Also, each space will have two Groups automatically created for them, and you can create as many sub-groups as you need for those spaces.

Can people be in more than one Group?

People can be in as many groups as you need.

Do people have to be in a Group?

Every member of your community will automatically be added to the “All Members” group. However, you do not need to include people in any other group.

Best practices / Tips and tricks

Use groups for all access rules

The Groups feature allows Administrators to easily assign Access to groups. It is best practice to always use a group for Access Rules, even if the group only contains one person. That is because Administrators can easily change group membership, but changing the permissions across your community for individual members can be much more difficult and time consuming.