MS Connection User Guide - Groups

Search for groups

Enter keywords into the search bar and click the arrow. The results returned can include members, groups, events, blogs, blog posts.
Note: Actions are available based on the search results. These can include add a member as a friend, join a group, or RSVP to an event.
Use the tabs to sort the search results. Click Groups. The Groups page lists all the groups in MS Connection with a public or private profile. Hidden groups are not returned here. From the results, you can sort the results, join a group, and view a group.
To sort the groups' search results, select a Sort By option.
Members can use the search bar to narrow their searches. Enter the keyword or member name and click to search.
- The returned results display the group profile image, title, and additional information about the group. From the results, a member can select Join this Group to join a group.
- Click the group’s name or profile image to go to the group profile page if privacy settings allow.

Join and Participate in a Group

Community members can create groups. When enabled by the community administrator, social spaces are used as customized groups that can be tailored for businesses, committees, or chapters.

Search for a group or click on one that you see on a member’s profile page to go to the profile page for that group.
After you navigate to a group’s profile page, click Join this Group to join. You can also navigate to the Groups Page, if available. The Groups Page lists all the groups in MS Connection with a public or private profile. Hidden groups are not shown. From the groups page, you can join a group, view a group, and sort the results.
On a group’s profile page, the group information block displays the group’s profile image, the number of members, a description of the group, and the year started.
Various links display as designated by the group owner/administrator. The group owner’s information, such as profile image and name, displays. Click the profile image or name to see the group owner’s profile.

You can interact with your group in a number of ways through the About, Blog, Photos, Video, Documents, etc. tabs.

Profile Tab	Description
About	Click the About tab to see information about the group. This includes the description, number of members, and related groups.
Blog	Click the Blog tab to go to the group blog. The most recent blog post shows first. Each post shows the title and date the post was made. Click on the title of a post to read it. If the group owner or administrator enables members to post to the blog, then you can select Add Comment and enter text into the box. Click X to delete a comment you have started or select Comment to post.
Photos	Click the Photos tab to see albums that have been created by the group owner/administrator. The album name and number of photos in the album are displayed below the album cover. Click on the album cover to see photos. To view a photo in a larger size, click the image. Below the photo, the date the photo was uploaded, the photo’s current rating, a share link, and the username of the member who uploaded the photo is displayed. To view all photos in the album, click All Photos. Click Next Photo to view the next photo in the album. Click the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down icon to can rate a photo. You can only rate a photo one time. A group member can comment on a photo. To post a comment, enter text and click Post Comment. If comments are enabled, it appears immediately; otherwise the group owner/administrator must approve the comment before it can appear. Each photo album provides an RSS feed so it can be syndicated elsewhere. Click Share to share photos through various social media. To post a comment on a group’s profile, you must be a member of the group. If the group enables photos to be uploaded, click Upload a Photo to upload a photo to the group. Supported file types are .gif, .png, and .jpg.
Documents	Click the Documents tab to see all the documents that group owner/administrators and group members have posted. If enabled, a list of documents displays. The size of the document, its title, description, date and time it was uploaded, and comment information is displayed. Click on the document title to go to the document’s page to download and comment on the full document. A group member can leave a comment on a document. Enter text and click Post Comment. If the group owner/administrator enables comments to be automatically accepted, it immediately appears; otherwise it must be accepted before it appears.

Activity Updates

Activities appear with the most recent first. Click on a name in the activity feed to go to the member’s profile.

Activities are privacy enabled. Activities for hidden groups do not appear on the community activity feed roll.

Note: The Photos tab does not appear until the group owner/administrator has created at least one album and uploaded at least one photo to that album.

Join Related Groups

When members join a group and they are owners of other groups, they have the option to join groups on behalf of their group(s).

To join a group on behalf of another group, during the join a group process, the member is shown a list of groups they own. They can then select the group(s) they to join on behalf of.
After all desired groups have been selected, select Add.
If the member does not wish to join on behalf of a group, select Skip.

Create and manage a group

There are several ways to create a group:
- For your first group creation, from your member dashboard, click New Group.The edit group profile page appears.
- If you already belong to a group or groups, from your member dashboard, under My Groups, select Create New or View All.
- If enabled through the social site’s configuration, click Groups from top of your member dashboard. A page appears with the option to Create a New Group.
A New Group window appears. Enter the group information.
- Enter a name to give members an idea of the purpose of the group.
- Enter details about the topic and purpose of the group. The description displays on the group profile page.
Click Next. Use this next screen to invite friends to join the group by email.
Click Next. Click Edit Settings to define your group settings.
Through Edit Group Profile, you can edit the image, description, website and Twitter name
- Provide an image for the group or use the default image provided.
- Website enables you to associate the URL of another website that might be appropriate.
- If the group has a Twitter handle, enter it in the Twitter Group Name. The latest Twitter updates from the group appear on the group’s profile page.

Note: When your group is setup, it appears in two places on your member dashboard. A link appears under My Groups, and a profile photo of your group is displayed. It also displays on the Groups page of MS Connection site. A new group can take up to 24 hours to appear on the group search results page as the page is driven by the platform search engine indexer which runs daily. The group can be accessed by a direct URL and widgets in the community. All functionality is active immediately.

Manage member requests for a group

When a community member wishes to join a public or private group they send the owner a request. A message confirms that the request was sent. Depending on the group settings, you as group owner may need to accept the member to the group. Member requests are received on the group’s dashboard, and do not appear on the group owner’s personal dashboard.

From your member dashboard, navigate to the group.
Click Manage Member Requests. The Member Requests page appears.
• To accept, click Accept Request.
• To deny, click Delete Invitation.

Group Owner Dashboard

If you are the group owner, from the group profile page, click Edit this Page to access the group dashboard. From the group dashboard, you can manage and change a variety of options.

Screen Item	Description
Edit Group Profile	Enables the owner/administrator to update basic information about the group. Click Save to save changes made to the group profile.
Create Group Blog/Edit Group Blog	If the owner/administrator creates a blog for the group, this link enables him to add posts and make changes.
Edit Group Settings	Enables the owner/administrator to edit a variety of event settings such as access level, and what activities are visible to the social community.
Manage Photos	Enables owner/administrator to upload or delete photos and photo
Manage Documents	Enables owner/administrator to manage document folders, uploads, and comments.
Manage Events	Enables the owner/administrator to create and manage events associated with the group.
Create Discussion/Edit Discussion	Enables an owner/administrator to create a discussion or manage an existing discussion.
Manage News Feeds	Enables an owner/administrator to manage RSS or Atom compatible news feeds.
Manage Members	Enables an owner/administrator to manage member, such as pro- motion or removal.
Manage Comments	Enables an owner/administrator to manage group comments. If comments require approval, an owner/administrator can approve or deny comments. An owner/administrator can also delete comments.
Manage Member Requests	Enables an owner/administrator to approve or deny attendee requests.
Post a Bulletin	Enables an owner/administrator to post a bulletin for event attendees.
Sent Bulletins	Enables an owner/administrator or access options for previously sent bulletins.
Send Invitations	Enables an owner/administrator to send invitations to others to join the group.
Sent Invitations	Enables an owner/administrator to view and delete previously sent invitations. This does not remove the invitation from a member's dashboard.
Delete this Group	Enables an owner/administrator to delete the group. All elements of the group are removed.

Edit Group Settings

From the group dashboard, the group owner/administrator can click Edit Group Settings. On the Group Settings page, you are presented with a number of options.

Access Level

Decide if your group will be public, private or hidden:

Public: All details about the Group including members, the blog, photos and documents are accessible to members and non-members. Only members of the group can post blog entries, photos, and documents. Public groups appear in the search function. Community members can leave comments on the group’s page and blog. This is the default setting for access level.
Private: The group is visible on the groups search results page and enables members and non-members to view high-level information about the group such as its purpose and number of members. To see additional details about the group, blog, photos, and documents, you must join MS Connection and the group. Private groups appear in the search function.
Hidden: The group is not listed on the group page and does not appear in the search function. The owner has to invite people to join the group. Only members can find and interact with the group.

Note: All Public and Private Groups appear on the Community’s Group page.

Do new members require my approval to join?

Decide if new members need approval from the event owner/administrator to join the group. The default setting for this option is No.

If this option is set to No, when members visit the group’s public page, they are able to click Join this Group to join the group immediately. The group is added to the member’s dashboard. If a nonmember of the group attempts to take an action within the group, a prompt to join appears.
If this option is set to Yes, then to join a group, a member must click Join this Group. A confirmation request appears. Click Yes. A message indicates that the request has been submitted. The group owner receives a notification of a request within the group’s dashboard.

Do comments require my approval?

This determines if comments are posted immediately or require review. This only applies to comments at the group level. The default setting is No.

If No, comments publish immediately to the group profile page.
If Yes, comments do not publish immediately and are be sent to a queue for the group owner/administrator to accept or deny comments as they are added. Accepted comments publish to the group profile page.

Can members upload photos?

This setting enables group members to upload photos to the group photo gallery. The default setting for this feature is Yes.

If set to No only group owners/administrators can upload photos to the group page.
If set to Yes, all group members can upload photos.

Can members upload files?

This setting enables group members to upload files to the group document gallery. The default setting for this feature is Yes.

If the setting is set to No, only the group owner/administrator can upload documents to the group from the group dashboard.
If Yes is selected all members of the group can upload photos to the group gallery.

Can members enter blog posts?

This setting enables group members to post entries to the group’s blog and lets the group owner/administrator determine if posts have to be reviewed before they are posted. For information about administrative tools for blogs, see Blog Administration. The default setting is that members can enter blog posts.

Email Digest

Email Digests are sent on a daily or weekly basis. These updates include all activities that occurred in the group in the last day/week. Group members can control the frequency that they receive these updates. Group Owners/Administrators have the ability to set the default frequency their members receive these notifications.

Activities visible to the community

Numerous activities can be selected to appear in the Community’s Activity Feed, as well as the Group’s Activity Feed. If the group is Hidden or Private, these will not be publicly shown. Review and make decisions on the activities.

When you have completed selecting Group Settings, click Save Changes. The group is created and has its own dashboard through which you as owner/administrator can make manage the group.

Manage Group Members

From the group’s dashboard, click Manage Members to promote, demote, or remove members within the group. The Manage Members page lists all members of the group, and provides settings for them. Any change to a member setting must be saved before they are granted their new settings. A confirmation window appears when the settings are saved. A confirmation message appears to indicate how many members were
updated. You can download a list of all group members. This exports the member usernames and types (group admin vs. member) into a .CSV file.
Community - Groups 3

Screen Item	Description
Group Administrator?	Select this for a group member to give the member group Administrator permissions. This provides the new group administrator access to the group dashboard. They can access this just as the group owner does from their member dashboard. Group administrators have all the same rights as the owner except they cannot demote the owner and do not appear in the founder widget of the group’s profile.
Blog Administrator?	Select this to promote the member to a blog administrator. This member can access the group’s blog from blogs on their member dashboard. This will bring them to the multiple blogs screen. For more information about blog admin-istration, see Blog Administration.
Send an email settings	If selected for a blog administrator, the member receives email notifications when comments are added to the group blog.
Remove from Group?	Clear this to remove the member from the group.

Note: The member promoted to group administrator does not receive any notification to this effect. You need to inform the member of the promotion. After the member is promoted, he can see the group on his member dashboard.

Note: The group owner’s settings for group administrator and blog administrator cannot be modified.

Manage Group Events

Groups can have multiple "child" events. Group owners/administrators can click Manage Events to access options to manage events. A list of current events associated with the group appears. Hover your cursor over an event to see additional options. Select Include Past Events to display all events associated with the group.

Screen Item	Description
Create Event	This enables an owner/administrator to create an event associated with the group.
Include Past Events	Displays additional events that have already occurred.
View Event	Access the event profile.
Edit Event	Edit the event information.
Send Invitations	Invite members to attend the event.
Delete Events	Remove the event and all associated content.
Invited(#)	Displays the total number of sent invitations. Click Invited to view sent invitations.
Attending(#)	Displays the current number of attendees. Click Attending to view the attending member widget.
Comments(#)	Displays the number of comments associated with the event. Click Comments to view event comments.

Delete group

From the group dashboard, the group owner can click Delete this Group to delete the group. A group summary appears.
Click Yes to confirm the deletion or No to return to group profile page. If Yes is selected, a confirmation message appears. All elements of the group are also removed. These include:
- Blog and Blog Posts
- Photo Albums and Photos
- Comments
- Bulletins
- Invitations
- Documents
- Member List

Warning: After deletion the group no longer exists in MS Connection and cannot be recovered. If a group has any child groups, such as an event, then the parent group can not be deleted until after the child group/event is deleted.

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