Group Collaboration

[Wayne B]

Hi - fantastic work here - using the demo in our test environment and it is fantastic. Can I ask if there is a way to move thread from a forum area to Collaboration just like you can move to another forum area? We are looking to utilise this for a specific section of our current community and it would be great to move the topics and replies into the collaboration environment?

Thanks

[Kevin Carwile]

Can I ask if there is a way to move thread from a forum area to Collaboration just like you can move to another forum area?

​That ability will be included with the GC 1.1.0 release coming very soon!

[Wayne B]

​That ability will be included with the GC 1.1.0 release coming very soon!

​In that case it makes this application perfect in every which way - Great Job!

[Wayne B]

Sorry - one other quick question - is there also a way to display certain collaborations on the board index, I may have missed this in the sea of configurable options, possibly as a sidebar etc or would I just create re-direct links under the main forum module to link to the relevant collaboration?

[Kevin Carwile]

There will be some widgets included with the 1.1 release that will show featured collaborations and such, just like there are widgets included with the forums app that show featured forum topics. This way you can place the widgets/blocks on whichever pages suit you. But GC makes no assumption that you have Forums installed on your site, or any other app for that matter, so if you decide to place widgets or create forum links, that's entirely up to you.

[Wayne B]

Hi - will there be any way of selling the collaborations and specific features with upgrades etc to add additional features for example integrating it with Nexus to create products in nexus (sorry commerce) which allow the purchase of a new collaboration with addons for additional modules perhaps (Blogs, Downloads, Gallery etc) - Ive not really thought the detail through but it seems that could be a fantastic plus to what is already a great product.

[Kevin Carwile]

Hi - will there be any way of selling the collaborations and specific features with upgrades etc to add additional features for example integrating it with Nexus to create products in nexus (sorry commerce) which allow the purchase of a new collaboration with addons for additional modules perhaps (Blogs, Downloads, Gallery etc) - Ive not really thought the detail through but it seems that could be a fantastic plus to what is already a great product.

​You can assign permissions and limits for creating collaborations to individual site member groups, and I believe you can sell group memberships via nexus/commerce so you're already covered from that angle. As for selling specific allowances within the collaboration environment, that can be accomplished in a number of ways. You could set different permissions and limits for certain collab categories and sell memberships to groups which have access to those categories. Or you could add the features to their collaboration manually as an administrator.

I've also just release a new "Rules" application which could be used to create automatic rules which perform those operations based on when the user buys a certain product from commerce. Look for it in the marketplace. I have plans to release an expansion pack for the rules application also, which will bring specific rules functionality for the commerce app so look for that too!

[John 3:16]

Does this allow the group leader to be assigned a forum that only they can see?  Then invite there team as needed?

I am looking at having 1 forum per member that is private to them only seen by them and them only), but if they could invite others to join that would be perfect.  Just as long as the forum can only be seen by the group and the group only. Is that possible?

I have a membership only site and looking to have invites but from the main member that is the leader (the one who signed up and paid).  Right now I have this working through Nexus and not sure how I could work that part out, hopefully you can shed some light.

Though is the invites done through email to those not yet signed up on my board?  Sorry if this has been asked but there is so much to read and I am not sure where to begin, though I tried lol.

[Adriano Faria]

Does this allow the group leader to be assigned a forum that only they can see?

​I think so:

Any group can collaborate to create, maintain, and manage its own content based on what you allow as the site administrator. Out of the box, you can allow groups to manage their own forums, galleries, calendars, blogs, downloads, databases, and more. You control all the permissions and limits.

[Kevin Carwile]

​As @Adriano Faria mentioned, anything you can do with a stock IPS board, you can do as a collab owner. So as a collab owner, you could create a forum inside your collab and make it invisible to all except yourself.

Are the invites sent through email to those not yet signed up on my board?

​In order to invite somebody to your group, they must first be a member on the site. This is because the site administrator ultimately has authority to decide which member groups can join in collabs, and a user without an account does not have a member group. Therefore a user must first be processed into the community, and then they can be invited to a group/collab ( according to their permissions by the site administrator ).

As for receiving an email, the invitation is sent through the core IPS notification system so the user can choose the method by which they are notified of invites ( email/inline/etc. ).

I have a membership only site and looking to have invites but from the main member that is the leader (the one who signed up and paid).  Right now I have this working through Nexus and not sure how I could work that part out, hopefully you can shed some light.

​There are a couple of ways to tackle this. One way would be to assign members to a new member group (or secondary group) when they purchase a product in nexus. Then you could give permission to that particular group to create collabs in your category(ies) of choice. You could also assign a maximum amount of collabs they can create in that category (via the category settings), or across the site in whole via the ACP under the member group settings.

Another way is to use my Rules Application to create collaborations for them automatically when they purchase certain products via nexus. For example, you could write a rule such as "When user purchases product X, if payment has been received, then create a collaboration for them in category Y". However, the Rules application is very new and I haven't yet released the expansion pack for the Commerce app which will allow you to tie into commerce events, so you'll need to wait a short time for that to become available.

But to answer your question, it can be done and you have options!

[John 3:16]

Geeez Kevin you have put out some intense powerful add-ons, NICE, thinking outside the box should be your middle name

That has been my last piece to work out, can I assign a member to a private invisible forum, so 1 member 1 forum (only seen by them), so that is what I am hoping to do with Group Collaboration.  At anyone time I will have a 100 or so members, very small and niche, but it's a premium forum only.  Between the 2 add-ons it looks very good but I think just with GC, I can put the member into their own private forum where only the admin can talk to them, then they can invite those into their group, very cool.  I guess I need to play around with the demo to get the true feel.

I am grateful for your answer!

[John 3:16]

Ok so that I understand it right, each collab is like a super Group? I create a Collab for each member that is my main member, paying customer?

I am playing with the demo now and wondering if there is a way to have the Collabs private per member and only visible to those they invite? I don't want to show other members who is in what collab.

Can I create the Collab in the ACP and assign it to a member from the ACP?

 

[Kevin Carwile]

You got me. You cant currently have a completely private collab in the way of making the group itself invisible to outsiders. But thats not a bad idea. I'll go ahead and put that in the roadmap for a future release. 

If you want to set up a collab for somebody, you can either log in as the member and create the collab for them, or create it as an administrator and tranfer it to them afterwards.

[John 3:16]

Sounds good, glad you are putting it on the future roadmap.  Thanks Kevin!

[Ocean West]

A few more thoughts...

When creating a "model" would it be handy to have a stock set of Generic Categories and Forums so when someone creates a new collab a with a forum representative structure is present - (its easier to have items created and turned off, where a blank page isn't readily obvious to a end user. 

Collab Category

•   Collab Discussions
•   Collab Questions
•   Collab Redirect

I would suggest the logic could be pro active and if there are zero forums then it should dynamically create the Category Container, in addition to the forum. after there is one of each then the admin page should show additional option to create MORE categories. End users don't understand the hierarchy requirements that Discussions/Questions/Redirects require a parent. alternatively you could force them to create a category first then permit them to add additional content items.

Discussions 
Users can start topics that other users can reply to. Replies are shown in the order they're posted.
Questions 
Users can ask questions that other users can post answers to. Answers can then be rated by other users and the highest rated answers are shown first.
Redirect 
Redirects users to another location when clicked on.

Category 
Container for other forums. Nothing can be posted directly within them.

 

[Kevin Carwile]

A few more thoughts...

When creating a "model" would it be handy to have a stock set of Generic Categories and Forums so when someone creates a new collab a with a forum representative structure is present - (its easier to have items created and turned off, where a blank page isn't readily obvious to a end user.

​I'm confused. That is what the existing "model" functionality was designed to do. If you create a collab in a category and then set it up with default settings (such as the forum categories and some default forums as you mentioned), and then you turn on the "collab model" feature for that collab category, then users who create new collabs can inherit a copy of all the settings you have set up on your "model" into their newly created collab (which eliminates a bunch of setup for them).

I would suggest the logic could be pro active and if there are zero forums then it should dynamically create the Category Container, in addition to the forum. after there is one of each then the admin page should show additional option to create MORE categories. End users don't understand the hierarchy requirements that Discussions/Questions/Redirects require a parent. alternatively you could force them to create a category first then permit them to add additional content items

​Again, this is what the "model" functionality was designed for. Rather than the software making pro-active assumptions, it's left up to a configuration which is set by the administrator as to what the collab comes with by default.

[Ocean West]

OMG - well what do you know    - finally got to test that part out  - forgot to turn on something and didn't flag an existing group as the model. 

( however ) it does require an admin to create a default  (for each collab)  in order to flag it as a model template. 

if a group has been flagged as model and then hidden via permissions will it still be used as the defacto settings?

[Kevin Carwile]

Yes. Hidden models are still usable as templates.

And you can create multiple models that can be chosen from when they create the collab if you want. And if they choose multiple models then the features on those models will be combined into the new collab. This way people can create collabs ala carte!

Or you can just set up a single model and make it forced so there is no choice and every collab gets set up the same.

[BariatricPal]

Nice work! Hopefully, you'll release a migration utility for 3.4.x Social Groups within the next 6-12 months. Definitely looking to jump ship!

[Kevin Carwile]

Nice work! Hopefully, you'll release a migration utility for 3.4.x Social Groups within the next 6-12 months. Definitely looking to jump ship!

I already have the importer built. I just need a data donor to test it out. Care to provide me some sample data?

[TLeM4]

Hi kevin, i find some little bugs on Collab

The first is verry little : the settings "Show in navigation?" in application menu doesn't seems to work for Collab
I say that because as i don't need the category system i wish to hide the tabs and provide a direct link to the only one category.

The seconds is last week when i was creating a model, the "parent" list in forum doesn't work, but i don't know it this bug is still present in that version.

 

TLeM4

[Wayne B]

Hi Kevin

With the model arrangements is there a facility to take things one step further, for instance ... if in 'Category A' I have 'Area A' flagged as a model, within that model I have all the roles defined such as moderator for that area etc wit the permissions for them also defined. If I open that category up so that a member of a specific group is able to create a new area and they create 'Area B' prevent them from then editing things such as the 'manage roles' as ultimately I have defined a model and I want them all to be dealt with exactly the same. As its a model based approach I would like the facility to disable the manage roles or disable each of the permissions within manage roles from being granted on a category by category basis.

Suggestion for the future unless of course I am missing something which is of course possible :-)

Thanks

[Wayne B]

In addition there are a couple of things that are not copied exactly under models - not sure if these are bugs or not, one is if a background image is defined on the model it is not replicated on the others meaning you need to upload on each one, the next is the setting of having it as Open (without approval) to join the community area, it then makes it default to Open (approval required) on each new model again something which should be the same.

I also noticed that the Default Member Title does not copy across when using the model

[Kevin Carwile]

You're correct. At the moment that kind of granularity is not built in. But I agree that it would be a good addition. You can expect to see that in an update.

[Wayne B]

You're correct. At the moment that kind of granularity is not built in. But I agree that it would be a good addition. You can expect to see that in an update.

​On that basis Kevin - this now meets every one of my requirements along with the promise of expanding rules to better connect Commerce with Collaborations. As you have confirmed these are features you will look to integrate I will now move forward and purchase the FULL version. 

Thank you