Managing Group Collections

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ControlShift's groups feature allows your members to take the lead in organizing their communities. Groups are created, organized, and powered by members, but supported by admins. 

Editing Group Settings

For admins, the first required action is to create the group collection. All groups in ControlShift must be tied to a group collection, and members will not be able to create groups until the collection is created. Learn how to create a new group collection: https://controlshiftlabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000271676.

Once the collection has been created, it's possible for admins to update some of the collection's settings. To edit the settings, go to the admin homepage > Local Groups > All > and then choose the appropriate group collection. From here, click Edit to update the collection's settings. 

Please note that admins are not able to update the collection's basis (geographic shapes, location, or virtual) after creation. However, admins can update the collection's name, description, search radius, welcome email, and organizer questions.

Other content, including things like: introductory texts for new groups, the default group description, etc., can be updated at the platform-level (affecting all group collections) by going to the admin homepage > Settings under Configure > Content > Local Groups.

Finally, if you want to update the settings for an individual group (which includes the group's name, description, and welcome email message) you can do so by going to the group's forum page > Manage.

Moderating Organizer Requests

When a member wants to create a new group, they'll need to submit an application to admins. Similarly, if a member of an existing group wants to become a co-organizer, they'll also need to submit an application. 

When an organizer request is received, we'll send an email notification to subscribed users. It's also possible to view all organizer requests from the group collection's group listing page and from the group collection's member page.

• To view organizer requests from the group listings page, go to the admin homepage > Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Local Groups. On this page you'll see a list of local groups, with approved and pending organizer counts for each. Clicking the # to moderate link will bring you to the organizer moderation queue.
  
  
• You can also see a list of pending organizer requests from the collection's members page, which is visible by going to the admin homepage >  Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Members. Then go to the Moderation tab to see a list of all organizer requests.
  From here, click View to see the user's response to the organizer question.

Once you've reviewed the user's application, you can choose to either Approve or Deny. 

• If you approve the application, the user will be emailed informing them that you've approved their application, and they'll be given their admin privileges immediately. If the application was associated with a group creation request, the group will also become live and will be included in search results. 
• If you deny the request, the user will be emailed informing them that their application has been rejected. If their application was associated with a group creation request, the group will not be visible to the public or included in search results. 

As an admin, you can update the messages that we send when an application is approved or denied. These emails are set at the platform level (affecting all group collections) and can be updated from: admin homepage > Settings under Configure >  Content > Local Groups.

Viewing Activity Across the Group Collection

Members

As an admin, you can view activity associated with the collection, including group discussion threads, petitions, events, and group members. 

To view a list of all group members in the collection, go to the admin homepage >  Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Members. On this page, you can filter the list by organizers, regular members, and organizer applicants in need of moderation. You can also export a list of group members.

If you'd prefer to see a list of organizers/members for an individual group only, you can do so by going to the group's forum page > Admin > Members.  Again you can filter by organizers, regular members, and organizer applicants. You can also export a list of members.

Events

Admins can see all events sponsored by local groups in the collection by going to the admin homepage > Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Events.

If you'd like to see a list of events sponsored by an individual group, you can do so by going to the group's forum page > Admin > Events. 

More information about group events is available: https://controlshiftlabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204966957-Events-Run-by-Groups.

Petitions

Admins can see all events sponsored by local groups in the collection by going to the admin homepage >  Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Petitions.

More information about group sponsored petitions is available: https://controlshiftlabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/210283647-Groups-Meet-Petitions.

Threads

Admins can also view the conversations that are happening throughout the collection. To see new posts, go to the admin homepage > Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Threads.

From this page, you can also see the forum messages in need of moderation.

Moderating Forum Posts

One of the main responsibilities of group organizers is helping to monitor their group's forum for inappropriate content. If a group organizer sees an inappropriate post, they can flag it for review by admins.

When a post is flagged, admins with notifications enabled will receive an email notifying them that a post needs moderation. Admins can also look for any posts in need of moderation by going to the admin homepage > Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Threads > Moderation.

From here, there are three available views:

• Flagged Messages shows the messages that are in need of admin moderation.
• Deleted Flagged Messages lists the messages that were previously flagged by organizers and then deleted by admins. From this page it's possible to restore a previously deleted message.
• Messages marked for premoderation lists the messages that need to be approved by admins before being posted on the forum. Learn more about forum pre-moderation.

The most commonly used view on this page will be the initial Flagged Messages view, where you'll see a list of messages that need to be moderated by an admin. Clicking the link in the Content column will bring you to a more detailed page that shows the message in context and allows you to moderate the message.

A few things to know about this page:

• The top of this page tells you the group that this comment was posted into.
• We show the comment in context, but if the thread is very long we may not show all messages in the thread. You can click View full thread to go to the thread page.
• In the right sidebar we show who flagged the message, and why they flagged it.
• You can also see more information about the message's author in the right sidebar.

As an admin, once you've reviewed the message, you can Keep the message visible if you don't think that it's inappropriate. If it is, you can Delete the message instead.

If the user has severely broken your community's guidelines, you can also check the box to Also remove member from local group.

If you don't want to remove the member, but are concerned that they'll post other inappropriate messages, you can Require premoderation for their posts. When pre-moderation is enabled, posts from the effected user will not be visible in the forum until they've been approved by admins. 

Other members will be able to contribute to existing threads that include the message in need of pre-moderation, they just won't see the message that needs to be moderated. For admins, messages in need of pre-moderation will be listed on the Messages marked for premoderation page (admin homepage > Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Threads > Moderation > Messages marked for premoderation).

Clicking the Content of the message will take you to the moderation page where you can decide if the message is appropriate or not. If you mark the message as appropriate it will be made visible in the forum. If the message is marked as inappropriate it will not be visible.

Broadcast Posts

In addition to moderating the forum, admins can also post into the forum. If admins only want to post in a single group's forum, they can do so directly from the group's forum page. If an admin wants to post a message in all groups in the collection, you can use the broadcast post feature. This feature is available by going to the admin homepage > Local Groups > All > choose the appropriate collection > Broadcast Post.

After clicking to Send, the message will be posted in each group's forum. Members of the group will be able to reply to the message within their forum and it will look like any other post on the platform.