Subgroups are available to licensees only. If you want the ability to create subgroups for your organization please submit a support ticket.

TL;DR (the short version)

Any admin of your group can create a subgroup. Go to your group dashboard and tap the Plus button in the header. Tap Create Subgroup from the menu. Follow the on-screen prompts to create your new group.

 

 For the step-by-step guide scroll down to Creating a Subgroup.

Overview

A subgroup operates the same as your parent group. A parent group is any group that has a subgroup. These groups function the same, they have all the same features. A subgroup functions independently from other subgroups.

 

 Subgroups are a great way to segment your audience into geographic, logical, topical or demographic units. Use a subgroup when you want to restrict membership, content, or collaboration to a specific audience segment.

Multiple Subgroups

If you are a licensee, any of your groups can have a subgroup. This means your parent group can have a subgroup and that subgroup can have a subgroup and so on. You may also have multiple subgroup branches and multiple subgroups with the same parent group. Theoretically, the subgroup depth is limitless. However, you may encounter usability concerns if your subgroup depth is quite large (more than 10 groups deep). The app imposes no limits on the number of subgroups you can create.

 

 Many organizations operate based on geographic or territorial boundaries. Consider the graphic below. It represents one way a national organization could use a subgroup structure to segment collaboration. You can imagine multiple states that each have multiple county subgroups. Each state would have it’s own subgroup branch from the national group down to their task force groups. These branches operate entirely independently. There is no crossover or visibility between them.

 

 Work with the Client Success Team to plan your subgroup structure. It is useful to sketch your organization’s network similar to the diagram exhibited below. 

 

Example Group Structure For National Organization

 

Auto-Join to Parent Groups

A unique feature of the parent/child group relationship happens when a user joins any subgroup. When a user joins a subgroup they are automatically added to all parent groups, all the way up the branch to the main parent. 

 

 In the example, the national structure depicted in the above graphic, a user who joined the county group would automatically be joined to the state and national groups. This simplifies onboarding because you can invite someone directly to the lowest group level where you want them to participate and they will immediately have access to the parent groups.

 

 Sensitive Content Considerations

Consider that new subgroup members will be added to parent groups as you think about content placement and publication. For example, you might not want to place sensitive content intended for a specific audience in the parent group. All other members will see it (though, there are ways of restricting access to content using a Collection set to Secret and then whitelisting specific members). Sensitive content intended for a limited audience can be placed into a group chat or its own subgroup (like the National Board group in the example above).

Parent Group

Your new group will become a subgroup of the group you create it from.

 

 In our example, if you want to create a new county group you would first go to your state group because you want it to be a subgroup of the state. On the state group dashboard use the plus button to create the new county subgroup. This places the new county group as a subgroup of the state group. Likewise, to create a new state group, you would create it from the dashboard of the national group.

Creating a Subgroup

Go to the group that you want to be the parent of your new subgroup. In the group header tap the Plus button and then tap Create Subgroup.

 

Step 1: Name and Template

The group generator starts by asking for the new group name. A list of templates is provided to help jump start your group structure. Tap the plus button next to the Title field to create a group without using a template.

 

Step 2: Basic Info

• Name
• Thumbnail photo
• Cover photo
• Description
• Signup Code

 

 

Group Name

This is carried over from the previous step. If you didn’t enter a group name on the previous step add one here. It is required.

Thumbnail Photo

Tap the pencil icon to select and upload a photo. Wait for it to upload before continuing. 

 

 Thumbnail photos should be about 400 pixels square. The subject of the photo should be centered and only span about 75% of the width of the photo. This is important because in many places the thumbnail will be displayed as a circle and that might cut off parts of the subject if it reaches to the edge of the photo.

Cover Photo

Tap the pencil icon to select and upload a photo. Wait for it to upload before continuing.

 

 The cover photo should be about 1920 pixels wide and 600 pixels tall. The subject of the photo should be centered vertically. Since the cover photo will be displayed behind buttons, text, and other elements we don’t recommend uploading a cover photo that has text on it.

Group Description

Enter a group description here. It is required and must be at least six characters long.

Signup Code

Enter a signup code, it is not case sensitive. It must be at least four characters but no longer than 15. Punctuation marks such as a colon or dash are allowed in the code. This field is optional and the code cannot be changed once set. Add a signup code later by editing the group and going to General.

 

 Use this code to quickly onboard new members. The code will be used to create a signup link which is great for distributing to your audience via email or SMS. Since the code cannot be changed we recommend against using a code that is date-specific like GROUP2021. 

Step 3: Basic Info, continued

• Group Chat
• Group Admin-Only Chat
• Privacy Settings

 

 

Group Chat

This setting enables a group chat for the members of this group. The chat will be accessible inside Messages. All members of the group will be members of the group chat.

 

 Consider that very large numbers of people in one chat can become unmanageable. If you intend to have more than 30-50 group members consider using a channel as your community social experience instead of this group chat feature.

Group Admin-Only Chat

This is similar to Group Chat except only admins of this group are included in the chat.

Privacy Settings

Public

A public group is visible to anyone on the app or the internet. Anyone can join a public group at any time. Content you create can be read by anyone.

 

Private

In a private group your content is only visible to members. Your group can be discovered through search and has the option to use Matchmaking. People can join your group using the signup code or signup link. The signup code/link is a direct pass to membership (so take some care how you distribute your signup code). If people discover your group in the app they must request to join. An admin will receive the request notification and approve or ignore it.

 

 Another feature closely related to membership access is worth mentioning here: Approval Required. This setting is only available when your privacy setting is Private. When Approval Required is turned on it means the group code does not automatically join new members. All requesting users must be manually approved by an admin before they become members (even if they use the signup code or link). This setting is available after your group has been created. Edit the group and go to General to find this option.

 

Secret

Secret groups are invisible on the app and to the internet. Secret groups do not show up in search results or Discover. Matchmaking is not an available option for Secret groups. These groups do not have signup codes or links. The only way to bring new members into this group is by inviting them. 

 

 To onboard new members, instruct prospective members to create an account on the app first, then use the Members view (on the group dashboard) to search and manually invite them. Because it’s more difficult to onboard new members into a Secret group this option should only be used when necessary. A Private group with Approval Required is often a better option than a Secret group.

 

 Use this setting while building your group to keep it hidden until you are ready to onboard your members (like draft mode).

Next

Clicking next on this step will create your group.