Communities
Last updated
Last updated
Communities are assets to every company, because they're where ideas, projects, events, and other collaborative activities are managed. They provide the structure needed to share documents, web pages, files, images, and videos.
In hoozin, the Communities layer provides structured workspaces where users can exchange information about a topic, project, customer, and so on. The Communities layer is also where end-users are provided with hoozin apps they can choose to install.
Communities can include both internal and external users, so you can also invite your partners, vendors, and customers to join them. This allows you to more effectively and efficiently build a social business strategy using your hoozin ecosystem while still respecting security requirements, since external users can only be invited by hoozin administrators, can only view and participate in communities they're members of, and have no access to internal corporate data (such as user directories).
Click My communities in the left menu, then scroll up and click Create a community and fill in the three sections according to the instructions below. Once you're done, click the Create button at the bottom of the page.
Categories are useful when browsing the community directory, with a dedicated filter available to quickly retrieve communities associated with a particular category. These are set up by the hoozin administrator.
Choose a short and simple name for your community, since it will be appearing in the community's header, in the community directory, in the activity stream, and in live and email notifications.
You can use the default generated URL or customize it.
It's not mandatory to provide a description, but having one helps end-users understand the community's context and purpose.
You can upload an image file for your community's logo here. You should use a square image if possible, otherwise it will be automatically cropped to display the center. The recommended file format is .jpg.
You can upload an image file that will be displayed in the community header, beneath the logo and the community name. The recommended size is 1942 × 372 pixels. If the image has a different aspect ratio, it will automatically be cropped to display the center. The recommended file format is .jpg.
Public: Public communities are available to all internal users. These are useful for topic-based communities, communities of practice, and general communications.
Private: Private communities are visible to internal users in the community directory, but they must request access from the community manager in order to join.
Hidden: Hidden communities aren't listed in the community directory and require an invitation from a community manager.
You can use the Default theme or choose a custom theme for your community. Different themes can be used within the same hoozin instance, which can be useful for multi-branded companies, for example.
Community managers can add and/or invite new members as well as organize them into groups of Managers, Members, and Visitors.
This table lists the features and actions available to community managers, members, and visitors:
Feature/Action
Managers
Members
Visitors
Activity
Stream
✔️
✔️
✔️
Sticky posts
✔️
❌
❌
My tasks
My tasks
✔️
✔️
❌
My discussions
My group discussions
✔️
✔️
✔️*
My private discussions
✔️
✔️
✔️*
App store
Apps list
✔️
❌
❌
Install an app
✔️
❌
❌
Uninstall an app
✔️
❌
❌
Tools
Parameters
✔️
❌
❌
Advanced settings
✔️
❌
❌
User statistics
✔️
❌
❌
Activity statistics
✔️
❌
❌
Manage roles
✔️
❌
❌
Manage members
✔️
❌
❌
Actions
Post on community wall
✔️
✔️
❌
Invite a user
✔️
✔️✝
✔️✝
React to a post
✔️
✔️
✔️
* Can participate but can't create. ✝ According to community rules.
Having different community groups is useful for organizing the audiences for your community's content. For example, you can make some community content hidden to visitor type members (such as external users from partner companies).
To add and manage community members and groups, click Manage members (displayed to community managers only). Click the gear icons to manage the groups. In the Manage groups page, click Add a member to open a panel where you can search for users and groups.
Clicking on a member will open a panel with their information and links to their profile pages. You can also start a private discussion, add the user to your contacts, and see which other communities they belong to.
Click the gear icon in the left menu to open the Tools page.
On this page you can edit the community settings you configured when you created the community.
Check Collapse local navigation in community menu by default to display the local community navigation collapsed by default.
You can set internal and external members' permissions to invite new users to the community.
In the Invitations approval type drop-down list, the community manager can choose to automatically accept members' invitations, to receive notifications and automatically accept invitations, or to require their approval.
This page displays statistics on community users.
Top influencers: The users who post the most content that gets the most reactions, both the community stream and generally.
Top actors: The users with the most posts and reactions.
Top posters: The users with the most posts.
Top followers: The users who are following the most other users.
This page contains statistics on community activity, which can be filtered by a specific time period.
User adoption:
Posts (comments and replies, images, documents, links, videos)
Reactions (likes, comments)
Communities (public, private, hidden)
Discussions (discussions, conversations)
User adoption trends
Top public posts
Top influencers
Top tags
User adoption graph
Top applications
User progression count
User count
Post type breakdown
Post count evolution
Unique connections
Click Navigation (or Manage navigation in the left menu) to create a customized left menu navigation list for the community.
In the Navigation Editor, you can create a navigation list in a default language and/or in other languages in the Available languages list. Click the pencil icon to set up or edit a navigation list in the Community Navigation page.
In these panels, you can enable or disable the section (and its associated links) or the link, and give it a title.
Click Image to select an image file to add to a link name, either from the sitemap images or a uploaded from a local drive. You can add individual images by clicking the blue box with the arrow below the image thumbnail, or choose multiple image files to add.
The ID field contains the section or link's globally unique identifier (GUID), which can be used by developers to identify the section or link's node in the navigation tree. You can change this value to a more meaningful name, but make sure these are unique within your navigation list.
You can choose a resource file (in .resx format) to use section and field labels contained a separate external file, instead of having to maintain translations for specific languages within the Community Navigation page.
To make the navigation list visible to specific users and/or groups, click Select people, search for users and/or groups, and add them.
For links, add the URL and select whether it will open in the current page or in a new page.
Once you're done editing the navigation list, click Save, then Back to languages list.
To make navigation lists in other languages available to users who have selected one of those as their default language, click the toggle switch to the right to publish the list. (You can unpublish the list if necessary.)
The community navigation list will now appear in the Navigation section in the community's left menu, in the default language. Lists in other languages that have been published will appear if the user chooses that language.
Carefully define role membership to ensure the security of your community.
Click a role's gear icon to open the Manage role screen. Here, you can edit the role's name and add members. Community owners have all roles by default.
You can also add tags to better classify the content and make it easier to find. As well, you can filter the stream by type of content (message, image, document, link, or video), by author, and/or by date. Click the x next to the filter details to clear the criteria.
Click the thumbs-up to like the content post, and the speech bubble to leave a comment (click the x to delete it). You can edit a comment you've left, and others can reply to it.
In the upper right of a content post, click the star icon to add the post to your favorites, and the chain icon to get the post's direct URL. Click the + icon to delete, edit, hide, or report the content.
Community managers can also share content as Sticky posts that will remain pinned to the top of the community stream by clicking the push pin icon after posting the content.
In the Community section in the left menu, click Activity to view the community's stream. In the top left, click Sticky posts to show only the pinned posts.
Click System tasks to display the list of your assigned tasks, which you can filter by date.
Click Discussions to display all of your group or private discussions.
Choose the permissions that new users will have by default when they join the community: Member or Visitor, which can then be modified by the community manager (see the section).
You can also manage members and groups from the page.
Check Display local navigation in community menu to show the local community navigation list, if one has been created (see the section).
Make sure Display local navigation in community menu is selected in the page.
In the Roles list, you can add members to the Invitation Managers list, giving them permissions to receive and approve community invitations, and the Navigation Management list, which will let them add and edit links in the left menu navigation (see ).
Applications often require specific community roles to define their access permissions. These roles are defined and managed within the app's settings (see ).
On the Members list screen, you can add users and groups to the Managers, Members, and Visitors lists. See for information on these roles.
Community managers can access the hoozin App store to activate or deactivate apps in the community. See the section for information on setting up and using apps in communities.
Like in the layer, community managers, members, and visitors can share content to the community's stream. You can set the visibility of posts to the entire community, or click the drop-down list and start typing a group or community member name to share it with them.
