Managing Sub-Communities (deprecated)

NOTE: Sub-communities is a deprecated enterprise only feature, we recommend you use Private Challenges or Challenge Groups instead.

See this article for general information about communities.

Sub-communities are essentially a platform within a platform, which contain their own challenges and ideas, and can be restricted to certain users and groups.

Typically, sub-communities are used to create a private area within a platform where challenges and ideas that are not intended for the whole organization can be discussed and evaluated. Some examples:

• An executive/management team might use a sub-community to collaborate on sensitive issues that are not appropriate for the wider user base.
• A marketing team might use a sub-community to brainstorm marketing initiatives that are of specific interest to that group or department only.

A sub-community may also be open to all members of a platform and merely act as a discrete area for a particular topic or event.

Using Sub-Communities

It's important to be aware of some limitations and differences between a community and a sub-community:

• A member of a sub-community is by definition also a member of the main community i.e. it is a hierarchical structure and sub-communities cannot exist as stand alone entities.
• A sub-community is a discrete collection of challenges and ideas and as such is essentially a distinct section within the main community.
• Ideas created within a sub-community can be moved to main community challenges but not vice versa.
• Sub-communities support only limited notification and publishing capabilities - they are invisible to the main community. This means activities that occur within a sub-community won't appear in activity and notification streams such as:
  • The homepage activity stream
  • Search results
  • The journey board
  • Email update notifications
  • Weekly email digests
• If you require full platform functionality we recommend you use private challenges instead.

Create or Edit a Sub-Community

Admins can create and manage sub-communities at Admin->Modules->Sub Communities 

The following settings define a sub-community:

• Sub-community name - the name of the sub-community
• Slug - the extension for the URL of the sub-community
• Description
• Sub-community access - this is where sub-communities can be restricted to certain user groups. To restrict access:
  • Ensure you have already created a security group that contains the users you wish to grant access to
  • Set the sub community access field to "Admins plus groups"
  • In the Groups with access  field select the groups(s) that will have access
  • Click Create sub community or Update sub community

User Access to a Sub-Community

Users access sub-communities by clicking the drop down arrow next to their user name, if they belong to any sub-communities they will appear above a horizontal divider: