Group management in GroupSwim solutions

GroupSwim solutions, our most favorite on-demand social software, offer role-based permissions for members and unlimited groups so it’s fabulous method to foster online collaboration and communication, with privacy levels to match.

How do I group thee in GroupSwim?

Let me count the ways.

  • Public (auto-join):  All members of a group automatically added.
  • Public:  All members of a group can read and post.
  • Private:  Invitation only.  Only members can read and post.
  • Hidden:  Invitation only.  Non-members cannot see the group.
  • Custom:  Set your own privacy parameters.

 

Group examples

Just one of the many reasons we Intellicorers love GroupSwim is because you can easily use the solutions for internal and external groups – all with the same platform.  Here are some examples.

Use Hidden groups for internal purposes for groups such as Executive Strategy, Product Development, Marketing, etc.  You could also use internal groups to share information across departmental boundaries.  An example would be multi-disciplinary teams.

Hidden groups would also be a great way to manage projects with your clients.  You can then use the GroupSwim solution to allow all internal and external team members to view project communications in one single repository.

Use Private groups where you want to have private communications yet still stimulate interest among folks to join.  An example might be a Resource Center for your website where you upload webinars.  This would be an area where you want visitors to know the resources exist but where you’ll want to stimulate registrations for lead generation purposes.

You might use Custom groups where you want folks to be able to read some parts of the content but not all of it.  This might be another way to manage a Resource Center.  Let visitors see the topics or webinar listings but not view them.

Lastly, use Public groups where you want open participation.

 

Using GroupSwim

The hardest thing about using GroupSwim has nothing to do with GroupSwim at all.  Rather it will center on deciding on the organization of your groups.  Once you know that, using GroupSwim is easy.  Dolphin-sized intelligence not required!

You can also easily add new groups on the fly, which makes it an ideal tool for internal business collaboration.  Picture this, you have a meeting and one of the results is to form a new Bippity Bop Task Force.  No problem, within minutes you can have a new group added to GroupSwim, with invitations to new members.

Okay, if the group is large, it might take you more than a few minutes to add members.  However, you have the option to do a bulk import of email addresses to get things moving (and if nothing else, your friendly neighborhood IT team can probably give you an export of everyone’s names and email addresses if you don’t already have this info available).

The point is, though, that creating the group and members is easy enough that folks will readily use the solution to manage their collaboration and communication requirements.  And user adoption is always half the battle.

 

Who’s in charge?

GroupSwim offers three levels of site or group overseers.

First, the Site Owner is the queen of the site and there can only be one.  As the super admin, she can go anywhere in the GroupSwim site and do anything.  Hence, her queeniness.  Among the Site Owner’s super special abilities is changing the site’s access permissions.

Second, are Site Managers and their the princes and princesses of the site.  Still pretty high powered but not quite as high as the queen.

Site Managers can manage membership and change some GroupSwim site settings. Site Managers can also change the settings for any group.

Next are Group Managers.  Think of them as the site’s dukes and duchesses.  Group Managers can only edit settings for the groups they manage. If you create a new group, you are automatically made a Group Manager for it.

The beauty of the GroupSwim kingdom is that the responsibility for administering the site and groups is dispersed across an organization, alleviating the burden from having one, single admin.  And how yucky is that burden?

 

Summary

The best way to foster user adoption among any technical solution is to make it easy to use.  GroupSwim does just that.

Right now, Intellicore Design’s own GroupSwim solution is under wraps…we’re using it for internal purposes while we get all our community ducks in a row.  Look for us to go public soon because we’re looking forward to using the solution to foster collaboration and connection with you.