A "Group" is a collection of individuals who are linked by a "common bond". This could be they are members of a club,
staff in the local office of a business or the local branch of a professional body etc. The Type of Group indicates the kind of relationship the
members in the group have to each other and the rest of the world.
The list of possible values for Type of Group is shown below:
Commercial
Trust or Charity
Sponsors or Promoters
Association (Members Club or Society)
Association (Proprietory/Franchise)
Club or Society (Members)
Club or Society (Proprietory/Franchise)
Academic or Educational
Local / National Government
Professional Association
The list of options for the Type of Group is fixed by the ActivityForum system. The default Type of Group that is assigned when a group is first
created is "Club or Society (Members)".
If you need a Type of Group that is not included in the list above, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
Networks and Class of Group
A Network is a collection of groups that are linked by a shared set of "Class of Group" values.
The names of the Class of Group values in a network helps define the form of network the member groups belong to, such as an association or federation,
a business or a professional body etc.
Every group in a particular network must have one of the shared "Class of Group" identifiers from their network.
The list of shared Classes of Group for a network is defined by the owners of the Network, with help and guidence from our support staff.
An example list of Classes of Group for an association of social clubs is shown below:
Member Club
Affiliate Club
Association
Media and Marketing
Special Interest Group
Most networks will generally have at least two Classes of Group such as "Admin" and "Group" plus others as necessary.
The Class of Group names need to be unique within each network, however the same class names can be repeated in different networks.
The abstraction of the class of group from the group links allows ActivityForum to support scale free networks of groups of
any size. This allows a network to grow by giving any new groups one of the shared set of Class of Group values to form new parent, subsidiary,
peer and unrelated groups.
If you have any questions about how ActivityForum could support your group network, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
Network Managers
The role of Network Manager is the equivalent of a webmaster for a network of groups and their respective Agoria web sites.
Network Managers are entrusted with a very high level of permission with respect to all the groups within their network
so that they are able to:
Create and modify all member, event and forum data in all groups within their network
Create Modify the details and data for any new groups within their network
Modify the details and settings for all existing groups within their network
Create, modify and destroy "parent to subsidiary" group links in their network
Create, modify and destroy "peer to peer" group links within a network
Make an unrelated group into a subsidiary or parent of another group
Make an unrelated group into a peer of another group
Change a link type from "peer to peer" to "parent to subsidiary" and vise versa
Change anything else that needs to be modified within the network
Essentially Network Managers have full control over all group, forum, event and membership information of all the groups in the
network they control. They also have control over any web sites created within Agoria by the groups in their network.
The role of Network Manager requires the highest degree of trust, which is why very few people in a network are given this level of permission.
Links
Every group in ActivityForum has to belong to a Network. Within each network there are three types of direct or indirect links between the member groups
as listed below:
Parent to Subsidiary (Direct) - A strong direct relationship between two groups when one group is the "Parent"
to a subsidiary group. This link type allows the Group Managers in the parent group to have exclusive control of what information can pass
across the link between the groups. Only the Group Managers in the parent group are permitted to break the link with the subsidiary group.
Peer to Peer (Direct) - A weak direct relationship between two groups when both groups have control of what
information can pass across their shared link. The Group Management in either group can also break the peer to peer link at any time.
Related (Indirect) - An indirect relationship between two groups where they are linked together via a common shared parent group
Unrelated - No direct or indirect relationship between two groups (both have one of the shared classes of group that links them to the Network)
If you have any questions about how group links work in ActivityForum, please contact us to discuss your needs with our support staff.
Group Managers
The Group Managers are able to control the content of their own group plus any direct links to subsidiary groups and the content of such groups:
This means the Group Managers can do the following:
Create and modify member, event, forum and group data in their own group.
Create and modify member, event, forum and group data in their subsidiary groups.
Create and modify new subsidiary groups.
Modify and destroy the links to their subsidiary groups.
Essentially Group Managers have full control over all group, forum, event and membership information in their group. A Group Manager is
NOT permitted to create a parent to subsidiary link to any other existing group in their network.
Group Managers can however create and destroy any peer to peer links they may have with other groups in their network. Such peer to peer
links will only be active if the group managers in the receiving group have set their end of the link properties to make the link active.
This means Group Managers share control of any link to other groups across a peer to peer connection.
The level of trust required of Group Managers means that usually only a few people in a group (such as a club committee) are given this
level of permission.
