Inviting Users to Groups

Is there any news regarding this idea? We’re starting to use groups now and because most of our groups will be private and about a certain group project (with a certain launch date for the project), we really need to be able to invite users to groups instead of having to tell them: “Go to the group, click ‘Request access’ and wait for approval”.

@bjoern_schulze We a have feature (still in beta) which enables you to invite contacts (non-registered users) to sign up for the community and to immediately join a group. Currently, we do not have any concrete plans for making it possible to invite already-registered users to a group. I can appreciate it’s not the best UX when groups are really targeted.

Hi Daniel, thanks for the response! I’m aware of the invite feature for new users but unfortunately it doesn’t help at all with users who are already registered. In our community we’ve never had any project groups before that targeted new users, we only ever did project groups with registered users.

My personal priority wouldn’t be to build an invite function for new users. Simply because I would argue that it is easier to communicate to new users to register first before they can be invited to a project group (with the invite function for registered users I have in mind). But maybe I don’t see the bigger picture here (or use cases for other inSided communities).

I would like to see the ability to create an invite like that folks inside the business can use to invite to their private group. i.e if we are facilitating customer advisory discussions, a product manager could manage adding members by using a link sent over email. This should work for both new users and existing ones. New users are obviously pushed through the sign-up but will ultimately be redirected to the private group after sign-up.

We have a use case for this as well. We want to be able to invite users to join a group without requiring them to request access from us and wait to be approved! 

Thanks,

Adam

Wow, was surprised to discover that this wasn’t a capability today. Two things I could see here:

1. the ability to invite people via Control
2. the ability for existing members to ask to have others invited (which could be then approved by the Group Admin) and/or moderators

Just adding, would love the ability to proactively invite members to both public and private groups!

Vote up the idea here @Chris Anderson 

• Inviting Users to Groups Released
• 39 Votes

Hello everyone, Thanks for all the inputs already quite detailed you shared.

I have a few follow up questions. It would be a massive help if you could give your input :) @Scott Baldwin @Chris Anderson @adam.ballhaussen @dandre @bjoern_schulze @freydrew @LPortalupi @ZapierSteph @Marina Perminova 

About the users would you like to invite:

• On what criteria would you select the users to invite to groups?
• Are these criterias available in Control to select users to invite to a group?
• If not, where are these criterias? Would that information be in a CRM tool (ex: Users from this package, this type, ARR...)? Or Is it more about manually invite users who are relevant? Or something else?
• If all the information in Control is not enough to select those user,s What do you think of having a link that you can easily share to users via any medium? (email, message, slack...)

About inviting users to a group:

• Do you want to invite users to have the choice to join (more in the spirit of "That group might interest you, you should consider joining it").
• Or do you want to really add them to the group and inform them that they have been added? They could could of course decide to leave the group if they wish

Thanks a lot for you input

About the users would you like to invite:

• On what criteria would you select the users to invite to groups?
  • I would be selecting people from a custom role.
  • Or I’d be inviting from a csv. 
• Are these criterias available in Control to select users to invite to a group?
  • Role, yes. CSV, no.
•  

About inviting users to a group:

• Do you want to invite users to have the choice to join (more in the spirit of "That group might interest you, you should consider joining it").
  • Yes, I wouldn’t want to add people to a group without their consent. 

About the users would you like to invite:

• On what criteria would you select the users to invite to groups?
  • Custom Roles
  • User Profile Field values
  • CSV
• Are these criterias available in Control to select users to invite to a group?
  • Available in Control technically, but not currently easily “sortable”
• If not, where are these criterias? Would that information be in a CRM tool (ex: Users from this package, this type, ARR...)? Or Is it more about manually invite users who are relevant? Or something else?
  • Some info would come from a CRM and populate certain User Profile Fields
• If all the information in Control is not enough to select those user,s What do you think of having a link that you can easily share to users via any medium? (email, message, slack...)
  • This could work, but I’d want it to prompt the user with a pop-up once they land on the group page like “You’ve been invited to join this group, are you sure you’d like to join? Y/N”

About inviting users to a group:

• Do you want to invite users to have the choice to join (more in the spirit of "That group might interest you, you should consider joining it").
  • IMO this already exists today with the ability to send users a link to a group
• Or do you want to really add them to the group and inform them that they have been added? They could could of course decide to leave the group if they wish
  • I would like this option to automatically add them and inform them they’ve been added.

On what criteria would you select the users to invite to groups?

• custom roles
• manual selection
• invitation link (when it’s a private group, then in combination with one of the above for safety reasons)

If all the information in Control is not enough to select those user,s What do you think of having a link that you can easily share to users via any medium?

• this is a good option, too → but it has to be secure so that the link only works for the users who are (pre-)approved to join
• users who get the invitation link should then be prompted with the option to join “Yes / No” - this should be documented so as an admin I can see who refused the invitation

Do you want to invite users to have the choice to join

• Yes, it should always be their choice / consent to join → we pre-approve or invite them → they accept or decline

Hi @adam.ballhaussen,
Can I ask in what situation would it be important to be able to add a user to a group automatically (not asking for their consent)? 
 

And a question for @adam.ballhaussen  and @Kgastaldo:
When inviting from CSV, do you use that to invite registered users? Where does the CSV come from and what kind of filters do you export it based on?

@Ati Somos - I’m on the same page as @adam.ballhaussen - additionally, we are working on leveraging our community for onboarding. We would like to invite customers to the community via link, which would automatically place them in a a user group with specific learning track.

Ideally, as folks receive certain badges, they would “unlock” access to more advanced learning tracks and content, creating a customized experience for Zapier users and driving participation.

Hi @Ati Somos! See below:

Can I ask in what situation would it be important to be able to add a user to a group automatically (not asking for their consent)? 

• It would be beneficial for us to be able to add individuals to a group so that they can immediately begin receiving notifications for activity in that group. The users would be notified when they’re added to the group and could leave whenever, but adding them automatically would mean that they could be members before having to “accept” an invite, making it more likely that they see content in the group and are notified of certain activity.

When inviting from CSV, do you use that to invite registered users? Where does the CSV come from and what kind of filters do you export it based on?

• The CSV would simply be to “bulk add” a specific set of users. Ideally these users would already be registered, we’d just be updating information about them. I’m imagining something like the following:
  • Things like Custom Roles, User Profile Fields, Badges, etc. can all determine which groups users are added/invited to
  • Via CSV, you could update any of these fields/values for registered users so that they would then be added to groups.
  • I imagine that you could set the “rules” for automatic invites to groups on the individual group itself

I realize the second idea goes far beyond the scope of this idea, but that’s how I imagine a CSV upload working. 

@LizZaps I really love your idea of badges “unlocking” access to new groups! Very cool concept and could easily be achieved if inSided allowed you to create rules for automatic group assignment based on certain user information

@Marion Frecaut 

Answers to your questions below

On what criteria would you select the users to invite to groups?

• for existing community members: primary role, custom roles, manual selection, user profile fields (e.g. these might be values like their location/city/country, or something else about them)
• for new members: similar values but ability to add them to a group via CSV import

Are these criterias available in Control to select users to invite to a group?

• not all of these can be found easily

If not, where are these criterias? Would that information be in a CRM tool (ex: Users from this package, this type, ARR...)? Or Is it more about manually invite users who are relevant? Or something else?

• I’d want the ability to manually invite others to a group(s)

If all the information in Control is not enough to select those users What do you think of having a link that you can easily share to users via any medium? (email, message, slack...)

• this could work for invitations, would want this process to be smooth so they are added when they click the link

Do you want to invite users to have the choice to join (more in the spirit of "That group might interest you, you should consider joining it"). Or do you want to really add them to the group and inform them that they have been added? They could could of course decide to leave the group if they wish

• The choice should live with the user to accept/decline joining the group

I also agree with Adam’s post above. 

• “It would be beneficial for us to be able to add individuals to a group so that they can immediately begin receiving notifications for activity in that group. The users would be notified when they’re added to the group and could leave whenever, but adding them automatically would mean that they could be members before having to “accept” an invite, making it more likely that they see content in the group and are notified of certain activity.”

Is this something that will be released in an upcoming version?

Thanks.

Kiara

Voted for this! Would love to see it.

@security_lion thanks a lot for voting. Feel free to check out this research article with more details on our current plans 

@Marion Frecaut Will do. Thank you for surfacing this for our team.

Hello everyone, I''m pleased to inform you that the group invite links feature is now in beta. Here is a KB article explaining the feature. Do let me know if you would like to test it yourself.

• Invite users to groups using invite links Tutorial

As this is still in beta, all feedback is welcomed :)

For your information, we are still working on the invite to groups by email feature and hope to have it available in beta in the coming days :)

Hello everyone, I''m happy to announce that this feature is now available in beta. 

You can now test two ways to invite users to groups: using invite links AND email invitations.

Check this KB out for more information:

• How to invite users to groups

@bjoern_schulze @Scott Baldwin @adam.ballhaussen @nicksimard @LizZaps @dandre @security_lion @tiffany.oda @JKelley @Casstastr0phee @Onomatopoeia @Laura D. @Anitahg @Kgastaldo I enabled this for you already on your production instances so you can test it out. 

If I didn''t enable this for you, let me know so I can add you to the beta :)

Feel free to share any feedback you may have :)

Hi @Marion Frecaut! Thank you so much for involving me in this :)

A bit of feedback - I noticed that, when inviting members, we have the ability to input a custom message for the user receiving the invite. When I tested this, the custom message was not included in the email invitation, it only included a description of the group.

Is there something I need to change in System Emails to enable that personalised message to come through?

@Onomatopoeia you need to have the variable 

{custom message}

as a placeholder in your “Join a group” system email. It should be pulled in then.