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CommunityAlly Groups Overview

CommunityAlly is a new AccessAlly add-on that allows you to create forums and groups where members can interact with each other, right inside your offerings.

Here you’ll learn more about what you can do with CommunityAlly. If you have questions, see the CommunityAlly FAQ.

CommunityAlly Group Image

CommunityAlly Groups

CommunityAlly Groups are built in AccessAlly Offerings to provide participants with a way to connect with each other.

  • Feed – members post updates
  • Members – participants of the group
  • Settings – only visible to admins to allow for changing the group cover image, adding a group description, or adding a theme template (with a sidebar for example) to the group.
  • Profile – uses an AccessAlly profile members can fill out
  • Notifications – shows member specific notifications in one easy to find spot

Ready to create a new CommunityAlly group…  click here to see how.

CommunityAlly Tabs Overview

Feed Tab in CommunityAlly

Feed Tab

This is the main page of a group and is probably where your members will spend most of their time in CommunityAlly.

Here, members are able to:

  1. Post to the group including using @ to mention members of the group!
  2. Search for items in the group feed
  3. Favorite and comment

The image below shows the admin level view of the feed.

CommunityAlly Group Image

The image below shows the member view of the feed.

Group Member View

Members Tab in CommunityAlly

Members Tab

This tab shows all members of the group. From here you can click on a member to visit their profile.

Members Tab

Settings Tab in CommunityAlly (Admin View)

Settings Tab

This tab is shown for admin users.

There are 2 sub-tabs in settings: details and cover image.

Admin Settings

Details Tab

Shown to admin users in the group.

  1. Change group name and description.
  2. Select a template to be used for this Group. This is optional and could be helpful if you would like your group to have a sidebar. Templates are built using your WordPress theme.

Cover Image Tab

Under the cover image, you’ll be able to change your group’s cover image by uploading an image of your choice. Recommended sizing is 1300 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall.

Group Cover Image

Profiles Tab in CommunityAlly

Profiles Tab

Every member of your community will have a profile. It introduces them to the rest of the community and allows them to quickly manage and access their groups and activities.

This profile is connected to an AccessAlly Profile to keep everything consistent on your site.

There are 5 main components to a user’s profile:

  • Profile – visible to all group members
  • Notifications – visible to admins and members
  • Favorites – visible to admins and members
  • Groups – visible to all group members
  • Settings – admin only

Profile

The profile is a public-facing tab that introduces you to the rest of the members of the community. By default, the profile will contain an image banner, first name, last name, and bio.

Clicking on a group member photo will take you to their profile. If you click on your own photo you will see the edit icons to make changes to your profile.

Member Profile Image

Notifications

CommunityAlly Notifications

There are 3 types of notifications.

  1. Member mentioned you – when someone tags a username with @ it will create a mention.
  2. Member replied to one of your activity comments – this occurs when someone replies to a comment that you left.
  3. Username mentioned you – this occurs when someone mentions you, in either a post or a comment.

Clicking on the notification will open the activity in a new tab. However, you can always navigate to the read tab and mark the notification as unread to address it at a later time.

Other notification actions include:

  1. Marking a single notification as read or unread or deleting it.
  2. Selecting multiple notifications and performing bulk notification management.
  3. Sorting notification by the time received.
Favorites Tab in CommunityAlly

Favorites Tab

The favorites tab allows users to quickly see all of their favorite activities. They can use this feature to bookmark any activities that they’re interested in, in any of their groups, and come back to their own profile to see and manage their list of favorites.

Favorites

Groups Tab in CommunityAlly

Groups Tab

The groups tab allows users to quickly see all groups that they have access to and quickly navigate to a group to make posts/comments. This can be very helpful if you are not using offering menus as this provides another way for users to access groups. Users are also able to sort their groups by last active, most members, newly created, and alphabetical order.

Groups Tab

Settings Tab in CommunityAlly (Member View)

Settings Tab

This tab is viewable by group members and allows for a unique cover image to be used for the member profile.

Profile Settings Tab

Updated on October 26, 2022

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