Make it easier for Admins to set up Groups through Setup Wizard

[bloomexperiment (Tracey)]

Overview

Context

Continuing the discussion from Why isn't Discourse more frequently recommended as a "community platform"?:

previous post for context

@bloomexperiment

perhaps Groups on Discourse could be one of the features that is more easily surfaced through the Setup Wizard.

For example, the admin can be asked:

What groups would you like to create?

And after entering a list of names, associated categories will be created which are just visible to people in those groups.

And when people sign up for an account, they can also be asked if they would like to join certain groups, if they’re publicly available. Or they can request to join groups, if the groups are available for requests to join.

Summary

Groups could be added as a step in the Setup Wizard to make it faster to set up, for communities that need walled categories (e.g. classes for education, and so on)

The admin can enter a list of names for groups to be created. Associated categories will be automatically created which are visible to only people in those groups.

When people sign up for an account, they can also be asked if they would like to join certain groups, if they’re publicly available. Or they can request to join groups, if the groups are available for requests to join.

This could be a precursor to templates for different community types (e.g. for education setups or interest-based based setups).

Mockups

Rough mockups to illustrate what I mean

Admin Setup Wizard

The admin enters what groups they’d like to have set up.

It will set the basic details of the group. (You could probably simplify the permissions – this is just an example.)

If the group is ‘request to join’, the admin can automatically be made an owner of the group at this stage.

Categories and Groups automatically created

New User

What a new user sees after they sign up:
(If the groups are available to join on sign up)

You could include the group avatar if there is one, alongside the group description, and also make the modal bigger too.

And if the group is request to join, the user will automatically send a PM for ‘request to join’.

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Feel very free to make suggestions / changes.

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

@bloomexperiment

Groups could be added as a step in the Setup Wizard

I think a better place would be in the New Group dialog, with a checkbox and/or a field to create a category with member-only permissions.

[simon]

@pfaffman

I think a better place would be in the New Group dialog,

Assistance in both places would be great. It’s possible to launch a new Discourse site without having any idea of what custom groups are intended to be used for. Configuring groups in the Setup Wizard would make that clear:

I’d take the idea a bit further and deal with specific use cases for groups in the Wizard: Why isn't Discourse more frequently recommended as a "community platform"? - #131 by simon, but just allowing groups to be configured in the Wizard would be an improvement.

For context, I’ve answered a zillion support questions about Discourse custom groups. It’s not a concept that’s well understood by new site owners.

[bloomexperiment (Tracey)]

@simon

Yes, how to configure groups for a given purpose is the cause of a lot of confusion. The Setup Wizard could walk site owners through the process.

I’m imagining something like this:

• the Wizard asks “What’s your community going to be used for?”
• a selection of available templates is displayed
• the site owner selects “customer support”
• the Wizard walks the site owner through the process of configuring a “support” group: the group’s name, incoming email address, category, etc

Another site owner selects “paid subscriptions” from the Setup Wizard:

• the Wizard walks them through the process of creating “subscribers” groups and categories
• gives them the option of configuring the Patreon and Subscriptions plugins to limit access to the “subcribers” categories

Another site owner selects “teamwork” from the Setup Wizard…

These sound great. There could be templates for study & education and so on too.

@pfaffman

I think a better place would be in the New Group dialog, with a checkbox and/or a field to create a category with member-only permissions.

@simon

Assistance in both places would be great.

Totally agree - hadn’t thought about the New Group dialog too. I have had to use that dialog a lot on another forum where I was admin, and it can feel like a lot of work to create groups.