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Setting up a New Group on the Hub

This document takes you through the process of creating a new group on the Hub.

See also Good Practice Guide

Creating a New 'Child' XR Group

If you are part of a large organisation which has numerous working groups (e.g. a large working group like Communities, you may have a number of large and separate working groups, for example: 'Mass Mobilisation', 'Regional Development',etc.). If this is the situation for your circle, you can create separate Hub Groups for your working groups on the Hub, alongside new services that group provides.

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To create a new group, go to your group in My XR Groups; click the New Child XR Group button. Alternatively, click on the 'New Child Group' green font option via the 'My Groups\Admin' option from the grey menu bar along the top of your window. (See image above)

This shows the first page of the new group wizard (a support tool):

Name your new group, then add a short name. This is used as a prefix to channel and forum names, to distinguish them from other groups' channels/forums.

Select which Hub Group the new group relates to (NB you have to be its Group Admin to do this). For a subgroup, this will be the parent group.

Decide if the new group is a subgroup (e.g. a Working Group which is a subcircle of the group above) or an independent group (e.g. a new, nationwide Campaign Group which isn't run by an existing UK Working Group).

Click 'Next'.

Group Category. Now you can choose what type of group to create. (See the image above for options)

If you create a subgroup, you can create a linked role; here, the External Coordinator of the new group represents the child (sub) group in the parent group.

SOS principles suggest that a new working group is created when a role becomes too much for one person to handle; the work involved needs a group of people to work on a project or new work stream. The existing role holder becomes External Coordinator of the new group, inheriting the mandate. The parent group defines the mandate of the new group in collaboration with the new team.

New or Pre-existing Tasks There are two choices here:

  • If you are creating a new group to fulfil an existing role, then select the role in the drop down.
  • If there is no existing role, just leave the dropdown unchanged; a new role is created in the parent group with the same name as the new child group.

Click 'Next'.

New Group Purpose(See above image) Now you explain the Purpose of the new group. If it is a group that can (or must) have a mandate, you add this here. If the group may not have a mandate (e.g. a Project Group), you will only be asked what the group is for.

Click 'Next'.

New Roles and Role Holders. Now you can choose which of the core roles to create and who will be in them. These role holders are selected from members of the group you are group admin of in the first page.

Click 'Next'.

Services Finaly, you choose what channels, forums and cloud folder to create.

Click 'Save' when done.

Note you can only have one new Hub Group pending at a time. If you try to start a new one when you already have one which hasn’t been created, you will just be editing the existing form!

Once you have filled in the form, your new XR Group will have exactly the same kind of facilities as any other Hub Group, i.e.: channels on Mattermost, security groups and forums on UK Forums. Optionally a separate file storage area can be created on the UK Cloud.

People in the new group are not automatically also in the parent group. However, you can invite them to be in both, if your group agree. This requires discussion. If the parent (or any ancestor) group has Invite All Members Of Child Hub Groups ticked, they will be invited automatically to those groups. N.B. Invitees do not have to accept membership (for example, if already over-committed).

This allows your group to have private discussions and files, (if required), which are not automatically seen by the parent group, or other working groups.

Already Have a Mattermost Team?

If your group is already on Mattermost (but not on the Hub), it is very important that you let DDAT crew know, so that we link the Hub to your existing team. Contact DDAT Tell DDAT what your team is called, and which channels you want people to be joined to automatically.

You must give xrukadmin (the Hub’s login) admin access to your team, so the Hub can add people to it. You can only do this using a web browser or the PC app to connect to Mattermost; the phone apps do not have all the menu options.

The procedure is:

  • Go to your team.
  • Click the bar menu, 'Manage Members'.
  • Click 'Invite People'.
  • Type 'xrukadmin' in the 'Add' or 'Invite' people box.
  • Go back to 'Manage Members'.
  • Find it in the list; use the drop down to make it 'Team Admin'.
  • Then go to each channel, to join 'xrukadmin' to each one.

You also need to join xrukadmin to any channels you want your members to be joined to automatically by the Hub. If you do not do this, the Hub cannot join people to your team and channels.

When the admins actually create your Hub Group on the new services, you will receive an email telling you this has happened. The next time you log in to the hub, your accounts on the new services will be set up for you automatically, so you can start using them.

Want a New Mattermost Team?

Teams on Mattermost take significant resources on the server. You should only ask for a new team if your group is large, and will have many subgroups, each with their own channels.

Only the Mattermost admins can create Teams on Mattermost, so you need to DM them @xradmin and @xradmin2 to ask for a new team. The team name must not clash with an existing team, (especially in terms of mandate overlap or repetition). The group name must be between 2 and 15 characters long. Once this is created, please follow the instructions above in If you already have a Mattermost team.

What Next?

Read the Group Admin Guides for how to invite people, add new forums and channels, etc.

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