Hi 

I seem to be having an all or nothing problem with groups.

this is what I want to happen 

• only Members of the group can see the group discussions and activity feed of the group
• Only members of the group can post to the group
• Registered members can see the group but not the activity feed or discussions and they can request to join the group
• If someone posts to the group either on the activity feed or in a discussion or event those posts are not shown on the home page activity wall

What is currently happening 

If I set group VIEW privacy to "Only members" There is no way for new members to join the group, if I send them a link - they get to a page that says they don't have permission to view the page 

If i set group privacy to 'only members'

No matter what combo I set the group setup to it's either all registered members can see everything in the group - or can't even request membership 

I just want the group members to see the content of the group and registered members to be able to request access BEFORE THEY CAN SEE EVERY DETAIL AND EVERY DISCUSSION 

what am i missing? 

 

any help would be appreciated

 

thanks

maria

 

This post was edited by Maria at October 14, 2017 1:51 AM EDT

Hi Donna, 

I know what your saying for some reason my site isn't working like that, for 1 I can only invite someone who is a 'friend', on my other two SE sites I have the exact same group settings and someone can search for the group, they can see the group name, but not any content, request to join and then once accecpted see everything.  

On this new site a member can search and find the group and see everything before they join, or if i turn 'show group in search' off they can't see the group to request to join and if invited, they get an error page saying they don't have permission to join.  

So I'm trying to work out why this is happening?  any suggestions would be appreciated, the groups need to be private as people are discussing things they don't want the whole site membership to read and we need members to be able to 'find' the group to request to join.  

what could be causing this issue do you think?

 

thanks 
Maria

 

 

Hi Donna, thanks I have checked member level permissions and they are all ok. I have just upgraded to 

Version 4.9.4p2 and didn't have this issue before then

 i believe this is a bug! 

• I'm only able to invite 'friends' to the group - I can't seem to invite normal site members
• If I have the group set to 'view in search results', new members must be 'approved' and 'view privacy'  set to Group Members, it doesn't appear in search results, even though I believe it should, if it did I think the issue would be resolved 
• if i keep it set to privacy and try and send someone a link - they get an error to say they don't have permission to view the group
• the only way I can give the members I need access to the group is to make the 'view privacy' to Registered members which is not workable as the members are sharing sensitive information in the group. 

this is a BIG issue, that I really need to get resolved urgently, any further assistance would be appreciated

 

thanks 

Maria

 

Hi Donna 

 

thanks again for your reply.  Yes I agree with you your scenario is working that way on my site, but I have another scenario that is working on both my 4.7 sites but NOT on my 4.9.4p2

I don't have any group plugins installed - just Social Engine core group plugin

I would like members to see the various groups that are available and request membership to join those groups, NOT waiting to be invited by a friend. And I want those groups to have their discussions, events and wall hidden from the members unless they are a member of that group. This is how it is for 2 of the other sites I've developed, and how it was on this other site (4.9.4p2) before I upgraded from 4.7. 

Do you have this option for your 4.9.4p4 site? 

 

In my experience, you should be able to set the following parameters - and the group will show in search BUT won't show the discussions and events and wall posts of the group. 

 

If I set this in 4.7 it works fine - there are three groups showing in the 'group' tab 

 

and if a 'member' of the site - clicks on any of these (when they aren't a member of the group already and HAVEN'T had an invite from another group member they get the opportunity to request to join 

however, on my 4.9.4p2 site, the settings are identical 

 

But the group DOES NOT show up in search so a 'member' of the site can't request to join, we need it to show in search.  This is the main issue 

 

any further assistance would be appreciated

 

thanks and regards

Maria

 

This post was edited by Maria at October 17, 2017 9:24 PM EDT

This may have something to do with how Privacy throughout the modules was changed in recent months to prevent the display of any existence of content if the User doesn't match the Privacy Settings.  I'm sure @Donna will chime in to explain this and correct me if I'm wrong.

In the past, some data still appeared even if the User didn't meet the Privacy criteria, but after selecting the content the Private Page msg appeared.  For a lot of content, this wasn't good enough (think photos or video thumbnails and titles that everyone can see, but you don't want everyone to see).  Basically before, the 'Show On..' setting controlled what was displayed in certain pages and widgets regardless of the Privacy setting, then the Privacy kicked in when you tried to access the content.  Now 'Show On ...' = Yes means Show On... IF User meets Privacy Setting, rather than show to everyone.  So this is more of a Pre-filter.  So now Privacy is more rigid than it used to be (or should I say it's now not as lax as it used to be).

Another Client recently posted a similar issue with the catch-22 of forcing all Member Profiles to Friends only, which then prevents Users from seeing those Users in order to initiate a Friend Request.

At least that is my understanding, and I could obviously be wrong so hopefully @Donna will chime in (and even delete my post if it is wrong, do as to not cause more confusion).

thanks @gs I appreciate your reply.  Sorry but where do I find "Show on" = yes?  am i missing another setting somewhere? 

 

Essentially if i have the option to "Yes include group in search results" - I would have thought that group would "Show up in Search results", Sorry but where do I find "Show on" = yes?  am i missing another setting somewhere?  Or are you talking about the same setting?  I have it set to Show in Search in the group details section, but as I mentioned above - it's NOT showing.  

 

Hopefully @Donna will be able to shine some more light.  

thanks Donna, I understand about the 'invite' but what is the 'show in search results' option for ? if you can't see the group in search?  what am I missing? 

thanks Donna I really do appreciate your detailed response.  I guess I was confused as two of my sites allow me to do what I want to do and this one won't so I thought it must be a setting I was missing or a bug.  I understand now, thanks so much for the clarifications

 

kind regards

Maria

 

==>"Sorry but where do I find "Show on" = yes?  am i missing another setting somewhere? Essentially if i have the option to "Yes include group in search results"

 

My apologies - it's a similar setting available in many of the 3PD Plugins I have, but it's basically the same thing.  They too had to change their privacy funcionality to mimic what SE was doing.  @Donna's example is a further example of what I was referring to - so that nothing appears if the User doesn't meet the Privacy criteria, rather than letting them see some things but just prevent the page/content from loading.  

My thoughts about this as an FR is to either include an ADMINcp setting for ADMIN to determine which way to go (i.e. old way vs. new way) or to allow the User to do so when posting each content.  Not sure which is better from a legal perspective.

Yes I have the show in search on and yet still some members cannot see the group even after an invite is sent