Group Collaboration

[Kevin Carwile]

Group Collaboration for IPS4.x +

With group collaboration, members of your community are able to form their own groups, ranks, memberships and micro communities within the fold of your whole community.

Any group can collaborate to create, maintain, and manage its own content based on what you allow as the site administrator. Out of the box, you can allow groups to manage their own forums, galleries, calendars, blogs, downloads, databases, and more. You control all the permissions and limits.

A perfect solution for gaming clans, development teams, social groups, client collaboration projects, school clubs, faith groups, or any other type of application where you want to delegate specific features of your IPS Community Suite to individual groups in a controlled manner.

Marketplace:

Download Demo Version   |    Download Full Version

 

 

[PrettyPixels]

This looks great! Do you have a demo site to see it in action?

[Chosen1]

Group Collaboration looks pretty cool.

I installed it on my test site and get a 500 error when I visit the forums, even if I disable it.  As soon as I uninstall it things return to normal.  I am using RC1.

Also, if I go to Community -> Collaboration -> Settings the language string lists the name of a hook that I had installed for 3.4.7.  I'm not sure if that's a bug with this or RC1.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this works.

[Kevin Carwile]

Interesting. I'll PM you for details.

[Kevin Carwile]

This looks great! Do you have a demo site to see it in action?

​You can download the demo version in the marketplace to give it a ride yourself.

[Ocean West]

Kevin, Can you move existing forums/blogs/galleries into the GC System?

[PrettyPixels]

Group Collaboration looks pretty cool.

I installed it on my test site and get a 500 error when I visit the forums, even if I disable it.  As soon as I uninstall it things return to normal.  I am using RC1.

Also, if I go to Community -> Collaboration -> Settings the language string lists the name of a hook that I had installed for 3.4.7.  I'm not sure if that's a bug with this or RC1.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this works.

​I'm seeing the same thing, minus the issue with the language string. My install is just a testing site for now, so I can give you credentials if you'd like to take a look firsthand. Please just let me know,

[Kevin Carwile]

I can confirm also. It seems they've made some changes in RC1 which is causing 500 error. I'll troubleshoot and update the download ASAP.

Kevin, Can you move existing forums/blogs/galleries into the GC System?

​I will make sure that goes into the next update. Currently, the task could be accomplished with a simple SQL query. But in the end, yes, it can be done fairly simply.

[Brandon.Stone]

Dude Kevin keep it up man.  You've got some great mods already made and 4.0 hasn't even officially been released yet.  I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.

[Kevin Carwile]

The downloads have been updated with compatibility with RC1.

[Ocean West]

testing a bit ran in to some blank pages. 

[Ocean West]

I am really enjoying what i am seeing - its like Inception for your site.

[Ocean West]

It appears the default locations Ad locations are enabled for GC.

Things to consider:

• the main banner pushes down the cover index and the group covers
• individual custom ad content per groups? Site admin can create packages with custom ad locations for the template.
• GC overwrite the Default Ad Locations or be able to disable them? (perhaps by way of up$elling to the group organizer?)

some other ideas - the cover photos should could possible crop down in height when you drill into the group ( group index > group menu > group app > content  )
similar to how any users profile has the main cover photo, and it reduces height when you toggle between Profile & Activity 

i'll probably have more ideas but I am coffee deprived for the past few hours and starbucks isn't open 

Stellar work!

 

[sudo]

Just about to give this a try but I thought I would say thank you so much for releasing a demo version to test with!

Every paid mod should come with that!

[sudo]

Just a couple of thoughts, depending on when Tapatalk release a v4 plugin it would be very VERY nice if this addons forums were hashed into being listed in Tapatalk rather than separate/webpage based.

Also a question regarding renewals, will they be set from purchase date or IPBv4 release? Its not a biggie but considering its quite an expensive mod it would be useful to know.

We would be moving from vBulletin and this looks like a great replacement for their social groups, would it be possible to look at an importer from vBulletin groups as I know that would be popular, just the basic content placed into a group forum and memberships transferred.

[Kevin Carwile]

Just a couple of thoughts, depending on when Tapatalk release a v4 plugin it would be very VERY nice if this addons forums were hashed into being listed in Tapatalk rather than separate/webpage based.

​GC does a lot to track, brand, and organize group content, but still allows the apps that host the content drive the pages fully. This means that FURLs, templates, and other system mods all are going to work with GC just as they would without. So if anything special needs to be done to forums or their furls in order to work nicely with tapatalk, then a mod that addresses that need can be installed and will work the same inside of GC as it does outside.

Also a question regarding renewals, will they be set from purchase date or IPBv4 release? Its not a biggie but considering its quite an expensive mod it would be useful to know.

​It's going to be from the date of purchase.

We would be moving from vBulletin and this looks like a great replacement for their social groups, would it be possible to look at an importer from vBulletin groups as I know that would be popular, just the basic content placed into a group forum and memberships transferred.

​I have been approached a couple times already regarding building some migration utilities for people coming from other apps. I think that is a great idea and I'd like to see everybody using the new IPS4 Suite coupled with Group Collaboration! I'll be considering the best way to go about tackling that after GC has been in the wild long enough to be sure it's stable.

[Kevin Carwile]

It appears the default locations Ad locations are enabled for GC.

Things to consider:

• individual custom ad content per groups? Site admin can create packages with custom ad locations for the template.
• GC overwrite the Default Ad Locations or be able to disable them? (perhaps by way of up$elling to the group organizer?)

​Great idea. I already have in my roadmap a plan to implement a set of GC features which will adapt existing widgets to give site administrators the ability to target widgets to groups in addition to the app/module/controller targeting IPS core uses for widget placement. With correct execution, ads will also fall into that fold.

[PacmanDo]

Wow, possibly solves a problem for us that was initially stopping us from going to IPS. Thanks Kevin.

[Bluto]

Very nice.  Moving an existing forum to this application would be awesome.  I know some of my forum separated communities wouldn't want to move to something like this unless they had their existing conversations moved over.  Create that ability and you've got my $75. 

[Nukeproof Mega]

@Kevin Carwile This is a great addition to IPS4, as soon as we go gold I will look at purchasing this... 

Couple of questions first:

1. Are you able to manage this just by admin, i am looking to use this on my gaming forum but would like to use it to create gaming groups that members can join..
2. Are you able to create event right out of the group?
3. Would it be possible to add a rate group, this would mean that my members can rate the said game using this application too?
4. I assume you will be able to rename this system in the menu tab as anything you like right?
5. Finally will this application leave a link in the footer of my forum?

[Ocean West]

I can try to answer some of these..

1. you (Admin) setup the "Collaboration Group" and assign permissions and what features that group can have ( forum / blog / page / downloads / gallery / calendar )
Users enter that "group" then can create their specific group name or entity with all the apps as was permitted in step 1 - however they can choose which of the apps they wish this group to have.

2. events? you mean calendar - if setup yes.
3. The group can be "reviewed" and users can "Star" the group
4. You can give the tab in the menu bar any title you wish. 
5. There is no "Copyright Notice" for the the app. 

Also when using View New Content any entry in any app for the group will appear in the respected VNC Filters.  IE - forum topics will appear in the Topics Filter

There is an additional filter for the App "Collaboration" (or your custom title) that will show which group has new content. 

The object is you the admin designate generic "Groups" or "Categories" then your members based on permissions can go in and create manage and maintain these groups, from the front end no ACP access needed.

[Kevin Carwile]

@Ocean West Very well said. All spot on.

Another thing to note is that you can choose to allow groups in a category to use certain types of content (such as Forums, Galleries, Downloads, etc), but decide whether those groups will have permission to add/edit/delete those containers ( Forums, Galleries, Download Categories, etc) from their group.

This is noteworthy because I've also included a very important feature called "Group Models" to GC also, which allow you to create the ideal group structure for newly created groups and new groups will be created based on that model. So if you set up a group model for your gaming groups which have 4 different forums to start with (like recruitment, member lobby, strategy discussion, leadership discussion ), then all new groups will have those forums also when they are created.

So you can decide whether the group has the ability to add/edit/delete from those base forums to suit their own needs, or whether they must use what you give them. Of course this same principle applies to every content type, not just forums. And it is configured on a per content type basis, so you may want to allow them to add/edit/delete their own forums, but not the galleries you provide them. Or maybe you want to allow them to delete what they don't need, but not add more. It's pretty flexible.

If you do allow them to add their own content containers, you can also set limits on the maximum amount of forums. galleries, etc that they will be able to create.

[Fr3elanc3r]

Getting this error when trying to install.

 

[Kevin Carwile]

Ah. That's going to happen with any app you try to upload. Your build of Apache/PHP does not include the Phar extension which is used by IPS4 to unpack the tar archive format. You'll need to recompile your build of PHP to include the PHAR extension in order to use the uploader in IPS4. It isn't related to Group Collaboration.

The good news is that you can work around the issue if you are unable to unzip the .tar archive yourself. You can use a free utility like 7zip to extract the contents from the .tar archive. Then you just need to upload the "collab" folder to your ./applications directory on your website. Once that is done, you will see the application listed in your ACP under the "Applications not currently installed" heading at the bottom of the applications page. You can then install it without needing the PHAR extension to PHP.

If you have further questions related to that error or how to fix it, please direct them to the IPS staff or just PM me directly.

[Ocean West]

Suggestions: 

When on a form or the app in the GC clicking on the Name of the Group doesn't do any thing - it should probably go back to the Home Page for the group.

I plan to use iMenu in connection with CG to help highlight groups, out of the box the all group's content is about 3 levels deep. ( Collaboration > Category > Group )  So initial content discovery is not readily apparent. 

What would be nice is to cross pollinate some sort of forwarders in the Main forums that redirect to the group: (or some other means where admin can promote these in the forums ) - I guess the reason for the forums is that's what most people are use to and where most traffic reside.

Collaboration

• User Groups - My Group
• User Groups - My Other Group
• Affiliates - My Affiliate
• Affiliates - My Other Affiliate

also perhaps some sort of "about page" as to what is Collaboration ( or what ever title its given ) when you land there you can an "about" link to explain the purpose and with permission the end users abilities.