Communities can be created from both the admin and the member side of your Wisr site.
Creating a new community:
From the admin site, navigate to Communities on the left-hand navigation menu. Click the "Create Community" button in the top right corner to begin creating a new community.
From the Member site, navigate to the Communities menu and click the "+" icon in the top right corner to create a new community.
Note: If enabled in Site Settings, non-admin Members can request the creation of a community through this same icon. They will follow the same creation process as outlined below.
Requested communities require administrator approval before they are live in your site.
You will receive an email if a community is requested by a member, and can review the community on the admin dashboard under Communities > Requested.
If approved, the member who requested the community will become a Community Leader, and the community will be visible to other members to join.
If rejected, the Community will appear under the Communities > Declined menu on the admin dashboard. You may choose to reject communities that do not align with the goals of your site or are redundant of other communities that already exist.
Update the community settings
Community Name: Be creative but descriptive with a brief name for your community.
Headline: One sentence description for the community which will appear on the community tile.
Privacy:See below for detailed explanation of Privacy and Visibility settings.
Description: Include detail about what you want members to achieve within this community. This will be visible once a member clicks into the community.
Header Images: Image displayed on Communities page and within the community. Images should be approximately 1140 x 250 px. Photos (rather than words/graphics) provide the best visual experience.
Click “Save Changes” to create the community. After you save, your community will show up in the list of communities.
Privacy settings establish how your members will join the community. Communities have three privacy settings: public, private, and invite-only. In addition to these settings, you can edit the visibility of public and private communities to specified member types.
Privacy
Public: Public communities allow members to join immediately by clicking "Join" without an approval process.
Private: Private communities require members to request to join. A site administrator or Community Leader will need to approve the pending request when a member clicks the "Join" button. All members will be able to see the About section of Private communities, with further access granted once their join request has been approved.
Invite-only: Invite-only communities can only be seen by members that have been invited to that community. It will be hidden from all other members. See the Inviting Members to Communities to learn more.
Visibility
Community Visibility complements the Privacy setting, allowing you to choose not only how members join a community, but also who can see that community in the first place. Public and Private communities default to having all Member Types selected. You will need to unselect the Member Types you wish to hide the community from.
Featuring a Community
Generally, Community tiles are sorted by the number of members who have joined. Featuring a community allows you to show Featured Communities first. They will also appear in the Recommended Communities area on the member's home screen. Featuring communities is a great way to promote communities that you want the most members to see and join.
To feature a community:
Visit the Communities tab on the left of your admin dashboard, and find the community you would like to feature.
Click into the community and scroll down to the This Community is Featured checkbox below the Description box. Check the box to toggle on and click Save Changes.
Once you've done this, navigate back to the member-facing site and go to the Communities tab to view your featured community.
How to promote Community Leaders
Community Leaders have administrative access to the community they lead without needing access to the admin back-end. They can suspend or approve members, edit the details of the community, and invite members. Typically they also have responsibility for generating and leading discussions and sharing content in their community.
To promote a member to a community leader:
From the member site, navigate to the members menu of the desired community.
Search for the member you wish to promote to a Community Leader. To the right of "View profile" on the member's tile, click the downward arrow and choose Promote to leader. You will see confirmation at the top right corner of your screen once completed.
The member will have a check mark appear to the right of their name that indicates they are a Community Leader.
To remove Community Leader status from a member, navigate back to View Profile, and select Remove leader status.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many communities should I have? When it comes to Wisr communities, we always believe less is more. Focus on having strong, well-led, and engaged communities. Most schools will have anywhere from 5-10 communities. If you are wondering how many communities you think would fit your site best, contact wr-adminsupport@eab.com and someone from our Partner Success Team would love to chat more with you.
How do I invite someone to communities? To learn more about community invitations, check out this article here.
How do I get notified? You will get a wrap-up email of all the different things happening in your communities. These will come anywhere from once a day to once a week, depending on how much activity is going on in your community. To learn more about automatic notifications, head here.
