Using Dgroups in all its features

DCommunities webinar series

25 March 2015

Using Dgroups in all its features

Meet the facilitation team

Pier Andrea PiraniEuforic Services – Dgroups Coordination Support

Lucie LamoureuxKM4D Associates

Ivan KulisECDPM

Why DCommunities webinar series?

Response to Dgroups partners request

Engaging members requires care, skills and time

Pilot - 3 free webinars to learn

Dgroups platform

Online community building basics

Facilitation tips and tricks

Today’s programme – 90 minutes

• What is Dgroups

• Communities and sub-communities

• Users, members and admins

a. Background and key concepts

• Moderation 101

• Useful tips & tricks

b. Using Dgroups email • Main group settings

• Appearance

• Email settings

• Membership

• Library

c. Using Dgroups website

Dgroups is…

A partnership

A web based

platform

A global public good

Dgroups partnership

Dgroups platform – Key data 700+ active communities

150,000+ active users, working in International & intergovernmental organizations Government agencies National and international NGOs ICT- and knowledge focused institutes Interested individuals Professional groups

400,000+ email messages delivered each day over 50% of emails exchanged with & within African

countries

Dgroups platform – Key features

Simple

Multilingual

Flexible and scalable

Non commercial

Respectful of privacy

Targeted at low bandwidth users in the South

Hosted, maintained and developed by WA-

Research in Switzerland

Dgroups as a global public good

Dgroups make platform available to actors across

the development sector

Dgroups hosts a large 'family' of discussion

groups related to international development

Key concepts – Email and web

Core technology

Most effective way to contribute

email

Discussion archive

Members’ profile

Administration and settings

web space

Key concepts – Communities

Community (or group)

Members + content (discussions and resources)

Unique email address and web address

([email protected] –

dgroups.org/groupname)

Short name = email subject prefix [groupname]

Moderated, unmoderated, invisible to other system

users, invitation only…

Key concepts- Hierarchy

Parent and sub-communities

Main

Sub1

Sub-sub1

Sub2 Sub3

url organization

dgroups.org/main/sub1

Membership goes

up-stream

Administration goes

downstream

Key concepts – Users, members and

admins

• Person with a profile on dgroups.orgUser

• User with access to a groupMember

• Member with full control on a groupAdministrator

Your turn now!

B. Working with email

Email moderation

Core email commands – Mail or no

mail?

[email protected]

To stop receiving email from one group

[email protected]

To start (again) receiving emails

Core email commands – email

digests

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Core email commands –

Unsubscribe and contact admin

[email protected]

To unsubscribe from a group

[email protected]

To contact group admin(s)

Is it possible to insert pictures in the

text body of an email message?

How you do it?

Send from your email client

Make sure the size is < 300KB

How does Dgroups handle

attachments?

If < 500 KB

– delivered as normal email attachments

How does Dgroups handle

attachments?

If > 500 KB

- removed and substituted with a link

- document is uploaded in the library

Note: Depending on your group settings, users may need to login to view the document

Your turn now!

C. Working with website

What will we look at?

1. Your account

2. Main group settings

3. Appearance

4. Email settings

5. Membership

6. Library

7. Discussions

1. Your account

Your account - Preferences

2. Main group settings

Edit community settings

● visibility and

contributions

● documents

download

● list of members

and email

addresses

Tabs and moderation

RSS and sharing

3. Appearance

Upload banner image

Image size: 1100 pixels wide - 280 pixels high, or

a multiple of these dimensions

The system will proportionally resize the image to

fit into 1100x280, center it, and pad with white

background if the resized image is smaller

Edit welcome message

● Message that members will see on group

homepage AFTER loggin ino to explain group

purpose and

scope,

provide useful

links, etc…

Edit public homepage

● Text that users will see on group homepage

BEFORE loggin onto the group

Privacy policy

4. Email settings

Email footer - Example

Edit email footer

Edit welcome email

sent to a new community member when that

person accepts an invitation, or a request to join

is accepted

View all emails - Dgroups InboxWhatever messages the Dgroups email server

receives for a specified group, Dgroups will

list them in the Inbox

Your turn now!

5. Membership

Add vs. invite new member

Add member Invite member

● Silently add member ● Send out email

invitation● Users have to

accept it

● Usually takes longer

Share “join group” link

Each group has a join group link

https://dgroups.org/groupname/join

Members tab - Overview

Members tab - List

Members tab - Invitations

Membership request

6. Library

Folders, documents and links

Open, edit and move files

7. Discussions

Edit, move, delete messages

Moving messages

Select the thread you want to move the message

to

Or start a new one

Confirm move

Pending contributions

Useful pages commands / Stats

Stats download - /admin/stats/downloads.csv

Moving a sub-community

Moving a community/sub-community

http://dgroups.org/[top level community]/[sub-community]/move?to=/[top level community]/[destination sub-community]

Your turn now!

DCommunities webinar series

25 March 2015

Using Dgroups in all its features