Communities (Fuse4)
- James Goodwin
On the Communities screen, you can see a list of all communities you have access to, including ones you are a member of and communities you have permission to see and have the option of joining, such as open communities.
A community allows admins to create a structured and personalised learning experience for each user. Community members can see content that exists within a community, such as learning plans, articles, questions, links, and files. If a user is a member of one or more communities, they will see content related to those communities in their feeds and search results.
Example: You might create a specific community for all the people in organisation who are based in London and then fill it with lots of useful content that is applicable to them, such as a “London New Starters” community, filled with lots of useful and localised content to help London-based employees who have just started.
This page covers the Communities page in the Fuse4 Beta. If you are using the legacy version of the platform, please refer to Communities.
If you are a member of a community, you will see the You’re a member label on the card:
Community types
The following community types exist:
The global community is unique when compared to other communities in the platform, as it does not have a community type selected in the Community admin screen, such as Open, Protected, Private or Public. You cannot change the community type for the global community. For more information on the global community, see Global community.
Type | Description |
|---|---|
Open | Any user can join and view the community. |
Protected | Any user can search for the community in Fuse and view it. Users can apply to join a protected community but the membership must be approved by the community admin. Content from a protected community appears in search results, even for non-members. The description and title of the content is shown but non-members are unable to view the content when clicked on. It is recommended that you store confidential/sensitive content in private communities so that it cannot be viewed by non-members. |
Private | Only current members can see the community and the content within it when navigating Fuse, including in search results. Site admins are only able to see references to private communities they don’t belong to in:
|
Public | Allows non-registered users to view content within the community but does not allow them to engage with the content such as commenting, liking, and sharing. |
Viewing a community
To view a community in full, including viewing a community you are a member or to access the screen where you can join a community you currently not a member of, click the View button.
Joining a community
You can join a community by clicking the Join community button on the community homepage. If the community is open, you are automatically added to the community after clicking Join community.
To join a community:
On a community card, click View.
The community homepage appears.On the community homepage:
If the community is an open community, you can join by clicking the Join community button, after which you are automatically added to the community as a member.
If the community is protected, you user must click the Join community button and await approval from the community admin. The button label will change to Pending and the admin will approve or reject the application for membership in the Membership requests section of the Community admin screen.
Searching and filtering
If you have a very large list of communities, you can search through them using the internal search bar at the top of the screen and the list of topics narrows down to only show communities that match your search criteria.
You can also filter the list to only show certain communities of a certain type, including Public Open, Protected, and Private communities.
Clicking the My communities button in the top-right corner of the screen takes you to the Communities tab of the You screen, where you can see the communities you are a member of.
Creating a community
If you are site admin or a user who is a member of an admin group with the permission to create communities, you will see the Create a community button in the top-right corner of the screen. Clicking this button takes you to the community creation screen in the Admin Panel, where you can start creating and configuring the community.
Managing a community
If you are a site admin or an admin of a community, you can manage a community, including updating the details, adding and removing users, creating learning plans, managing notification settings, and so on.
To do this:
On a community card, click View.
The community landing page appears.
Click the Admin icon.
The community admin screen appears, where you can manage and edit the community. For more information about the community admin screen, see Community admin screen.