Add-members permission overview

Super Admins can add one or more members to a community in either of two ways; they can:

• Add community users as members of a community
• Invite community users to join a community

By default, Community Admins can only invite community users to join a community.

NOTE: Super Admins can enhance Community Admin permissions by granting them the ability to add members to their communities. This alleviates some of the member-management for Super Admins. Refer to Manage the Add Member permission, below, to learn how to grant this ability to Community Admins.

TIP: If you're a Community Admin who is not able to add community users to a community and would like to, contact a Super Admin and request this ability.

Manage the Add Member permission

Super Admins can grant Community Admins the ability to add members to their communities.

This permission is not granted per Community Admin. Rather, it is assigned at the Community Type level and, when granted, then applies to:

• all communities of that Type and
• all Community Admins of those communities.

To manage Add Member permissions:

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Community > Communities > Types.
3. Select the Community Type that you want to manage and click Edit at the top right of the page.
4. Scroll down to the Permissions area and check the Allow Community Admins to add members without invitation box.
5. Click Save.

All Community Admins for those communities of the selected Type can now add community users as members of their respective communities.

TIP: This permission can be rescinded by returning here and unchecking the Allow Community Admins to add members without invitation box. Rescinding the permission does not alter that "add member" actions that occurred while it was in effect.

Add & invite community users

1. In a community, click Settings.
2. Click Add or Invite Others.

NOTE: The message that is sent to invitees displays in the Invitation Message field. You can use the message as is or click into the field to customize it for your invitation.

3. On the resulting page, add community users to your "invite" list by either:

• picking them from your Contacts on the Invite Your Contacts tab or
• searching for community users on the Invite Others tab. (This is the more common method, so we'll use it in this example.)

4. On the Invite Others tab, provide a first name, last name, company name, and/or email address and click Search.
5. In the Search Results section, check the box next to one or more users' names and click Add Selected To Invite List.

Repeat the previous two steps if you want to search for and add other users to invite.

6. When you have added all of the users that you want to add or invite:

• click Invite to send the invitation email message that displays above or...
• click Add Immediately to immediately add them to the community without sending an invitation.

NOTE: When you add a user to a community, you have to also set their Discussion subscription type. The member can subsequently self-manage this on the My Account > Community Notifications page in their Profile.

Pending Invitations

When you send an invitation to join a community, the invitation populates the Pending Invitation Requests tab.

Here, you can:

• view all of the pending invitations (use the page navigation if necessary).
• customize the "re-invite" message in the Invitation Message field.
• resend invitations to one or more users.

View & search community members

Every community has a unique "community members" page that you can access by clicking:

• the Members button on the All Communities list page;
• the Members button on the My Communities list page;
• the Members tab in the community navigation anywhere in the community.

On the community's Members page, you can:

• Search for one or more community members by specifying your search criteria and clicking Find Members. The page refreshes and the "all current members" list in the lower part of the page now displays the search results instead of the full list.
  • These search fields do not accept a wildcard character.
• View a list of the community's current members, sorted by user name (A – Z, by default). Click the Name A-Z dropdown to sort the list by a different value. You can also:
  • use the page navigation to view more entries;
  • click Add as Contact to send an invitation to connect with the member (which they might or might not accept);
  • click Send Message to compose and send a message to the member;
  • click Export to compile and export the list (in either .XLSX or .CSV format) of community members that currently displays on the page.
    • The export honors all sorting, filtering, and searching that have been applied to the list.
    • The export file (Contact Export.xlsx or Contact Export.csv) is available via your browser's download functionality.

Unable to find a user

It is possible that a user cannot be "found" as the result of a search. The two most likely reasons for this are:

• The user is not included in a Security Group that grants IsMember permissions.
• The user has opted to hide their profile from searches.

Users can self-manage their profile visibility right in their profile (on the My Account > Privacy Settings page).

• The "member directory and community rosters" inclusion setting defaults to Yes, but can be toggled to No.

When a user toggles this setting to No, their user record:

• is visible to Super Admins via the Member Directory and on a community's Members tab (i.e., the "community roster").
• is visible to Community Admins on their community's Members tab (this ensures a Community Admin can always manage their community's members), but is not visible via the Member Directory.
• is not visible to non-Admin users on the Member Directory page or on a community's Members tab.

Members as Community Admins

During the life of a community, the role of Community Admin will probably have to be managed to reflect personnel changes within the community.

Super Admins can grant and rescind Community Admin permissions for community members as described in Manage Community Admins in Manage Site, Community, and Super Admins.

Restrict members & remove a restriction

You can restrict members from posting content in the community if, for example, a member isn't respecting the community's Code of Conduct.

NOTE: Restricted Members are blocked from posting in the community. This restriction includes posting: Discussions, Comments, Questions, Answers, Library Entries, and Ideas. While the restriction is in effect, however, a restricted member can still view what other members' contributions and participate in other community activities.

This section describes how to:

• restrict a member from posting in the community and
• remove a restriction to reinstate their posting privileges.

To manage member restrictions:

1. In the community, click Settings.
2. Under Administration, click Members to access the community's Manage Community Members page.

Restrict a member

1. On the Members tab, locate the member who you want to manage and, in the Actions column, click the down arrow next to Edit Roles.
2. Click Restrict.

This member is moved to the Restricted Members tab and their posting privileges in the current community are immediately revoked.

Remove a restriction

1. Click the Restricted Members tab.
2. Locate the member who you want to manage and, in the Actions column, click the down arrow next to Remove.

WARNING: Do not click the Remove button; that is to remove the member from the community, which is described in the next section.

3. Click Remove Restriction.

The member's posting privileges in the current community are immediately reinstated.

Remove members from a community

This section describes how to remove a member from a community.

Community-user accounts can also be deactivated and deleted. These distinctions and their affects are described in Deactivate, Delete, & Remove.

1. In the community, click Settings.
2. Under Administration, click Members to access the community's Manage Community Members page.

3. On the Members tab, locate the member who you want to remove and, in the Actions column, click the down arrow next to Edit Roles.
4. Click Remove and, on the confirmation dialog, click Yes - Remove.

The user is immediately removed from the current community.

This action does not affect:

• the user's posted content in the community; it remains in place and intact.
• the user's presence, privileges, and abilities in other communities.

Related articles

• Super Admins and Community Admins can manage various role-based permissions for members via the Edit Roles button as described in Community Roles.
• Community Site Reports provide details regarding the members of, and activity in, each community across your site.
• Individual Community Reports generate data about member engagement in communities.