Community Permissions overview

When you create a community, there are several permissions that you can set and continue to manage in order to control who can do what within the community. The permissions mainly regulate:

• who can join the community;
• who can see the community (i.e., its visibility on the All Communities list page);
• whether community content can be shared;
• whether community content is moderated (i.e., it must be reviewed and approved before it's publicly available); and
• whether users can collaborate on community content.

Understand Join and View permissions

The Join Permissions and the View Permissions for communities are initially set at the Community Type level.

When you create a community, you must select a Community Type as its foundation. (You could think of Community Types as templates for communities, with some community settings being pre-configured; this saves having to configure settings for every community that is created.)

See the section Community Type settings - Permissions, in Community Types, to learn how to manage permissions for a Community Type.

• The Join and View permissions that are set for a Community Type are the default Join and View permissions for that Community Type.
• Any community that you create automatically inherits the "default" Join and View permissions that are configured for its foundational Community Type.
• The community's inherited Join and View permissions are subsequently automatically inherited by the entire community and its content.

Permissions caveat

A community's Join Permissions are dependent on the community's View Permissions. Users must be able to see a community in order to be able to join it.

EXAMPLE: A community that has the View permission set to Member and the Join permission set to Authenticated is limited to only Members being able to join because no other users can see that the community even exists, let alone be able to join it.

NOTE: Admins should verify that a community's View permissions are not more restrictive than its Join permissions in order to ensure the intended visibility and access for users.

TIP: Refer to Community permissions hierarchy, below, for more detailed information on how this works in Higher Logic.

Default permissions overrides

Overrides to the default permissions can be set at various levels in order to have more granular control over different areas and aspects of a community. It's important to have a good understanding of what each setting controls so that you know which settings to select and what impact they will have for the users and on the content in your community.

You can choose different Join and View permissions (other than the defaults inherited from the Community Type):

• when you create a community and
• when you edit an existing community.

TIP: Learn about other override options in Permissions overrides with Security Groups, below.

Community Join and View permissions settings

The following table lists and describes the permissions settings that control who can join a community and who can see a community. The descriptions and affects of these permissions are identical between Community Types and communities. These permissions are:

• set as defaults for Community Types,
• inherited by communities, and
• can be changed per community.

NOTE: It's important to understand that all communities, irrespective of Join Permission, require users to have created an account and be logged in in order to join.

Community permissions hierarchy

In a Higher Logic site, Admins can set a variety of permissions at different levels for each community in order to truly customize what is accessible and visible to the public, authenticated users, community members, and invited users.

Permissions can be set per:

These "tiers" indicate the hierarchy of permissions in Higher Logic, and each sub-tier inherits whatever permissions are defined for its parent tier.

Additional View Permissions setting for threads

You cannot override the inherited permissions for Discussion threads and Q&A threads, but you can add a "layer of visibility" via the Additional View Permissions setting, which is described in more detail in Discussion and Q&A threads, below.

Community Type

The Admin > Community > Communities > Types page displays all of the out-of-the-box and account-created Community Types. The Visible column indicates whether communities of this type display on the All Communities page.

When you create or edit a Community Type, you should understand what the following settings affect. These settings are on the Community Type "create" and "edit" dialogs.

• Show in Community List (in the Display Options section) - Check this box to have communities of this type display on the All Communities page.
• Default View Permission for New Communities (in the Permissions section) - Select a View permission to be automatically applied to all communities that are created with this type.

NOTE: This should be less restrictive than the Join permission. Users have to be able to see a community in order to be able to join it.

• Default Join Permission for New Communities (in the Permissions section) - Select a Join permission to be automatically applied to all communities that are created with this type.
• Default Moderation Setting for New Communities (in the Permissions section) - Select a Moderation setting to be automatically applied to all communities that are created with this type.

NOTE: Changes to a Community Type's default settings do not impact existing communities that were based on that Community Type when they were created. However, new communities that are based on the Community Type will inherit those updated default settings.

TIP: Learn how to manage your Community Types.

Community

The Admin > Community > Communities > List page displays all of your site's communities. The View Permissions, Join Permissions, and Moderation columns indicate each community's settings, each of which could be:

• the default settings that were inherited from the Community Type and/or
• community-specific overrides that were set by a Super Admin.

When you create a community and select a Community Type, the Community Type's default permissions settings are applied to the new community. You can change the default settings:

• now, while creating the community, or
• in the future by editing the community via this page (or in the community's Settings).

The permissions settings and options for communities mirror those of Community Types. On a community's Settings page, you can click:

• Who can join? to select a permission override for the current community.
• Who can view? to select a permission override for the current community.
• Moderation Setting to select a moderation override for the current community.

NOTE: You can change a community's Community Type on its Settings page. However, the community will not inherit settings from the newly-assigned Community Type; it will retain its existing settings.

TIP: Learn how to manage your Communities.

Discussion and Q&A threads

The Admin > Community > Discussions > List page displays all of the community Discussion threads and Q&A threads in your Higher Logic site.

Discussion and Q&A threads are the only user-generated content for which you can manage view permissions other than the defaults that were inherited from the community.

Additional View Permissions

NOTE: Higher Logic recommends that Admins use this setting with caution.

You can assign additional view permissions to select Security Groups.

The Additional View Permissions setting is:

• available for Discussion and Q&A threads only.
• specific to the Discussion or Q&A thread for which you set it; it does not affect the permissions or visibility of other threads.

On the Discussions list page:

• The Additional View Permissions column indicates any view permissions, in addition to those inherited from the community, that have been applied by an Admin.
• The Additional View Permissions setting is available, per Discussion/Question, in the Preview Panel that displays when a Discussion or Q&A thread is selected.

1. Click into the Additional View Permissions field and choose from the list of Security Groups.
2. Click Save.
3. Review the list and verify that your selections now display in the Additional View Permissions column.

Members who do not have the community's view permission but who are members of an Additional View Permission Security Group:

• cannot navigate to the community (e.g., the community Home page), but they
• can view the selected Discussion (or Q&A) thread and any associated Library content in widgets and in searches in the community.

TIP: Learn more about Discussions.

Libraries

The Admin > Community > Libraries page displays all of the community resource libraries in your Higher Logic site. The Permissions column indicates the libraries' permissions, which are inherited from the community and/or the library's associated discussion; a library's permissions cannot be individually managed.

NOTE: Additional View Permissions (described in the previous section) that are set for a library's associated Discussion thread are automatically inherited by the library.

Stand-alone library permissions can be managed with the following settings.

• Preview Name and Information - Which Security Groups' members can view the library's name and information.
• View Content - Which Security Groups' members can view the library's content.
• Add or Edit Content - Which Security Groups' members can add to the library (i.e., upload files) and edit the library's content.

TIP: Learn more about Libraries.

Permissions overrides with Security Groups

In this article, Security Groups have been mentioned a few times. But how are they really used in the management of the various permissions?

In Understand Security Groups, we see that security groups help you to "determine what your users are allowed to view and access across your site, both in terms of navigation and content." This site-wide permission, referred to as IsMember, is based on the security group's "membership" setting when the group is created (or edited), and gives "member" status to all users in that security group.

NOTE: A community can have multiple IsMember security groups with different collections of users, all of whom will have "member" status for the community.

• When creating or editing a community, choose [site] Members for the Join and/or View permissions to override the default settings that were inherited from the Community Type.
• Admins can edit a discussion (Admin > Community > Discussions > List) and add IsMember security groups in the Additional View Permissions field to override the default settings of the community.

By understanding these concepts and managing your security groups, you can secure and protect your community's content by controlling who can access it.

Related articles

We hope that this article has helped you to better understand how permissions work and what they control in the various communities across your site. There is additional functionality with which admin users can apply ever more granular control.

• Manage Page and Content Access details how permissions can be applied to pages and content to control who can access and view them.
• Hide and Delete Pages and Content walks through how to hide pages and content so they are not directly accessible.
• Lock Pages and Content is a feature that is exclusive to Super Admins to lock a site's top-level navigation, individual pages, and page content.