Creating and managing groups

Groups in 4planning organise communication, documents, events and collaboration within your organisation. You decide who can take part, who can see the group, and who has rights within it.

Step 1: Go to Groups

1. Log in to your 4planning environment.
2. Go to Settings in the left-hand menu.
3. Click Groups.

Settings and creating groups are only available to a system administrator. If you are an administrator and do not see Settings in the menu, ask a system administrator to create the group.

You now see an overview of every group in the organisation.

Group overview

For each group, the overview shows things like:

• Name
• Who may join? (for example Everyone or By invitation)
• Who may see this group? (for example Everyone or Group members only)

Step 2: Open and manage a group

1. Click a group to open it.

You now see all parts of this group, such as:

• Events – View and manage the group's activities.
• News – Find the latest news within the group.
• Polls – View and vote on polls.
• Group chat – Communicate with group members.
• Documents – Share and manage files.
• Members – View and manage group members.
• Settings – Adjust the group settings.

Step 3: Adjust group settings

In the group settings you can manage several things:

• Group name
• Who may join? – For example Everyone or By invitation.
• Visibility – Everyone or group members only.
• Who may add documents?
• Group photo – Upload an image (PNG, JPG or WebP, up to 5 MB).

Save your changes once you have adjusted the settings.

Turning off features in a group

Does a group not use everything? Then turn off what it doesn't need in the group settings.

1. Open the group and click Settings.
2. Under Features in this group, switch off what the group doesn't use, for example Events or News.
3. Click Save.

The feature then disappears from the group for everyone. You can switch it back on in the same place.

Good to know:

• You only see features that are switched on for your environment.
• Events and news posts for this group still appear in the calendar and the news overview. Only the feature inside the group disappears.
• If you switch off Group chat, nobody can open this group's chat any more.
• You set this on an existing group, not while creating one.
• Group managers, administrators and system administrators can change this.

Step 4: Create a new group

You can also add a new group from the overview of all groups.

1. Click Create group in the top right.
2. Enter the name of the group.
3. Set who may join:

• Everyone (anyone who can see this group can join it)
• By invitation (administrators add members manually)

1. Decide who may see the group:

• Everyone
• Group members only

1. Save the group.

The group is now available within the organisation.

Step 5: Setting the order of the groups

By default the groups are sorted by name, with numbers read as numbers: JO8-1 comes before JO11-1, and that one before JO19-1. For most clubs that's exactly right.

If you want your own order — the first team at the top, for instance — a system administrator can set it:

1. Click Order in the top right.
2. Drag the groups into the order you want using the handle on the left. Prefer the keyboard? Put the focus on a handle and use the up and down arrows.
3. Lots of groups? Use the search box at the top to find one quickly. Whatever you filter out stays in the list; you always save the complete order.
4. Click Save.

This order applies to the whole environment and also determines the order on the Standings page. On the Groups page the headings (My groups, Groups you can join, Invite-only groups) stay around it; within each heading the groups follow your order.

Want the default back? Click Restore alphabetical in that same screen. A group you create later automatically goes to the end.

Step 6: Fill a group automatically by age

For youth teams or a seniors group, for example, a group can fill itself based on your members' dates of birth. This is called Smart group membership.

1. When creating a group, click Smart group membership to open the section.
2. Under By age, enter the age range: from how many up to and including how many years. You can leave one of the two empty, for example only "from 65".
3. Under Age calculated on, choose:
   • Today: a member moves up on their own birthday.
   • 1 January of this year: the group changes once a year, the way sports federations set their age categories.
4. Below the fields you immediately see how many members will be in the group, and how many members have no date of birth. Those are left out.
5. Click Create.

From then on 4planning keeps the group up to date: anyone who reaches the age is added, anyone who grows out of it is removed. This happens every night, and straight away when you change a date of birth. Members don't get a notification about it.

Good to know:

• Members you add by hand, such as a coach, always stay in the group.
• Members who were added automatically have the label Automatic in the member list. You can't remove them by hand; change the age instead.
• Want to change or turn off the rule? Open the group, go to Settings and click Change next to Smart group membership. With Turn off smart membership everyone stays in the group, but nothing is updated automatically any more.
• A group linked to a Sportlink team can't use smart membership: its members already come from Sportlink.
• Only administrators and system administrators can set up smart membership.

Tips for effective use

• Use clear, recognisable group names.
• Create separate groups for teams, committees or projects.
• Limit visibility for confidential groups.
• Review the members and settings regularly.

Good to know

• Groups determine who has access to communication and documents.
• Changes are visible immediately.
• You can adjust groups at any time.