In order to successfully deploy your collaborative platform and to ensure that it is properly implemented within your organization, it is essential to set up groups enriched with information and fed by the exchanges of the group members. This is why the success of the group depends on the configuration and mediation actions of its manager.
The group manager is not responsible for the overall administration of the platform but has a key role in the platform. He or she is responsible for the success of the group, which in turn contributes to the success of the platform.
Therole of the group manager varies depending on the use cases of the platform. Generally, the group manager is the guarantor of the proper use of the group by its members. He or she is then responsible for activating and deactivating certain settings, clarifying the group's objectives, and moderating and framing the exchanges that take place there.
However, the use of Talkspirit varies from one structure to another. The role of the manager will then be nuanced according to the type of group and the objectives to which it responds. The manager can then be:
If the Talkspirit platform is used by a large structure with many users, the members of a group could be more numerous. In this context, several members of the group can be appointed as group managers: each one will then have a specific role in the group. In the case of a smaller organization, the group manager is usually a multi-tasker.
Below are some examples of actions that the group manager can carry out. The scope of a group manager's work varies according to the size of the organization and the objectives of the group. The group manager won't necessarily have to carry out all of these actions. He or she may also appoint other group managers to share some of these tasks.
To create a group, it is necessary to fill in:
The user who creates the group becomes the default manager. If he/she wishes to retain the role of manager, his/her role will be to set up the group and clarify its objectives for all members. However, the group manager has the possibility to delegate this role by granting the group management rights to another group member if he/she wishes.
Thanks to the group manager, members will quickly understand what is expected of them.
Thus, we recommend:
The name of the group will help to define the main theme on which the exchanges will be based, but also to specify the people to whom this information is addressed.
Project - Training
Project - Recruitment
Project - Website redesign
@marketing - market moderation,
@HR - Trade Union Relations,
@HR - billing.
@all - welcome 🚀
@all - the group
@all - our news.
It is not uncommon to have several groups on a similar topic. In order to clarify what topics will be discussed and what information will be provided, we recommend adding a short description of the group. If you have three HR groups, you'll want to specify which group to favor for the delivery of which information.
Users can associate each group with a global theme. Group themes are created by the administrators and allow groups to be organized in the news feed according to the broad categories to which they belong.
If you are an administrator, this article will help you build your themes.
Groups have access to one of three levels of confidentiality:
Depending on the audience for the information in the group and the sensitivity of the information shared, the group manager can choose to grant one of three levels of confidentiality to the group.
We recommend:
If the topic only concerns one department in your organization, for example, the information shared in the group will not be of interest to members of other departments.
You could then risk
Therefore, adapting this level of confidentiality to the objectives of the group is essential to ensure that the information shared is relevant.
The group manager has the possibility to open a chat discussion related to the created group.
In the case of a project group, opening the chat can be very useful: it allows for a fluid exchange on points that do not need to be shared officially. The chat is thus a new communication channel, in addition to publication.
We recommend that you favor informal (or non-visible) exchanges from the chat room and that you use favor to publish official information in the group.
Indeed, priority information can be formatted through a publication in the news feed and then pinned, and can be declined in several formats for targeted communication (a survey, a checklist, visuals, etc.). As for the chat, it will allow for fluid exchanges, as well as quick access to the video conference for a live conversation.
We also recommend that you share topics that need to be easily found through a publication: this content can be tagged, organized and thus easily found from the news feed search engine.
In the case of a general information group, we don't recommend opening the chat room. As there are usually many members in the group, the exchanges that would take place there could constitute a large volume of information and thus generate too many notifications.
In this way, you would be spamming all the members of the group who, being over-informed, would not simply benefit from the information of their interest and would lose the will to refer to this working space.
Collaborative tools are often likened to platforms where everything is allowed: users move freely through the various spaces without worrying about any restrictions.
However, in the life of a structure, absolute freedom does not exist, so it's therefore essential to regulate the different areas by laying down the rights and duties of each person in order to ensure the cohesion of the teams as well as the best transmission of information.
Once the objectives of the group are clearly defined, the group manager is responsible for defining the rules of governance:
The group manager has the option of limiting these permissions to managers only or allowing all members to perform these actions. To do so, he/she should go to the group settings and select Manage Permissions.
He/she will have to operate these permissions according to the objectives of the group.
Example: In an internal communication group that's intended for top-down transmission of information, the group manager can choose to limit publication in the group to managers only.
However, the group manager is able to allow comments from group members as well: they will not be able to post new news, but will be able to respond to polls and share their feedback on the content published in the group.
In addition, each group is associated with a file storage space called Drive. The group manager is responsible for defining who has permissions to create, modify and delete files in this drive. Here again, the sensitivity of the documents and information that will be shared there will help define these permissions.
The group manager can allow read-only access to all group members and thus restrict creation, modification, and deletion to managers or allow all group members to create new documents and edit existing ones.
We encourage you to communicate about the launch of a group as appropriate.
It may not be appropriate to communicate about the creation of a secret group dealing with a topic that is not intended for all users but for a limited number of people.
However, we recommend that you communicate about the creation of open or private groups dealing with public issues, adapting this communication to the sensitivity of the group.
This communication can be launched individually or during a meeting dedicated to the progress of a particular project, business meetings, etc., or on a larger scale in a general group if the group is intended for all platform users. You can then specify the audience for these groups and clarify what types of exchanges will take place.
We also encourage you to share a post in the group summarising the group's purpose, objectives, governance rules, and users. This post can then be pinned to the group so that it appears first in the group's news feed and is quickly accessible to all group members with one click.
Once users are members of the group, we encourage you to collect users' opinions and needs. This will allow you to adapt the frequency and format of communication in the group.
This can be done through individual exchanges via chat or video conferencing. But you can also share opinion polls in the group anonymously: this will allow group members to share their feedback objectively.
It isn't always easy for group members to make this space the channel of communication at favor for passing on information. In this context, the group manager should set an example by applying the rules of governance defined in the group and thus enable its members to better understand what is recommended to do or not to do.
We encourage you to involve your staff in the exchanges through interactive publication formations (competitions, polls, visuals attached through the image gallery). By involving them, you will encourage group members to come and get information and share new news.
Once all the settings have been made and the objectives of the group specified, the group manager can invite members to join the group. To do this, the group manager must go to the group settings and select the Invite tab.
He can then choose:
Here, it's necessary to consider which user profiles can be included in this workspace. For example, will guest users (a status generally attributed to suppliers, partners, customers) be able to access the group and participate in exchanges?
The question here is whether the information shared in the group is sensitive and should only be accessible to a few users, or whether it can be shared widely within your organization and sometimes even beyond.
Note: Guests cannot be appointed as group managers. A guest will however have the same rights as all members in the group.
The group manager has the option of linking the group to an existing set of users (previously created by an administrator).
This action will allow each new user meeting the criteria defined by the platform administrator to be automatically integrated into the group. This can be very useful in the case of business/departmental groups, based for example on job and location information.
Example: in an HR billing and subscription group, the group manager will be able to automatically integrate all users who have indicated that they work in this department in the structure concerned. New users who indicate they belong to that particular structure within the department will then be automatically integrated into the group.
NB: User groups can only be created by an administrator from the administration. If you wish to automate the invitation to a group according to specific criteria, we recommend that you contact an administrator.
To get an overview of the group members, a group manager can download an Excel file of the group members from the group settings, section Invite by selecting Download user list (Excel).
The group manager may be responsible for:
If the objective of a collaborative platform is to promote exchanges and the transmission of information, governance rules must be put in place to ensure:
Far from being confidential, the governance rules must be shared with all the platform's users in order to support them in their use of the tool.
By clarifying these rules, you establish a framework for discussion that makes it easier for a group member to participate in the discussion. Without information about the format of the discussion, group members will tend to prefer silence to active participation.
As a first step, we recommend that you write an initial message to the whole group to clarify:
The group manager can then pin this publication to the group to make it quickly accessible to all group members.
In order to keep group members loyal to the group, we therefore recommend that you structure and organize the various contents shared in the group.
Members will be able to quickly find the topics of their interest from the search engine and be more productive in their daily tasks.
To do this, the group manager can set up the tagging of shared publications. These labels, once associated with a piece of information, can allow members to quickly find the publication they are looking for using the group's search engine.
Note: labels can take different formats and thus share information on the status of a project (in progress, completed, to do, etc.) or constitute a sub-theme of a group (e.g. Excel training in an @HR - Training group).
The creation and management of labels can be authorized to all group members or restricted to managers only.
Note: the tags created in a group are specific to the group. To associate a keyword available in all the groups of the platform, we recommend the creation of a hashtag.
The group manager may be responsible for moderating and supervising exchanges in the group. In this context, he/she has additional moderation rights: he/she can delete unauthorized or relevant content from the group or edit it if need be.
For example, if content shared in a group is interesting but not shared in the right group, the manager will have the option to change the recipients of the publication so that the information appears in the appropriate group.
The manager, as moderator of the exchanges, is also responsible for highlighting priority or essential information in the group. He or she can then choose to pin the most important publications to the group and make them appear at the top of the news feed.
The group manager also has the possibility to monitor certain connection and participation statistics which will allow him to readjust the governance rules set up at group level.
For example, if users do not log in to the group very often, it may be:
If it is a lack of member involvement, then the manager may need to change the communication formats that are in place to encourage group members to respond.
In this case, we recommend setting up surveys to collect members' opinions or competitions using the image gallery feature.
Where information is essential and needs to be seen by the whole group, we recommend mentioning mentioning all group members.
This action will generate a notification on the platform to the group members. It will also result in an email notification if the user has not disabled this feature.
Note: Receiving email alerts when mentioned is enabled by default. However, a user can choose to disable this option from the Profile and Preferences menu, Notifications section.
It can also be used to remind group members about a topic: the imminent deadline for a vote, or the answer to a question, for example.
To ensure the success of the group, once the objectives of the group have been defined, we recommend regular publication of information. The animation of this workspace and the follow-up of the different actions will be done differently depending on the type of group.
In the case of a project group, for example, the main objective will be to monitor the progress of the various achievements. We thus recommend that a checklist of the project's main elements be set up and pinned to the group for quick access. Each user can be assigned to a task for which they are responsible.
In the case of community animation, we recommend that you set up an editorial calendar using the drive's spreadsheet function or from the calendar: take a global view of what has been done and what remains to be done! Thanks to the scheduling feature, you can plan the date of publication of your content without having to share it instantly and thus optimise your working time.
The creation of an editorial calendar is therefore essential to manage and plan your content creation strategy on Talkspirit.
Some ideas for columns that you could include in your document:
We also recommend sharing information in different formats to involve group members in the exchanges.
For example, visuals or fact sheets published in the form of an image gallery will make it easier to find out about certain content. To clarify the functioning of the platform, the group manager could, for example, set up practical information sheets to be shared in the group's news feed.
Some examples of practical sheets to share here:
The group manager can also set up competitions or polls in order to gather members' opinions on a subject and thus involve them in the exchanges: we recommend using the polling function in these two cases.
Talkspirit's live video feature will also allow him to interact with group members (or to invite certain interlocutors to intervene on a subject) live. The exchanges will then be shared in the group in the form of a replay. Group members will be able to read the information shared offline!
Find more information on how to properly moderate the different spaces of your platform in this article: https://www.talkspirit.com/academy-posts/animate-an-external-community-on-talkspirit
What does it mean to be a good group manager?
The group manager must be informed of the governance rules established on the platform. He or she may then:
To guarantee the success of a group, you need to ponder its structure before you create it. This reflection will allow the group manager to activate or deactivate the various parameters linked to the group and thus allow for an optimized transmission of information.
However, thinking about group objectives to ensure its success isn't enough. Once the group has been set up, the group manager is in charge of mediating the exchanges: if he or she has to supervise the discussion and ensure that the conversations that take place are friendly, he or she also becomes the community manager or moderator. Their objective? Explain, clarify, moderate, and perpetuate the group's exchanges.
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