Setting up Drupal Organic Groups

There is a presentation online, Intro to Organic Groups, that has some useful information but the nature of the presentation might not be enough to help you install and configure organic groups. Given how long it took me to find the answers to my questions, I thought I would share what I learned and did to set up this site.

Enable Modules

The instructions say "Enable the Organic groups and Organic groups Views integration modules. If you want to protect some posts so that only certain users may view them [and enable wiki style content type], enable the Organic Groups access control module as well. Please make sure OG is working well on its own before enabling other OG related modules."

What these instructions don't mention, however, is that Organic Groups comes with the following modules:

One other important point is that you need to have the Views modules installed. So if you don't have Views modules installed, please install it.

During the installation process, I got a message that I needed to rebuild my content access permissions and was given a link to do so. Note: When I tried to rebuild, I got an error. The result was a 403 error that required me to make .htaccess edits. For more information on this issue, see issue 432938 and follow the instructions if you have this problem.

Set Up Content Types

After you get the right modules installed, you need to set up a group node and group post. Go to admin > content management > content types and create two content types.

Group node

If you are used to thinking of nodes as single pages, this concept might make you pause just for a second. The group node is a content type and is one "page" but it is actually a page that gets turned into the "set up the organic group" page once the configuration is done. You can think of the group node as the front door to your group's pages. It is the form you fill out to create a group. Follow the steps below.

  1. Click Add Content Type. In the type field, type group. In the name field, put whatever you want. Since this is the node that sets up your group, consider using "Set Up Group" or something similar.
  2. Click on Submission form settings: Since this is going to be the node used to set up your group, consider using "Group name" for the title label and "Welcome message" for the body label.
  3. Click on Workflow settings: Disable attachments.
  4. Click on Organic Groups: Select the Group node option.
  5. Click on Comment settings: Disable comments.

According to the instructions "since all nodes of this type are treated as groups, you will usually not want to designate the standard page, story, or book node types as groups."

Group post

This is the node or content type that the members of your group will use to post content. By default, the "out of the box" content types that you may have turned on in your site are set to "May not be posted into a group." You can choose to use the existing content types as your group posts or you can create a content type specifically for your groups. If you intend on having content on your site that is not part of your groups, consider making at least one content type just for your group are and leave the default types for use elsewhere in your site. Group content types can have attachments and comments enabled.

  1. Click Add Content Type. In this case, the name and type fields can be whatever you want. Just follow the on screen guidelines on the content type form regarding formatting.
  2. Click on Submission form settings: The default is fine unless you want it to be something else.
  3. Click on Workflow settings: Attachments are fine if you want to allow your group members to upload files to your site.
  4. Click on Organic Groups: Select either "Standard group post" or "Wiki group post." If you want the group to have author-oriented posts and collaboration-type posts, make a content type for each and name them accordingly. Note: the wiki option did not become available until after I enabled the Organic Groups access control module and rebuilt my permissions (per instructions on the screen.
  5. Click on Comment settings: You need to leave this enabled if you want the group members to be able to comment on group posts.

Configure the Organic Groups Module

In the admin section, locate Organic Groups. If you have done as suggested in the first step, you should have two options: Organic Groups Configuration and Organic Groups Access Configuration.

Content Types - Your first option is content types. If you followed the steps above, this part is done. Click on the Content Types link and look at the settings. You will see that if you click edit next to one of the nodes you set up, that link sends you back to the 'add content type' form.

Group Details - There are five settings that you can configure. The explanations of each option are explained on the screen.

Messaging and Notifications - This is just what is says. It is where you configure how you want your email messages to be configured.

Activate Blocks

With the exception of the 'set up group' content type, your group access is via blocks. Go to admin> site building> blocks and view the available blocks. One block is typically available out side of a group.

This block becomes available once you are logged into the site

Once you are logged in and have enter the group area, these blocks become active.

Setup Organic Group Access Configuration

There are two settings: visibility of posts and private groups. The information available on this page makes it self-explanatory.

Permissions

OG does not set up any special user roles. There is one permission setting entitled "administer organic groups."

Conclusion

For a list of OG contributed modules, visit. Organic Groups modules in the DO site. Check out the OG Handbook as well. This is not the end of Organic Groups for me, but only the beginning. I hope to be able to share additional learning as I move forward.

Setting up Groups Notifications

Organic Groups (OG) includes several modules, one of which is Organic Groups Notifications (OGN). By using the OGN module, you can allow your group members to receive notifications and subscribe to group content. OGN runs on Drupal’s messaging and notifications frameworks so you will need these modules as well, which brings me to the purpose of this article.  

The following guidance assumes you have installed and configured OG version 6.x-1.3. As of May 21, 2009, OG 6.x-1.3 was the recommended version of OG and OG 6.x-2.0-rc1 was flagged as support but not recommended. I chose OG 6.x-1.3. If you need help installing and configuring OG, see Setting Up Drupal Organic Groups.

Overview

In order to enable OGN, you need to perform three tasks.

  1. Set Up Messaging
  2. Set Up Tokens and Notifications
  3. Set Up Organic Groups Notifications

Each step is discussed in more detail below.

Setup Up Messaging

When setting up messaging, I recommend you review the guidance found at http://drupal.org/node/252619. The steps below were derived from this page and are intended to summarize (simplify) the installation process.

  1. Install and enable the Messaging module.
  2. Enable Simple Mail if you want to use Drupal’s Mail API. Choose the method right for your installation.
  3. If you want a messaging filter other than the one provided by the Messaging module (Messaging plain text), add an input filter by going to site configuration > input formats > add input filter. For more information on input filters, see http://drupal.org/node/252619.
  4. Configure the Messaging module by going to the messaging setting page in the admin section. Read the information on the screen and make the decisions that are applicable to your needs.
  5. Select the default send method. With simple mail, you have one option, mail.

 

Set Up Tokens and Notifications

The installation and configuration instructions for notifications can be found at http://drupal.org/node/252700. The steps below summarize what you need to do.
Note: According to the Notifications project page, “OG 6.x-1.2 and 1.3 will work with Notifications 6.x-1.1. For newer versions use the latest (either rc, beta or dev) or both.” My OG install is 6.x-1.3. Initial attempts to use 6.x-1.1 showed that the Notification API for subscriptions was not compatible with Drupal 6.10, so I installed Notifications 6.x-2.0.

  1. Install and enable the Tokens module
  2. Install and enable the Notifications module
  3. Enable two notifications modules required by OGN:
    1. Notifications lite module
    2. Content Notifications module
  4. Configure notifications (tip: be sure cron is running so that your messages go out or check the “Immediate sending” option)
  5. Set permissions

There are several other Notifications modules that could be helpful. For example, Notifications UI defines which options will be visible for end users and how they'll be displayed.

Set Up OG Notifications

OG Notifications allows users to receive notifications and subscribe to group content. Now that you have Tokens, Messaging, and Notifications installed, you should have access to enable OGN via admin > site building > modules.

To change the configuration OG Messaging and Notifications go to admin > organic groups > organic groups configuration. Click on Messaging and Notifications and make any changes you need. Note that node event notifications can be configured via the messaging templates interface.

Conclusion

There are a lot of messaging and notification configuration options available. I recommend reading all the content on the messaging, notifications, and OG admin pages. Take your time, experiment. When I get a handle on my set up, I will make another post.

Planning your OG Site

The first observation you probably made when installing and configuring organic groups is the site level or “master” controls versus the node level or “group” controls. The master controls configure the settings that you can use for all groups created on your site. The group controls define what you want for that particular group within your site.

Planning an Organic Groups Site

Part of the planning process has already taken place if you have OG installed. Maybe you did a little planning when you decided what to call your content types. But you decided to go with the default settings in OG configuration so you could experiment a little. How do you decide which configuration and access setting combination is right for what you want? What is it that you want?

I propose that there are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to planning an organic group site. You have your completely open and completely private. Okay, probably obvious but it is way to start the thinking or imagining your OG site.

What purpose will OG serve on your site? Are you building a community oriented site where those who come to your site can set up a group and use your site’s OG features to communicate and share with each other as they see fit? Or are you thinking outside the box by using OG to define mini-Intranets for your organization’s departments?

Create a couple personas and place them in scenarios where they are creating groups and participating. What are they doing? What do they need to know or share? Are they coming to the group voluntarily or are they required to visit on a regular basis? This exercise helps you define your requirements and choose which configuration and access settings you need to enable. Your OG site level decisions influence how the individual groups will be configured.

Based on what your group needs, what features of OG do you need to install or make available? For example, if your members are going to be drawn to your group site from an outside influence (the boss says go here), then you might not need Messaging and Notifications for all the members of your group. But, if you want to entice people to return to the site, you might want to allow members to subscribe to email notifications that let them know something has just happened and they should come check it out.

Obviously there are many other decisions to be made for the site level but let’s briefly look at the group configuration.

Planning an Organic Group

Once you have set up your OG site, you can start creating groups, right? What is there to plan here? The content type that you assigned as the group node is where your group level controls reside. If your site level configuration and access is set to allow decisions to be made at the group level, then each time a group is created, a mini-planning process occurs. The options available on the group set up page are influenced by your role and associated permissions as well as the OG site level configuration and access settings.

If your OG site is wide open, people can create a site account (be an authenticated user), set up a private group, and build their own community within your site. If you want to manage if and when public oriented groups are set up and how, then you will need to define your site level configuration and access accordingly.

Here’s a tip for planning the site level configuration. Look at the form that creates the group (the content type designated as the group node). Ask yourself “What on here do I want an authenticated user to be able to do?” If the answer is nothing, then one of your first site level configuration decisions is to not allow authenticated users to setup groups. This is big. It means you will probably have a trusted member of your site setting up groups or you will do it as the site admin. Other configuration setting options might not have a large impact because the level of control is focused on one or two trusted users.

If you want an authenticated user to create groups, then you have to decide how much control you want the user to have over the type of group that is defined, if it is visible to the public, how someone can join, if there will private posts, and so on.

Summary

There are many configuration and access settings to choose from, each combination yielding a slightly different result. The options don’t stop with the OG module. There are several OG related contributed modules that help you shape the OG site you need. In later articles, I will explore the settings and the scenarios they might support.

Managing Group Membership

I have had a couple people ask how to manage group membership so here is a quick how-to on the subject.

Drupal Planners and Builders

For those who plan and build sites

Do you believe that Drupal sites can be planned and built by someone who is not a PHP coder? If yes, then this group is for you. I want to hear what you are doing in Drupal, share your ideas about how to get the word out that Drupal development doesn't have to mean Drupal coding.

Using OG Content Type Admin Module

You can create more than one group node (the node that creates your groups), but why would you if you couldn’t control which content types are associated with the group node? The organic group content type administration (OG_CTA) module (http://drupal.org/project/og_content_type_admin) gives you a way to control which OG content types are available to the group members in the OG details block.

This means that OG_CTA does not override permissions, it simply hides the “create group content” links from group members. To limit the chances that a group member will create content using a content type that you don’t want them to use, you also have to disable the “create content” link in the navigation block.

Below are configuration steps you need to take in order to get the best results out of OG_CTA. They are associated with

Installation

Use the standard Drupal process for installation. That is, upload the module to your server, go to the modules page on your site, and enable the module.

I assume you have already installed the OG module and the OG access module.

Module Configuration

Note: as of 1/29/10, there is a bug in the OG_CTA configuration option at admin/og/og_content_types/admin. Don’t use the “Assign Content Types” tab to assign your content types. Use the interface under the Overview tab. (see http://drupal.org/node/697826)

Site wide content type setup - If you install OG_CTA before you create your group content types, you will need to go into admin/og/og_content_types/overview and “assign content types.” To make your group content types available, you need to check “required” for each group CT, including your group content type (the one that creates your group).

Default content type setup – go into admin/og/og_content_types/overview and “assign content types” for default. In here you find the content types that are associated to groups. Assuming you want all your group contents available to be used in groups, make sure “allowed” is checked for each.

Group specific content type setup – you can do this by either going to admin/og/og_content_types/overview and “assign content types” or the group node itself. On the group node there is a tab (assuming you have rights to the group) called Content Types. You can check which content types you want to make available to your group members. Note: You need to keep the group content type (the one used to create the group) checked in order for OG_CTA to work.

Blocks

The module creates a block called “Group details override by OG Content Type Admin.” This is the block you need to enable for your groups so you can give your group members a way to create content in the group.

Note: I have had some random occurrences where this block does not show up. If you do not see this block, try one of the following:

Permissions

If you want your group members to have rights to create content in a group, you still have to set permissions for them. Go to admin/user/permissions and check that your user role (probably authenticated) can “create,” “edit own,” and maybe “delete own” for each group content you want the group admin to be able to let them use. OG_CTA acts as a block to these permissions. If the group content types are not selected, these permissions don’t work.

Navigation block

I mentioned in the introduction that this module does not block permissions. It can’t block permissions because then you would not be able to have one group use group content type A and another not use group content type A.

So, if you want to be sure that your group members cannot use a specific group content type unless you say so via the “Group details override by OG Content Type Admin” block, you need to remove the “create content” link from the navigation block that becomes active when someone signs in.

If you simply remove the links to the group content types from the Navigation menu, you still have the “Create content” page that lists all the content types that the Permissions module says that user can create. So, if this is an issue for you, you will need a work around.