Member functions

Everything about a group's membership happens on its Members tab: inviting people, approving requests, handing out roles, promoting managers and removing members.

Membership is what the rest of the group hangs off. A tab set to Group Members Only is readable by exactly the people on this list, and only members can post in the forum or edit the wiki, so getting the list right is the first thing a new group's manager does. This page follows soilcarbon, the multi-institution soil carbon group created in Creating and deleting a group: its principal investigator has to bring in two postdocs who already use the hub and a collaborator at another university who has never heard of it, hand the lab manager the ability to invite people without making her a manager of everything, and promote the co-investigator so the group is not resting on one person.

The Members tab

The tab is only open to signed-in users; a visitor is sent to the login page even when the tab is set to Any HUB Visitor.

Four filters run along the top, each with a count:

Filter	Who it lists
Members	Everyone in the group
Managers	The members who manage it
Pending	People who have asked to join. Managers only
Invitees	People who have been invited but have not accepted. Managers only

A search box sits above them. Ordinary members must search before they see anyone — the Members list starts empty, under the heading Search the group member directory, and fills in once you type a name. Managers see the whole list straight away.

Each row shows the member's photo, name, organisation, any roles they hold and, if the hub uses them, the date their membership ends. An Online now marker shows who is signed in. Message opens a message to that person; Message All at the top of the list writes to everyone the current filter shows.

Inviting people

Inviting is how you add someone who has not asked to join. It works whatever the join policy is, so a Restricted or Invite Only group is not a closed shop — it just means the managers decide. You can invite people who have no hub account: they get mail with a link, and following it once they have registered puts them in the group.

Group managers, and members holding a role with Invite New Members, can invite both hub members and people who have no account yet. The entry is missing on a Closed group.

For soilcarbon that is one pass: the two postdocs by username, the outside collaborator by email address.

1. Open the group.
2. Select Invite Members, from the Group Manager menu or from the Members tab.
3. In Names/Email Addresses, type names, usernames or email addresses separated by commas. An autocompleter suggests registered members as you type.
4. Optionally write a message in Customize message sent to invitees.
5. Select Send Invites.

The page then reports which invitations went out and which entries it could not use. Someone who is already a member, already invited, or not a valid address comes back in the failures list.

An invited hub member sees Accept Invitation and Decline Invitation on the group page and in the Group Invites section of /groups. An invitation sent to an email address appears in the Invitees list as the address itself until it is taken up.

To withdraw an invitation, open the Invitees filter and select Cancel on the row. You can edit the note the person receives.

Approving membership requests

On a Restricted group, requests land in the Pending filter, along with the reason each applicant gave.

• Approve admits them.
• Deny opens a form where you can edit the reply they get. Denying is not final: a denied user may apply again.

Roles

A role is a named set of extra permissions inside one group. It lets a member help run the group without being made a manager. It means nothing outside the group: a role on soilcarbon gives its holder no standing anywhere else on the hub, and no other group can see it.

Reach for one when somebody does a job for the group but should not be able to change everything about it. The soilcarbon lab manager keeps the membership up to date as students arrive and leave, so she gets a role called Membership carrying Invite New Members and nothing else.

A role carries a name and any of three permissions:

• Invite New Members
• Edit Group Settings
• Create/Edit Group Pages & Categories

Creating a role

Following the lab manager through:

1. Open the Members tab.
2. Select Add a Member Role.
3. Give it a Role Name and tick the permissions it should carry.
4. Select Save.

Assigning a role

1. Find the member in the Members or Managers list.
2. Select Assign Role on their row.
3. Pick the role and confirm.

A member's roles are listed on their row. The small x beside a role takes it away again. Selecting the role's name filters the list to everyone who holds it.

Promoting and demoting managers

A manager can do everything: settings, pages, membership, deletion. A group with one manager is a group that stops working when that person is on leave or leaves the institution, which is why soilcarbon promotes its co-investigator as soon as the group is set up.

A group can have as many managers as it needs.

1. Open the Members or Managers filter.
2. Find the member and use the arrow button on their row.

The arrow points up for an ordinary member — select it to Promote them to manager. It points down for a manager — select it to Demote them. The change is saved immediately.

The last remaining manager cannot be demoted or removed, so a group is never left without one. Demote them from the administrator interface if you really need to; see Groups.

Removing a member

Remove on a member's row cancels their membership. You can edit the note they receive. A removed member may apply to join again.

Membership end dates

If the hub allows time-limited memberships, a manager can put an end date on one. When the date passes the member is removed automatically. It suits a group that takes people in for a fixed spell — a summer student, a visitor on a one-year secondment — and saves the manager remembering to clear them out.

1. Open the Members or Managers filter.
2. Select set an end date — or change end date — on the member's row.
3. Set Ends on, or tick Remove the end date and make this membership permanent.
4. Save.

The hub may cap how far ahead the date can be; the form says so when it does. Everyone sees their own end date at the top of the member list, whether or not it is close.

Leaving a group

Open the group, open the Group Member menu and select Cancel Group Membership. A manager can only leave if the group has another manager.