Groups / Communities Plugin

Category: User Monetization,

This plugin can be used on your site to form a robust Groups system. With properties like excellent features, ease-of-use, great design, quick navigation and search engine optimised groups, this plugin is the ideal solution for advanced groups. Multiple admin configurations, custom fields, customizable groups, widgets and flexible features allow you to extend this plugin based on your site's requirements. This plugin also enables adding photos to Groups. Creating albums and adding photos is quick and easy.

Demo

List price: $149
~~+ $10~~

Price: $89
+ $10

Plugin + Installation

List price: $149
Price: $89

Plugin

Attractive Discount with Product Kit:

To provide users an excellent Groups System with "Groups / Communities Plugin" and 7 extensions for Events, Videos, Notes, Discussions, etc, you can use our "Groups - Product Kit" of $274 with a Discount of $75 by purchasing it in just $199.

Groups / Communities Plugin enables you to have a robust groups system in your social network. With properties like excellent features, ease-of-use, great design, quick navigation and search engine optimized groups, this plugin is the ideal solution for advanced groups. Its modular architecture and many available extensions allow you to have just the right feature set that you need for groups on your site. Features like reviews & ratings, videos, notes, invite & promote and many more can be easily plugged into groups. This plugin also enables adding photos to Groups. Creating albums and adding photos is quick and easy.

This plugin gives you a great monetization opportunity by allowing you to charge users for groups. Multiple group profile types with custom fields and options to associate them with group categories enable you to create various types of groups according to you requirements.

This plugin also enables you to easily import groups from the official SocialEngine Groups Plugin into the "Groups / CommunitiesPlugin" and provide advanced features of Groups / Communities Plugin and its various Extensions to the Groups on your site. Thus, you can easily and quickly upgrade the Groups on your website to more advanced, engaging and useful Groups.

Plugin Features:

Group Packages: Admin can enable packages for groups on site. If enabled, multiple packages can be created based on features that should be available to groups under them.
Paid packages, with one-time and recurring billing options can also be created. (Scroll below for more on packages.)
Categories, sub-categories allow robust classification of groups. You can also create 3rd-level categories for more detailed classification.
Custom Profile Types can be created for groups with each profile type having different profile fields. Association of categories with groups profile types enable you to have different profile fields for each category.
Groups from official SocialEngine Groups Plugin can be easily imported without loosing any data.
Group Members will be able to:
- Choose their Group Membership Roles
- Select their Affiliation / Membership / Joining Dates
- Receive notifications when joined Groups post their updates. (This is dependent on the "Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin")
- Receive notifications for content creation like Notes, Music, etc in joined Groups.
- Enable / disable these notifications.
- View, comment and create various contents like Notes, Music, Videos, etc (by using Extensions for Groups / Communities Plugin), if respective privacies are "Group Members Only".
- Invite their friends.
- Message all group members / particular member
- Can invite all Group members to the newly created Group Events. (This is dependent on "Groups - Events Extension")
Multiple Admins for Groups allow multiple users to manage a group. Thus, every group can have its team to configure it and keep it updated. Group admins can also be shown on the group profile.
Claiming Groups:
- Groups can be claimed. Users can file claims for groups.
- Admin can choose certain users as "Claimable Group Creators". Groups created by them get the "Claim this Group" link on the group itself. This is useful in cases like if you have certain members whose job is to create only those groups on your site which could later be easily claimed by their rightful owners.
- Admin can enable / disable claiming. All claims require admin inspection and approval.
- Admin can get an email notification if a member makes a Claim for a Group.
Data Importing: Admin can import Groups on their community from CSV files". Enables launching of community with already created Groups. Entities could then claim their Groups using the Claim Groups feature. Importing can also be done anytime, even in a running site to create Groups in bulk.
Group Dashboard enables easy creation of groups, and allows managing various components of a group listing. (Scroll below for more on dashboard.)
Members Moderation: Group Admins can choose their prior approval to be required for membership to their groups.
Group Membership Roles: Enables members to choose their membership type for the Groups they are member of.
- For the various Groups, Site Admin can create Group Membership Roles (like Managers, Staff, etc.) based on Group categories.
- Group Admins can also create other Roles for their groups. [Admin configurable]
- Members will be displayed on the basis of their Membership Roles on Group Profiles. Attractive Member Role based filtering of members available.
- Selected Site Admin created roles can have their own tabs on group profiles, displaying members belonging to them.
- Users can choose a membership role for groups that they join.
Example use case: Site admin can create Roles like General Manager, Director of Sales, Housekeeping Manager, Restaurant Manager, Assistant, Controller, Front Office Manager, Human Resource Manager, Banquet Manager, etc. for a Hotel based website.
Another example use case: By allowing Group owners to create Roles like Directors, Manager, Coordinator, Quality Auditor, etc for their business Groups in a Business oriented website.
Affiliation / Membership / Joining Date: Members can choose a date from which they are affiliated with the Group's Entity. Site admin can enable / disable this.
Group Announcements: Group admins can post announcements for important news, event, advertisement, etc of their Groups. Additionally for each announcement:
- Choose start and end date
- Activate / deactivate
- WYSIWYG Editor for Announcements
Content Creation Notification: Members can receive notifications for content creation like Notes, Music, etc in joined Groups.
Members can view, comment and create various contents like Notes, Music, Videos, etc (by using Extensions for Groups / Communities Plugin), if respective privacies are "Group Members Only".
Group Admins can:
- What will members be called?: enables Group owners to decide what their Group members will be called. Ex: Dance Lovers, Hikers, Innovators, Music Lovers, etc.
- Group Members Moderation: Can allow members to immediately become a member of their Groups / wait till approval. Group admin approved members will be marked as Verified / Approved on their Member Profiles in the tab showing their joined Groups.
- Can decide who can invite other site members to their Groups.
- Can allow only Group members to View, Comment and create various contents like Notes, Music, Videos, etc (by using Extensions for Groups / Communities Plugin) in their Groups.
- New! Restricted Group: Only group admin or group member can invite / add members in a restricted group. Other members won’t see a ‘Join’ button which will help group admin with unnecessary joining requests for groups. [Admin Configurable]
Group Profile - Cover Photo and Information widget enables Group admins to choose a cover photo for their Groups and displays the Group Cover Photo with Group Profile Photo, Title and various Action Links like - Join Group, Like, Follow, etc.
Search Engine Optimized (SEO) URLs and structure.
User Experience:
- User Interfaces with optimal use of AJAX, without sacrificing SEO. Our extensive AJAX implementation in this plugin for enhanced user experience has been done considering the fact that SEO is equally important for your site.
- Easy navigation enabling quick transition to users. Breadcrumb based navigation at many places also helps in SEO.
- 3 displays: List View, Grid View, Map View for groups on Groups Home and Browse Groups provide excellent user experience.
Keyword tags can be associated with Groups. A tag cloud widget provides easy filtering of groups.
Sponsored Groups:
- Packages can be created such that their groups are automatically made sponsored.
- Thus, users can be made to pay for making their group sponsored.
- AJAX Carousel widget for showcasing sponsored groups.
- Sponsored groups have "Sponsored" labels on their profile, are highlighted with an attractive sponsored icon or label in groups and their markers can be shown on map with a bouncing animation.
- Ordering on "Browse Groups" can be done such that sponsored groups are shown first.
- Site Admin can make / remove groups as sponsored.
Featured Groups:
- Packages can be created such that their groups are automatically made featured.
- Thus, users can be made to pay for making their group featured.
- Featured Groups Slideshow widget for showcasing featured groups.
- Featured groups have "Featured" labels on their profile, are highlighted with an attractive featured icon or label and colored background in groups.
- Ordering on "Browse Groups" can be done such that featured groups are shown first.
- Site Admin can make / remove groups as featured.
Group admins can mark certain members as "Highlighted" members.
Follow Groups:
- Group Admins will get a notification when members "Follow" their Groups.
- Members get notifications when Group Admins update status and add various contents like Notes, Events, Videos, Music, Polls, etc. (by using various Extensions of Groups / Communities Plugin) to the Groups that they are Following. (Notification for status update is dependent on the "Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin").
- "Follow Button" and "Most Followed Groups" widgets.
Group of the Day widget enables one group to be highly showcased for a day. This is admin configurable.
Layouts:
- 2 attractive AJAX based layouts for Group Profiles: Tabbed Layout and Non-tabbed Layout. In tabbed layout, main widgets are linked via ajax based horizontal tabs. In non-tabbed layout, main widgets are linked via ajax based links in vertical order, in left column. Site admin can decide which layout type to activate.
- Widgetized Group Profile with drag-and-drop widgets, and admin controls enables you to choose and customize features for group on your site.
- Site Admins can enable group owners to customize block positions, add new available blocks, create and add HTML blocks on their group's profile via a drag-and-drop interfaced layout editor. Available blocks are the many widgets provided in this plugin.
- Widgetized Groups Home and Browse pages, which can be configured using drag-and-drop widgets.
Photo Viewing:
- AJAX based photo browsing in albums to save time and resources.
- Admin can choose between advanced lightbox based AJAX viewer, or basic AJAX viewer.
- Lightbox AJAX viewer (Theater Mode):
  - On the spot loading of photos in albums on clicking their thumbnails.
  - Next & previous icons for jumping over images.
  - Keyboard based jumping over images for user convenience and quick browsing. Left key for previous image and right key for next image.
  - Upon clicking the image in lightbox, it jumps to next image.
  - Likes and Comments for photos available within the lightbox and enable quick user interaction.
  - Various other controls for image rotation, adding caption, tagging, sharing, downloading, etc available within the lightbox.
  - Fun and user friendly experience.
  - Admin can customize the color theme of photo lightbox.
- Photos tab on Group Profile lists albums of the Group and shows photos added by other users (non-group-admins).
- Photo Strip:
  - Group Admins can configure attractive looking Photo Strip for their Group.
  - Can be used to showcase best photos of the group.
  - Photo strip is displayed below the Group title.
  - Clicking on photos in the strip loads them on the spot in the lightbox viewer.
- Widgetized main photo view group enables you to configure its layout and widgets from the Layout Editor.
- Group admins can easily make any album photo of their group as the group profile photo by clicking on a link.
Album Creation, Photo Uploading & Management:
- Group admins can choose privacy for photo uploading on their Groups.
- Group admins can create albums for the Group.
- Other users can add photos to the group if permitted by its privacy settings. Such photos go into the main album of Group.
- Easy drag-and-drop mechanism for adjusting sequence of albums by group admins.
- Easy drag-and-drop mechanism for adjusting sequence of images in albums by group admins.
Activity Feed Integration: Attractive looking activity feeds are generated for becoming a member of a Group.
Google Maps and Geocode API integration:
- Google maps integration used in Map View for groups.
- Groups having location information have a Map Tab on their profile showing their accurate location on map.
- Group owners can point their exact location on map using drag-and-drop marker in Group Dashboard.
- Owners can simply enter their group item's location address and this converts it to a formatted address and location coordinates to be plotted on map using Geocode API.
- Geocoding is also used in Proximity Search for groups.
- Branded Maps: All Maps from this plugin appear branded with your Site's Title on them.
Searching and Browsing:
- Good groups browsing experience and powerful search ensures that users easily find results.
- Searching enabled over group profile types and custom fields
- Name / keyword based search
- Proximity Search to find group listings around a location at a distance
- Filtering based on closed / open status, friends' / everyone's groups, "Groups I Like", featured Groups
- Filtering based on tags / categories / sub-categories
- Filtering based on popular locations
- Alphabetic Filtering
- Ordering based on recent / views / comments / likes / alphabetical
- Admin Search Form Settings: Choose which of the available search and filter fields should be shown in the form and what their sequence should be.
- AJAX Search widget: It enables AJAX search over Group Titles. Search interface is similar to Facebook's search.
- Groups archives for month-wise browsing
Browse by Locations (Location & Proximity based browsing and searching): If searching of Groups based on Locations is an important component of your site's idea, then you and your users are sure to love this feature:
- Enables users to easily and quickly find the relevant Groups around them.
- User's current location is detected automatically to display results around that. Users can also change the location as per their choice.
- An approximate distance to the searched result will also be shown.
- Groups closest to the location appear first in search results sequence.
- Users can choose distance from location within which results should be returned in search.
- There is basic search and advanced search with more options.
- The "Locations" tab for this feature's group can be enabled in the main Groups Navigation Menu allowing members to easily search and browse Groups by location, proximity and various searching options available.
- The search results are attractively shown on map.
- From search results, members can easily get directions to Group locations from their current location or a location of their choice.
Getting Directions to Groups: Users can easily get directions to Group Locations by clicking on "Get Directions" link at various places. The entries in locations based searching mentioned above have this link. The "Map" tab of Groups has this link. This link can also be enabled to appear in the Info Tooltips in activity feeds from "Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin". The attractive Directions Lightbox has marker for Group location, and plotted directions on Map from user's current location. Slide-able instructions are also provided for directions. Users can change the starting location from which directions should be shown.
Activity Feed integration: Integration with site homepage feed, user profile feeds and group updates feeds. Feeds have been designed as to have maximum impact. Additionally:
- Activity feeds for groups can be generated with Group Photo and Title instead of photo and name of the Group Admin.
- Users can receive on their homepage the activity feeds of Groups that they have liked.
- Group Wall / Activity Feeds for Groups with excellent features like: Feeds Filtering, Info Tooltips, Auto-loading of feeds and many more! Users can also Tag Groups in their status posts. Group Admins will get notification updates and emails when their Group is tagged in someone's post. (Dependent on the "Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin")
Linking to Facebook Page: Admins of Groups on your site can now link their Groups with their Facebook Pages from the "Marketing" section of Group Dashboard. With this enhancement:
- If Group Admins select the "Publish this on Facebook" option while posting their updates, then these updates will be published on their Facebook Profile as well as on the linked Facebook Page (This is dependent on the "Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin").
- Group Admins can display the "Facebook Like Box" for their linked Facebook Pages on their Groups on your site. This enables them to gain Likes for their Facebook Page from your website. This Like Box will also:
  - Show the recent posts from their Facebook Page.
  - Show how many people already like their Facebook Page.
  - Enable people to Like their Facebook Page.
Modular Architecture & Extensions:
- Enables you to plug-and-play extensions for enhanced features. You can choose which ones to install based on your requirements. All extensions are highly configurable. Click here to see all extensions.
- Reviews & Ratings: Categorical and attractive ratings system. Rating parameters based on group categories enable users to give accurate opinions. Separate pros and cons fields in reviews easily highlight the good and bad experiences of reviewers. Members can mention if they would recommend the group to someone. Reviews section on group profiles show their reviews. Users can post comments on reviews and 'Like' the ones they find useful. Visit here for more.
- Videos, Notes, Events, Polls, Music are some other content extensions.
- Form Extension: Enables group owners to create a form and receive user responses. Can be used for receiving booking leads, feedback, enquiries, etc. More details here.
- Badges: Badges can be assigned to groups. This can be used for marking group items as Premium, Leader, etc as per your requirements. Group owners can also apply to site admin for a badge. More details here.
- Offers: Group owners can create offers and mark a featured offer. More details here.
- Inviter and Promotion: Group owners can promote their group by importing their address books from popular webmail services and contact lists and inviting their friends or fans to visit & explore their group. Details here.
- Embeddable Badges, Like Box: Great tool for Group owners to attract people and gain popularity, visibility and Likes by using attractive embeddable badges of their Group which can be shared across the web. Also very good for brand propagation of your website. Details here.
- Contact Group Owners: Enables you to quickly reach out to all the Admins of Groups on your site via 2 channels: Emails and Messages. (FREE Extension)
- Short Group URLs: You can now have Vanity URLs for Groups on your site, like Facebook. URLs of Groups on your site can be made short and more human readable. These are easier for visitors to identify, remember and share. (FREE Extension)
- Discussions: Every group can have its own forum where discussion topics can be created and discussed. (FREE Extension)
Widgetized Home & Browse pages for Group Members:
- Enable you to collectively display Group Members who have joined the Groups in attractive manner.
- Group Members Home contains many attractive widgets and provides a great landing group for Group Members of your community.
- You can choose to place links for these Groups in the Main Groups Navigation Menu and can also choose to place the respective links for these Groups in your site header navigation menu or in any other menu of your choice.
- This feature is very useful if Group Members are important to your site's concept.
Widgetized Home & Browse pages for Group Photos:
- Enable you to collectively display Group Photos from all Groups in attractive manner.
- Group Photos Home contains many attractive widgets and provides a great landing page for Group Photos of your community.
- You can choose to place links for these groups in the Main Groups Navigation Menu and can also choose to place the respective links for these groups in your site header navigation menu or in any other menu of your choice.
- This feature is very useful if Group Photos are important to your site's concept.
- Search Form widget for Group Albums: Enables searching and filtering over Group Albums.
Widgetized Home & Browse pages for all Extensions: The various content extensions like Videos, Reviews, Notes, Events, Offers, etc have their own widgetized home and browse pages collectively displaying the respective contents from all Groups.
- You can choose to place links for these groups in the Main Groups Navigation Menu, and manage them.
- You can also choose to place the respective links for these groups in your site header navigation menu or in any other menu of your choice.
- Enables you to highlight those content types from Groups on your site that are important to your site's concept. Example, if Videos and Reviews for Groups are important feature of your website, then you can choose to show the links for their browse groups in your Main Groups Navigation Menu.
Pinboard Layout: This layout is very useful if visual appearance of Groups content is important for your website. With this feature:
- You can choose to enable attractive Pinboard Layout for Home and Browse pages.
- "Browse Groups' Pinboard View" page to display search results in pinboard view.
- On-the-spot commenting on Groups from the pinboards.
- Mouse-over action links appear attractively on various Groups.
- You can choose to display Groups' search results based on member's current location.
Attractive Grid View for Groups : This feature will enhance the visual appearance of Groups in Grid View:
- You can enter the width of each grid item.
- Title is highlighted with a shadow effect above the profile picture of Groups.
- You can choose to display various statistics for Groups like - Views, Comments, Likes, Location, Featured marker, etc.
- Members count shown
Search Forms for all Extensions: The various content extensions are integrated with SocialEngine's in-built search engine. Additionally, search form widgets are also available for the content from extensions. These content search forms with various search and filter fields also enable users to see content from only the Groups that they Like.
Linking Groups: Group Admins can link other Groups to their Group. The "Linked Groups" widget on Group Profile shows Groups related to that Group. An example usage of such a widget could be a movie theater group linking itself to Groups of movies being played over there.
Integration with Geo-Location, Geo-Tagging, Check-Ins & Proximity Search Plugin: This integration provides many new features. Users can check-in into Groups using either a check-in button, or from their status update box. They can tag their photos with Groups. Groups checked-into are shown plotted on map on user profiles, and many more.
Likes for Groups:
- Groups can be liked / unliked
- Group Admins will get a notification when members Like their Groups.
- Group Content Creation Privacy - Who Liked This Group: This privacy option enables Group Admins to choose the Creation Privacy of various contents like Notes, Events, Videos, Music, Polls, etc. in their Groups (content from various Extensions of Groups / Communities Plugin) to only those members who liked their Groups. This is admin configurable.
- Groups will be automatically 'Liked' by their Group Admins after their successful creation.
- Group profile shows users who like it
- Most Liked Groups widget
- Group owners can send updates to users who Like their Group
- Integration with Likes Plugin and Widgets adds additional valuable features
Manage Notifications: With this enhancement, notifications for the following actions will be sent to Group Admins which they can manage from the Manage Notifications section of their Group Dashboard:
- When someone posts an update on their Groups. (This feature is dependent on "Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin".)
- When someone creates any content like Notes, Events, Videos, Music, Polls, etc. (by using various Extensions of Groups / Communities Plugin) in their Groups.
- When someone Likes their Groups.
- When someone Comments on their Groups.
- When someone Follows their Groups.
Integration with Suggestions / Recommendations / People you may know & Inviter plugin:
- Suggest to Friends link
- Recommended Groups widget: Recommends Groups to users which they are likely to be interested in.
- Groups recommendations in mixed recommendations and more..
Tell a friend: Enables a user to easily email a group to friends.
Printing: Group information can be printed.
Innovative You May Also Like widget shows to users other groups that might interest them based on the one they are viewing currently.
Privacy configurable by group owners relating to viewing group, commenting, showing in search, discussions, and also privacy controls for extensions enable group owners to specify who can post content like video creation, etc."Group Members Only" Privacy: This privacy option can restrict: Viewing a Group, Commenting on a Group and posting various contents like Notes, Videos, etc in Groups (by using Extensions for Groups / Communities Plugin) to Group members only.
Groups can be published or saved as draft.
User profile integration: Groups Tab widget in user profiles shows groups posted by the user.
Insights and Statistics:
- Group owners can see Tabular and Graphical statistics for their groups.
- Metrics include views, likes, comments, and active users.
- Graphical statistics can be viewed over different durations and time scales in both cumulative and incremental form.
- Statistical reports can be viewed / downloaded over different durations and time scales in web(.html) and excel(.xls) formats.
- Users can choose to receive periodic emails with insights of their groups.
- Admin can see detailed statistics for groups.
Networks: Users can be shown groups belonging only to their network.

Packages:

Package system can be enabled / disabled any time. If enabled, multiple packages can be created with varying features.
Flexible configurations.
Free & Paid packages: Payments via Paypal or 2Checkout for paid groups (integration with SocialEngine's payment system). Supports 2 types of Billing Cycles:
- One-time Billing
- Recurring Billing Cycle
Availability of Photos to Groups can be made dependent on their packages.
Expiry time-limit can be set for groups of a package. Groups of paid packages can be renewed after expiry.
Groups of packages can be automatically approved, sponsored and featured based on their setting.
Features like below can individually be made dependent on packages such that they may be available to selected packages:
- Tell a friend
- Print
- Rich Overview
- Location Map
- Insights
- Contact Details
- Send an Update
and more.
Features from App Extensions like videos, notes, form, polls, events, inviter, offers, etc can individually also be made package dependent.
Even custom Profile Fields can be made package dependent such that higher packages can provide more profile fields and a detailed profile to groups.
Group owners can change / upgrade the package for their group from dashboard.

Group Profile (Group Components):

2 attractive AJAX based layouts: Tabbed and Non-tabbed. In tabbed layout, main widgets are linked via ajax based horizontal tabs. In non-tabbed layout, main widgets are linked via ajax based links in vertical order, in left column. Site admin can decide which layout type to activate.
Widgetized Group with drag-and-drop widgets and tabs; can be customized by admin using Layout Editor to choose features.
Site Admins can enable group owners to customize block positions, add new available blocks, create and add HTML blocks via a drag-and-drop interfaced layout editor. Available blocks are the many widgets provided in this plugin.
Updates: Similar to the wall feature on Facebook Pages, enables users to keep track of updates and content posted in a listing.
Info: Information about a group listing like its description, tags, category, owner, location, contact details, etc. Admin created custom profile fields also show up here.
- Comments feature.
Overview: Group owners can create rich profiles for their group using WYSIWYG editor.
Map: Available if group has location information, this shows the group entity on a map. Detailed location information is also shown.
Tabs from various app extensions like Videos, Notes, Reviews, Form, Events, Polls, Offers, Music and Discussions.
Links: Links shared by users on the group are displayed here.
Sponsored and Featured labels: Attractive label images above and below group profile photo for sponsored and featured groups respectively. These labels are admin configurable.
About Us: Group owners can write a main caption about the group, just like on Facebook Pages and Profiles.
Action links for sharing, suggesting, tell a friend, printing, contacting the owner, etc.
Ratings widget: Shows average overall rating and average rating for the various parameters.
Users can see who all like a group.
You May Also Like widget shows to users similar groups as the current one, which might interest them.
Social Sharing Buttons for quick sharing on favorite social networks.
Group Owners widget showing featured owners of the group.
Multiple other widgets.
Search Engine Optimized structure.

Group Dashboard:

Enables users to easily and intuitively configure the various components of their groups and manage it.
Ajax based quick loading of components at most pages.
Sections available based on features accessible to the group from its package.
Get Started: Tells the user about most of the group components including the ones from extensions.
Edit Info, Profile Picture, Contact Details: For basic group info and other respective information.
Overview: Creating rich listing overview using WYSIWYG editor. Also allows video embedding.
Edit Style: Styling group using CSS properties like background image, color, font type, etc.
Edit Layout: Customize widget positions, add new available widgets, create and add HTML blocks on group's profile via a drag-and-drop interfaced layout editor.
Location: Accurately marking listing location on map using drag-and-drop marker and verifying detailed location info.
- Multiple Locations for Groups : With this enhancement, Group Admins will be able to add multiple locations and their names along with a google map for each Group location. Group Admins can select a main location for their Groups.
Profile Info: For custom fields based on group profile type or category.
Manage Admins & Featured Admins: Add / Remove admins for the group, who will also be able to manage it. Featured admins are shown on group profile.
Apps: Nicely designed section showing to group owners the links for creating & managing content and other entities from the extensions like: videos, notes, form, polls, events, inviter, offers, etc.
Insights and Reports for the group.
Packages: If packages are enabled, group owners can change their group's package.
and more..

Groups Home:

Widgetized and customize-able by admin using Layout Editor. Widgets can be easily moved, added or removed.
Featured Groups Slideshow with controls.
Categories and sub-categories shown in an attractively arranged manner.
Recent / Most Popular / Random / Featured / Sponsored groups shown in Ajax tabs.
3 display forms: List View, Grid View and Map View. Grid view has tooltips for all entries and enables users to easily Like groups in an attractive manner.
Sponsored and Featured groups are specially marked.
Ratings are shown for groups.
Search form and filtering widget.
Sponsored Groups AJAX Carousel.
Tag cloud showing popular tags.
Other widgets can also be placed from Layout Editor as desired.

Browse Groups:

Widgetized and customize-able by admin using Layout Editor. Widgets can be easily moved, added or removed.
Categories and sub-categories shown in an expandable widget for filtering.
3 display forms: List View, Grid View and Map View. Grid view has tooltips for all entries and enables users to easily Like groups in an attractive manner.
Sponsored and Featured groups are specially marked.
Ratings are shown for groups.
Search form and filtering widget.
Popular Locations widget.
Tag cloud showing popular tags.
Other widgets can also be placed from Layout Editor as desired.
Month-wise archives of groups.

Widgets:

This plugin contains 3 widgetized pages: Groups Home, Browse Groups and Group Profile. The available widgets can be placed at desired locations using Layout Editor and various settings for them like their heading, number of elements, etc can be configured:
- Group Profile Timeline Cover Photo and Information
- Follow Button
- Ajax based Recent, Popular, Random, Featured & Sponsored groups tabs
- Popular / Recent / Random / Location Groups: Pinboard View
- Search groups Form (Pinboard Results)
- Browse Groups: Pinboard View
- Group Profile Members: Displays the members of the Groups. Admin can choose to display all members or members based on their Roles.
- Joined / Owned Groups: Displays groups administered and joined by members on their profiles.
- Group Profile Announcements
- Group's Member of the Day
- Ajax Search
- Featured Photos Carousel
- Featured Albums Slideshow
- Top Creators: Group Albums
- Most Liked Photos
- Ajax based Tabbed widget for Photos
- Ajax based Tabbed widget for Albums
- Alphabetic Filtering
- Categories and Sub-categories
- Categories and Sub-categories (sidebar expandable)
- Featured Groups Slideshow
- Sponsored Groups AJAX Carousel
- Most Commented Groups
- Most Discussed Groups
- Most Liked Groups
- Group Profile: About Group
- Group Profile: Contact Details
- Group Profile: Apps Links
- Group Profile: Featured Group Admins
- Group Profile: Overview
- Group Profile: Discussions
- Group Profile: Group Info
- Group Profile: Like Button
- Group Profile: Information
- Group Profile: People who like
- Group Profile: Map
- Group Profile: Action Links
- Group Profile: Other Groups of Owner
- Group Profile: Social Share
- Group Profile: You May Also Like
- Group Archives
- Group of the Day
- Popular Locations
- Popular Group Tags
- Popular Groups
- Recent Groups
- Random Groups
- Top Rated Groups
- Recently Viewed Groups
- Recently Viewed by Friends
- User Profile Groups
- Search Groups Form
  and more..
Category based entries in widgets: This enhancement increases the utility of various important widgets of this plugin. While placing these widgets at various locations from Layout Editor, you can choose a specific category for which entries should be shown in the widget for Groups as well as content from Extensions.
Extensions for Groups come with their own different widgets.

Administration

Enable and configure plugin settings for payments, multiple group admins, sharing, maps integration, proximity search, featured & sponsored labels, browsing sequence, group layout editing by owners, category editing, etc.
Site admin can configure below settings to be available to the Group admins and Group members:
- Groups' singular / plural title
- Group members URL text
- Member roles
- Affiliation / membership / joining date
- Group announcements
- Automatically add members when Group members / Group admins invite them to become a member of their Groups.
- Automatic Liking of Group when users become a member of it
- Automatic Joining of Group when users Like it
- Choose who all can invite members to the Groups. Site admin can also allow Group admins to choose this.
- Enable / disable members to immediately become a member of a Group. Site admins can also allow Group admins to choose this.
- Enable users to invite all Group members while creating their Group Events (by using "Groups - Events Extension").
Create / Manage Member Roles for the various categories of Groups on the site.
- Sequence of Roles can be adjusted by drag-and-drop.
- Choose who all can create Roles:
  - Only Site Admin can create Roles.
  - Only Group Admins can create Roles.
  - Both Site Admin and Group Admins can create Roles.
For each Member Level, site admin can enable / disable Group admins to choose a new privacy option: "Group Members Only" for creating various contents (using Extensions of Groups / Communities Plugin) in their Groups.
Enable / disable Group admins to update Group Cover Photo for their Groups.
Enable / disable automatic adding of invited members to Groups.
Activate one of the 2 available layouts for Group Profiles.
Enable, create and manage packages.
Extensive Member Levels based controls and permissions.
Create and manage categories and sub-categories. Sequence of categories and sub-categories can be adjusted by drag-and-drop.
Create and manage profile types and custom profile fields for groups. Custom fields can be made searchable.
Configure mapping between group categories and profile types such that custom profile fields can be based on categories.
View, manage and moderate groups, with extensive options to change group category, change owner, edit a group, etc.
Mark groups as featured and sponsored.
Widget Settings.
Assign Group of the Day.
Enable / disable advanced lighbox viewer (theater mode)
Configure lightbox theme.
Manage Group Albums
Mark quality Group Albums and Group Photos as Featured Albums, Featured Photos, Album of the Day and Photo of the Day.
View Group members and mark them as Featured.
Import Groups from official SocialEngine Groups Plugin.
Assign Member of the Day.
Enable and manage claims for groups.
Assign users as "Claimable Group Creators", whose groups would be easily claimed.
Configure settings for Insights Emails and Graphs.
View Statistics for groups.
View and manage transactions for paid groups on site.
Choose to display Groups administered and joined by members on their profiles.
- Choose to mark Group admin approved members with attractive Verified / Approved Markers. [Admin can change the verb.]
and more..

Differences between SE Groups Plugin and our Groups System: Below point-wise comparison clearly shows the numerous advanced features you get with our Groups System vis-a-vis the SE Groups Plugin.

S. No.	Features	SE Groups Plugin	SocialEngineAddOns Groups System
1.	Joining a Group
2.	Invite Members / Friends
3.	Photos
5.	Discussions
6.	Members Moderation / Approval
7.	Members Search in a Group
8.	Multiple Group Admins
9.	Group Admins can invite non-existing members		(From Groups / Communities - Inviter and Promotion Extension)
10.	Pinboard View for Groups Home page
11.	Pinboard View for Groups Browse page
12.	Popular / Recent / Random / Location Based Groups: Pinboard View
13.	Group Cover Photo
14.	Member Strip on Group Profile page
15.	Photo Strip on Group Profile page
16.	Search Engine Optimized (SEO) URLs and structure
17.	Group Overview with WYSIWYG editor
18.	Membership Roles
19.	Display members based on Membership Roles
20.	Membership Date
21.	Message Group Owner
22.	Message Members
23.	Member can tag other members in Group Photos
24.	Add People
25.	Vanity URLs for Groups
26.	What will members be called? Ex: Dance Lovers, Music Lovers, etc.
27.	Browse by Networks
28.	Group Announcements
29.	WYSIWYG Editor for Announcements
30.	Friend and Network, Friends of Friends, Friends Only, Who Liked This Group - Privacy Options
31.	Content (like Polls, Photos, etc.) Creation Notification to Group Admins
32.	Notification for posts in Groups to members
33.	Featured and Sponsored Marking of Groups
34.	Widgetized Groups Home Page
35.	Widgetized Home page for Members
36.	Widgetized Browse page for Members
37.	URLs alternate text
38.	Paid / Free Packages
39.	Enhanced Member Level Settings
40.	List View, Grid View, Map View for Groups Home page
41.	Categories, Sub-categories & 3rd Level Categories
42.	Custom Profile Types, & Profile Fields for each Category
43.	Searching over Custom Profile Types and Profile fields
44.	Polls
46.	Notes
47.	Videos
48.	Music		(From Groups / Communities - Music Extension)
49.	Offers		(From Groups / Communities - Offers Extension)
50.	Reviews & Ratings [Rating Parameters based on Categories]		(From Groups / Communities - Reviews and Ratings Extension)
51.	Badges		(From Groups / Communities - Badges Extension)
52.	Form - Enquiry Form creation by Group Admins		(From Groups / Communities - Form Extension)
53.	Add "Multiple Listing Types", "Listings", "Pages" and Businesses to Groups		(From Groups / Communities - Multiple Listings and Products Showcase Extension)
54.	Embeddable Badge		(From Groups / Communities - Embeddable Badges, Like Box Extension)
55.	Follow Groups
56.	Notification for Follow to Group Admins
57.	Multiple Locations
58.	Proximity Search
59.	Browse Groups’ Location page
60.	Group Dashboard
61.	Get Started Section in Dashboard
62.	Status - Published / Save as Draft
63.	Group Owner can edit Group Profile Layout
64.	Alphabetic Filtering of Groups
65.	Categorically Popular Groups
66.	Ajax Based Recently Posted, Popular, Random, Featured and Sponsored Groups
67.	List View, Grid View, Map View for Groups Browse page
68.	Liking & Commenting on Groups
69.	“Tell a Friend” link
70.	Tabbed Layout and Non-tabbed Layout for Groups Profile page
71	Upcoming Events
72.	AJAX based Groups Carousel
73.	Most Discussed Groups
74.	Most Joined Groups
75.	Most Followed Groups
76.	Popular Group Tags
77.	Group of the Day
78.	Groups I’ve Joined page
79.	Featured Groups Slideshow
80.	About Group on Group Profile page
81.	Recently Viewed Groups
82.	Expandable Categories and Sub-categories
83.	Group Tags
84.	Claiming Groups
85.	Show Posts by Groups only in Updates Tab
86.	Open / Close Groups
87.	Getting Directions to Groups
88.	Most Liked Photos
89.	Photo Lightbox Viewer to view Group Photos
90.	Social Sharing
91.	Listing of Groups on current user’s location
92.	Linking Groups to other Groups
93.	Popular Group Locations
95.	Most Voted Polls
97.	Statistics for Groups
98.	Search Group Form settings
99.	Data Importing
103.	Widgetized Group Polls page
104.	Widgetized Group Poll View Page
105.	Widgetized Group Events Home page
106.	Widgetized Group Event Profile page
107.	Widgetized Browse Group Events page

15 Extensions (3 FREE!) Groups - Product Kit
Groups / Communities and All Extensions

Is this easy to install?

Yes, absolutely! This plugin will install seamlessly on your SocialEngine with the one click Package installation feature.

What will my plugin download contain?

The plugin download will be a zipped file, which upon extraction will give the plugin package tar file, the license file, and the installation instructions file.

Is this a stand-alone plugin?

Yes, no other plugins are required to run this plugin. There are many extensions available for enhanced features.

I want to enhance the features of Groups / Communities Plugin on my site. What all extensions are available?

Please click here to see all the extensions available for the Groups / Communities Plugin.

Can I myself customize this plugin for a more specific directory system, like say for: Cars?

Yes absolutely. You can yourself easily make changes for such a customization, and your plugin will still be upgradable.

I want to customize this plugin according to the offerings and design of my site. Can you help me?

Yes, please contact us with your customization requirements.

Plugins

Groups / Communities - Embeddable Badges, Like Box Extension

Groups / Communities - Music Extension

Groups / Communities - Videos Extension

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