There are two ways to group users together on Blink; in a team or in a community. User groups are the foundation of your Blink experience and govern your user's experience.
A team is a type of group that is defined by an administrator and usually reflects your organizational structure. Only an administrator can add or remove team members.
A community is a type of group that’s discoverable and open for employees to join or leave as they please.
This article covers:
Use cases for teams
Jamal Smith is a Fleet Manager based at Depot 1 of TransitMasters, Oregon.
As an Admin, I’m going to add Jamal to the following teams in Blink:
TransitMasters Org Team
Depot 1
Depot 1 Management
Regional Fleet Managers
Wei Chen is an Accounts Payable Specialist based at Centre Office of TransitMasters, Michigan.
As an Admin, I’m going to add Wei to the following teams in Blink:
TransitMasters Org Team
Centre Office
Finance Team
Operations
I can add Jamal and Wei to those teams manually or by using dynamic team rules (the automated method)! Read here for more information on dynamic team rules.
Use Teams to reflect your organizational structure so that you can engage the right users with the right content and hub resources.
Use cases for communities
Jamal Smith loves restoring old cars, keeps two dobermans (aka his children!), and regularly photographs the dogs on the beach.
The communities he’d love to see at TransitMasters are:
Passionate Motorists
Dog lovers
Photography
Wei Chen is a keen painter and identifies as LGBTQ+.
They’d love to see the following communities at TransitMasters:
Budding artists
LGBTQ+ Community
I can create these communities for Jamal, Wei and others who share the same interests. They can then discover them via Discover Groups on the feed web widget or via their Connect menu (web and mobile).
Utilizing your group feed and channel
Summary
Feed posts: for broadcasting to your selected audience. Feed posts are perfect for promotional comms, alerts, headlines, news and much more!
Channels: for focussed chat engagement between members of a group. Perfect when the conversation is fluid and developing. Members of the group can join or leave when they please.
NB: communities are created with a default channel, but admins need to set their team channels up. Read more here about setting up team channels.
For teams
I have a team for Site 1 Nurses and I want to remind them to submit their monthly rotas:
I broadcast a reminder on the feed and select Site 1 Nurses as my audience
I have a channel for taking rota queries and questions, so that the team can help one another.
I have a team for my whole organization, TransitMasters, and I want to engage my employees with my client projects:
I create channels for each client project and add core members, but know that any team member can find and join the project channel at any point
I use the feed to broadcast client updates to my whole organization: Client A has extended their contract for 3 years!
For communities
I have a photography community and I initiate a photography competition:
I announce the competition on the feed (I could even inc. the community group AND other groups to alert them)
I request that all submissions are entered into the photography community channel
I announce the winner in the feed
I have an LGBTQ+ Society and I want to organize a company Pride event:
I announce the plan on the feed and request volunteers
I create a new community channel for event organization with my volunteers
I post details about the event on the feed
My community shares feedback, experiences, pictures, etc in my main community channel
FAQs
Can users view teams they’re not a member of? | No. Users can only view the teams they are a member of. |
Are my communities discoverable for everyone? | At the moment, yes. Expanding on this functionality so that communities are discoverable for a smaller audience is something we may explore. If you have ideas, please share them with support@joinblink.com. |
Do my group feed posts still land on a user's main feed? | Yes. Users can see all their feed posts (sent to audiences they are a member of) in the main feed. They can also see a filtered view per group on a group homepage. Read more here about group homepages. |