Community Admin
From DB Primary Wiki
Community Admin
Users with administration rights can create communities, but any user added as a teacher can edit the community. Once created you'll need to add the users and will have the option to customise the front page of the community.
If you would like to view an example video which shows step-by-step how to create a community, please click here (requires access to YouTube. Also has narration so turn up your speakers.)
How to create and edit a new community
1. Log into your school using your Staff/Admin username and password.
2. Click the Administration button from the Quick Links on the left hand side of your homepage.
3. Click on the Communities tab on the top of the Administration screen
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4. Click onto the Create community button to create your new Community.
5. You now have the choice to choose the type of community that suits your needs.
The different types are as follows:
General
- A community with all the main features enabled
- Membership is empty.
Staffroom
- All staff members are automatically added to the community
- The gallery, calendar, forum and people features are enabled by default
- A blog is enabled on the front page by default
- If a school logo has been set on the school tab of the administration area, this logo will be set as the community icon.
Whole School
- As 'staffroom', but all members in your school's portal will be added to the community.
Governors
- As 'staffroom', but all governor accounts are automatically added to the community.
Public Site
- Gallery and Calendar are enabled by default
- The community can be accessed publicly using the url web address without the need to login to DB Primary.
6. Once you have chosen your type of community, give it a name and click on create
You will now be taken to the community front page.
Click on the Cogs to go into further administration options.
Choosing your theme and skin
You may choose a Starter, Improver or Teacher theme for a community. To select the theme click onto the drop down box.
Starter themed community
For a starter themed community you have the choice of the classic, fairytale or alien skin:
Improver themed community
For an improver themed community you can choose from the Glass, Art or Classic skin as a community backdrop:
Teacher themed community
For an teacher themed community you can choose from the Glass or Classic skin as a community backdrop. When creating a community and selecting 'Staffroom' or 'Governor' from the community type dropdown, the community will automatically be created with a teacher theme. To find out more about using the file management feature in a teacher-themed community, please click here.
Adding a community icon
You may browse your files or upload a new image to represent your community. NB it is best to use a square image
Once you have selected or uploaded your community icon, remember to click the Update button on the bottom to save the image
Choosing left hand panels
To choose which panels will displayed on the left hand side of the community front page you will need to tick or untick each option
Once you have chosen your panels, click on the Update button
Adding custom links to the community navigation panel
In the administration view of the community you have the option to add your own link that will appear on the community navigation panel.
Click on ‘browse’ next to ‘Link...’ at the bottom of the community features list at the left of the page:
The following screen will appear:
If you have previously created links, they will appear in this dialogue too.
To create a new link, click on 'new link' and the following dialogue box will appear.
Here you can add the title of the link, the link url web address and if you have one, browse for an image that represents that link:
Click on save. Your new link will now appear on the community front page.
Any links you create will be saved in the gallery area of the community:
Note: Deleting the link from the gallery area will remove the link from DB Primary.
Reordering the community feature quicklinks
As with the wiki panels, you can drag and drop the community features to change the order they display on the community home page.
To do this you must be in the administration area of the community. Click on the cogs to get here.
Hover your mouse at the top left of the panel until the cursor changes to the move icon.
Then drag the panel with your mouse to the desired postion as in the example below:
Make sure to click on update at the bottom of the list in order to save these changes:
Quick links to content providers from your communities
If you subscribe to Britannica, Education City or I am Learning, let us know and we can provide integration through DB Primary.
Once enabled, the icons of these content providers will be visible under the commnunity features list in the administration view of your community.
These can be enabled by putting a tick in the check box as in the following example:
They will then be visible on the community front page:
Choosing the panels for the community front page
You can add or remove panels for the front of the community page.
The options can be selected from the drop-down box titled Available panels
Reorder the front page items
You can drag and drop panels such as the wiki and whats on feed to change the order they display on the community home page.
To do this you must me in the Cogs admin of the community.
Hover your mouse at the top of the panel box until the curser changes to the move icon.
Now simply drag the box up or down to reposition it.
Here is an example:
To edit the wiki page
Click on the edit button under wiki to edit the wiki. See also Page_Creator
Choosing a wiki skin
You also have the option to choose a 'skin' for your background from the dropdown list:
Themes include: Nature, Maths, Books, Art or 'No Skin'.
The image below shows the nature theme:
Customising the what's on feed
You can choose how many events and the type of events to display in the community whats on list.
Tick the box to show any or all of Quiz Items, Forum Items, Calendar Items or Survey Items. You can also show the number of items to disply on the community what's on buy selecting a value from the drop down box.
Click Save to save your items.
Calendar Feed
Select the amount of calendar items you would like to display from the dropdown.
Forum Feed
Select the amount of forum items you would like to display from the dropdown.
Survey Feed
Select the amount of survey items you would like to display from the dropdown.
RSS Feed
Give your RSS feed a title
Select the amount of survey items you would like to display from the dropdown.
Paste in the URL to the RSS feed and click Add. The feed will appear in the box below. If you would like to add more than one, click on Add to add more.
To delete a feed, clickit in the box below and click Remove
Click display seperately to show the feeds seperately rather than together.
When you have finished click on Save to save your details
Quiz Feed
Select the amount of survey items you would like to display from the dropdown.
Page Creator
What is Page Creator?
Page Creator is a tool for creating front pages for communities. It includes a web editor to customise the community page and to create sub pages, or mini-sites, accessible from your community. It can also be used to let any member of the community contribute to a wiki-style page, or set of pages.
Click here for more information on Page Creator.
Community Membership
Community Membership Rights Explained
There are 3 levels of community membership, each carrying different permission rights within the community.
Although rights are set automatically when the community is created, you can change these rights on an individual basis: click on the icon shown in the manage membership area to toggle through the membership level options.
The three levels of permission are:
Leader
If you decide to make pupils leaders of a community, they will have the same rights as a teacher and have access to do the following:
- Edit the community front page
- Add calendar events
- Create quizzes
- Create tasks
- Tag documents in the gallery
For a full overview of leader rights within a community, view the permissions table here.
Member
Pupils are created as members by default. For a full overview of starter and improver rights, view the permissions table here.
Please note: users created as members will be able to email other members within the community. You may want to bear this in mind if you are creating a whole school community.
Viewer
As a viewer, the member can only view the content within the community and cannot make any contributions. Viewers do not have access to the email of other users in the community.
Adding and removing members to and from a community
Members can be added to a community by ticking either individual members or a group of users. This is shown in more detail in the following section.
1. From the Cogs menu in the community, click on the Manage Membership button on the top right
You will now be taken into the membership management section.
2. Either tick a group or open a group and tick the people you would like to add to the community.
3. Click on add to add the members
To remove members simply tick them on the right hand side and click the remove button.
Adding individual users or group of users explained
The three ways of adding members to your community are explained below:
1. Adding members individually
This image shows the individual users that were added to the community.
2. Adding members from other communities
Groups of users can be added directly from other communities.
These groups are found by clicking on the 'show community list' icon 
which displays a list of the other communities.
Only the group icon and title is shown and individual users within this group are not listed. If you now wish to change the access rights of particular individuals within a group, you will need to add those members individually (see above).
3. Adding members from the folder hierarchy
In this case groups of users can be added from the staff, pupils, parents, governors and support folders or from any of their sub folders.
Only the group icon and title is shown and individual users within this group are not listed. If you now wish to change the access rights of particular individuals within a group, you will need to add those members individually (see above).
An example
The image below shows the members and groups of members that have now been added to this community:
The three different types of membership groupings explained above (individual users, communities and groups from the folder hierarchy) are separated by double grey lines.
In this example, members have been added to a 'Charity Week' community.
The following membership access rights have been set up to suit the needs of this particular community:
- All pupils have been added and will be able to contribute as members, the default setting for pupils.
- The pupils from the school council community have been added and given leader rights as it has been decided that this will be a community led and maintained by the school council.
- All staff from the staff folder and governors from the governor community have been added. As a default they are set to leader. However, for our purposes, they have been given viewer rights only.
- The teachers Paul Riccio and John Smith have been added individually. As they will be helping the school council maintain this community, they have been given leader rights.
Dynamic Membership
When adding groups of members, such as 'staff', 'pupils' etc. or members from another community, any updates to the folder or community of origin will be automatically carried over to all communities the groups are now members of.
For example, in the following scenario:
- A teacher adds a Year 1 class folder to the Year 1 class community as well as to the Year 1 Fire of London topic communities.
- Later in the year the teacher creates a new account within the Year 1 folder for a child that has newly joined the class.
- This account is automatically added to the Year 1 class and Great Fire of London topic communities.
Adding yourself to an open membership community
When an open membership community is available at your school, users will have an additional option beneath their community list on their homepage called Join a community
To see a list of and join an open membership community, click on this icon and select the community you wish to join.
The community will now appear in your normal community list on your homepage.
Removing yourself from an open membership community
You are able to remove yourself quickly and easily from an open membership community.
1. Hover over the community on your homepage with your mouse
2. You will notice a red cross appear in the corner of the community.
3. Click the red cross and the community will disappear from your home page.
A removed community can be re-added at a later date if required.
Setting the level of access for members of your communities
The level of access different groups of members are given within a community can be set by the community leader.
These levels of access relate to the following areas:
- Who can join the community
- Who can edit the community
- Who can add or remove members
- Who else can join themselves
- Who can nominate leaders
- Who can delete the communities
To set the level of user access, you should be in the Administration area of the community. Click on Manage Membership, then click on the Access tab next to the Membership tab.
In this area you can define the different levels of access you can give to all the members of your community by dragging the slider bar (shown highlighted above).
The default access setting is 'normal' as shown above.
In brief, the levels of community access are:
Private Community: Only members can access this type of community.
- Examples: A staffroom or governor community where you wish to keep all communications and activity in that community private to members only.
Locked Community: A community that is closed, although non-member staff can view it.
- Example: A class or topic community that other staff can view, but not edit.
Normal Community: A community that is accessible to those who belong to it, and all staff.
- Example: A class or topic community that you don't mind other staff who are not members having editing rights over.
Controlled Community: A community that selected non-members can view.
- Example: A class page that you would like parents to be able to be viewers of, but not contribute to.
Open Community: A community that can easily be joined by other DB Primary users. Click here for information on how to add or remove yourself from an open community.
- Example: An event or topic community that you would like any user in the school to opt to join if they liked, such as a Red Nose Day community or Links to Extra Learning community.
Public Community: Anyone on the internet can view the community - but you control who joins it. To help non-DB Primary users find the page easily you should provide the intended visitors of the community with the community homepage URL.
The settings and the level of access they provide are summarised in the table below:
How to copy & paste a community
It is possible to copy and paste a community with a different name. This can be useful if you have a class community template which you may create multiple copies of and allow each class teacher to then customise it for their class.
When a community is copied and pasted it does not copy the current members.
Copying the community
1. Log in as superadmin
2. Go to Administration and click on the communities tab
3. Click on the copy icon to the right of the community 
Pasting the community
You will now have a paste icon on the top right edge of your screen. 
4. Click on this icon to paste the community. You will be prompted to give it a different name at this point.
5. Your community has now been copied and renamed.
Note that you still have the paste button
You can paste the same community as many times as you like and rename them.
Creating an archive of your community
If you would like to archive your community without creating a rollover copy for the following school year, visit the administration view of the community by clicking on the cogs at the top right of the community. Next click on the archive button:
A dialogue box will appear giving you further information and asking for confirmation:
Archiving creates a snapshot of the community from that point in time and places the community in the 'archived communities' view.
The archived communities view can be accessed from the communities list (From your homepage click on Administration then Communities) and then choosing Archived Communities from the drop-down box options:
Your archived community will be created with an amended title showing the month and year when it was first created and the month/year it was archived.
In the example below, the community was created and archived in the same month and so only shows one date:
If you maintain the membership of that community, leaders will still have editing rights but members will only be able to view that community.
This may be useful if you would like pupils to continue to be able to access and view work and discussions they have contributed to earlier in the year or in previous years, but no longer have the ability to amend or add to the community.
Creating a year-end rollover of a community
If you would like to re-use your community at the end of the year, the rollover option will create a 'rolled-over' version of the community in the original location with all members and member contributions on the front page removed. Any quizzes and surveys will revert to being unpublished.
The process will also create an archived copy of the community (see above for details).
To 'rollover' a community, click on the cogs at the top right of the community to get to the administration view where you will see the rollover button:
When you press the rollover button, the following dialogue box will appear giving you further information and asking for confirmation:
Restoring deleted communities
If you delete a community and later decide you wish to restore it, this can be done by choosing 'Deleted Communities' on the community listings in the administration area:
This will list all communities that have been deleted:
You now have the choice to either restore or permanently delete the community:
Linking communities
It is possible to link the members of 2 communities together in the community membership section.
1. Log in as a superadmin or leader of the community you wish to add linking to.
2. Click on Cogs and go to Manage Membership
You will notice a tab on the left hand side to select the other community.
3. Click on the Show community list icon (above)
You will now see a list of communities from your school
4. Tick the community you wish to add members from and click on Add
The members of the selected community will now become members of your current community
