In This Guide

·

What are Groups?

·

Getting to the "Groups" Page

·

Creating a Group

·

The "Edit Group" Page

·

Changing the Group's Name and Description

·

Examining and Changing the Group's Permissions

·

Adding a User to the Group

·

Changing a User's Expiry Date

·

Deleting a User from the Group

·

Deleting a Group

What are Groups?
If you have a number of users to whom you wish to assign the same set of custom permissions, Groups are very handy. Rather than having to assign a set of custom permissions to a number of users, one at a time, you can create a Group with a specific set of permissions and then assign people to that group. Users who belong to a Group have that Group's permissions assigned to them.



Getting to the "Groups" Page
The Groups page is in the Settings & Security section -- click the Settings & Security tab in the Navigation Bar to get to that section. You'll be on the Publishing Defaults page. Then click on the User Permissions item in the Settings & Security submenu. Finally, click on the link to Manage Groups.

You will be taken to the Groups page, which looks like this:


The Groups page has two major sections:

·

Create Group

This section contains a form that lets you create new Groups.

·

Current Groups

This is a list of all your weblog's Groups. You can use this list to manage and delete your Groups.

Creating a Group
These are the steps to creating a new Group:

1. Provide a name and optional description for the new Group.

2. Click the "Create" button.

Provide a Name and Optional Description for the New Group
Enter the name you wish to give the Group into the Group field.

If you want, you can also enter a description of the group into the Description field. This is optional.



Click the "Create" Button
Once you have specified a name and description for your new Group, click the Create button.

Your group will be created and you will be taken to the Group's Edit Group page, which will display a message near the top confirming that your new group has been created. It should look like this:

Here's what the Edit Group page will look like:



The "Edit Group" Page
The Edit Group Page has four major sections:

·

Attributes

This section allows you to set the name and description of the group. See Changing the Group's Name and Description for more details.

·

Add User to This Group

This section is where you add users to the Group. Group membership can either be permanent or for a limited-time only. See Adding a User to the Group for details.

·

Category Permissions

The area below the Attributes and Add User to This Group sections and above the Group User List is where the Group's permissions are listed.

By default, the list of permissions is hidden. To see the list of permissions, click on the Show category permissions link.

See Examining and Changing the Group's Permissions for more details.

·

Group User List

This is the list at the bottom of the page. It lists the members of the Group. See Changing a User's Expiry Date and Deleting a User from the Group for details.

Changing the Group's Name and Description
Changes to the Group's Name and Description are made in the Attributes form.

·

To change the Group's name

Enter a new name into the Name field.

·

To change the Group's description

Enter a new description into the Description field.

Once you've made the changes, click the Save Changes button. The changes will be made and the page will reload with a "Changes saved" message at the top:




Examining and Changing the Group's Permissions
The permissions assigned to the group are in the Category Permissions area, which is normally hidden. To reveal the list of permissions, click the Show category permissions link.


Clicking the link reveals the Category Permissions list. The Show category permissions link will turn into the Hide category permissions link; click it to hide the list.

Use the Category Permissions list to specify the permissions you wish to assign to the Group. Whatever permissions are assigned to the group will be given to its members.


Once you are done specifying the Group's permissions, click the Save Changes button. The permissions for the Group will be changed and the page will reload with a "Changes saved" message near the top:




Adding a User to the Group
Adding a user to the Group is done in the Add User to Group area. A user who is added to the group is assigned the permissions that are assigned to the group.

To assign a user to the Group, you need to provide two pieces of information:

·

The username of the user

Enter this into the Username field. (To have a username, the person in question must have an account).

·

The date when the user's membership in the Group should expire

Users' memberships in the Group can be set to be indefinite or to have an expiry date.

·

To make the user's membership indefinite

Select the Never option from the options labelled Expires. This is the default.

·

To give the user's membership an expiry date

You have two options:

·

You can use the In option to set the membership to expire in one day, one week or one month.

·

You can use the On option to specify a date when the membership will expire.

Once you have filled in the required information, click the Add User button. The user will be added to the group and the page will reload and display a "User added" message near the top.


The user you just added to the list will also appear in the Group User List near the bottom of the page.




Changing a User's Expiry Date
You change a user's expiry date in the Group User List near the bottom of the page. The Expires column contains text fields; you can specify a new expiry date by entering a new one into it.

·

To make the user's membership in the Group indefinite

Enter "Never" into or delete the contents of that user's Expires text field.

·

To set a specific expiry date for the user's membership

Enter the expiry date into that user's Expires text field in yyyy-mm-dd format.

For example, to set the user's expiry date to November 5, 2010, you would enter 2010-11-05 into that user's Expires text field.

Once you have changed the user's expiry date, click the Update button to effect those changes. The changes will be made to the user's membership and the page will reload, displaying a "Changes saved" message near the top:


The changes you made will also appear in the Group User List:





Deleting a User from the Group
You delete users from the group using the Group User List near the bottom of the page.

To delete users from the group, mark the users whom you wish to remove for deletion by checking their Delete checkboxes.


Once you have marked all the users you wish to delete, click the Update button. The users you selected will be deleted from the group and the page will reload and show a "Changes saved" message near the top of the page:


If you look at the Group User List, you will see that all the users who were marked for deletion no longer appear in the list.

Deleting a Group
You need to be on the Groups page to delete a group. To get to the Groups page, click the Settings & Security tab in the Navigation Bar to get to that section. You'll be on the Publishing Defaults page. Then click on the User Permissions item in the Settings & Security submenu. Finally, click on the link to Manage Groups.

Mark the Groups you wish to delete by checking their Delete checkboxes:

After you have marked all the Groups you wish to delete, click the Delete Selected button. A window will appear, asking if you are sure that you wish to delete those groups:


If you wish to delete the Groups, click OK. If you wish to keep the Groups and cancel the deletion, click Cancel.

If you click OK, the Groups you marked for deletion will be deleted. The page will reload and show the a "Changes saved" message near the top.


If you look at the Current Groups list, you will see that the groups you marked for deletion are no longer there.