About Advanced Groups

Before starting

If your organization is composed of multiple independent entities (chapters, branches, etc.) the Advanced Groups feature will allow you to link them to your organization. 

Advanced Groups function as "child" platforms to your main platform and they have a certain amount of autonomy. They can also contain their own Simple Groups.

We will cover the following topics in this article:

• 2 types of Advanced Groups: Dependent and Independent
• How to create an Advanced Group
• Main functions of an Advanced Group 

2 types of Advanced Groups: Dependent and Independent

There are two types of Advanced Groups, based on the level of autonomy from the main platform:

• Dependent advanced groups are considered to be non-distinct entities within your organization. Their settings are defined within the main platform. 
• Independent advanced groups are considered separate legal entities, so they usually make their own settings.

The type of advanced group is decided at the time of creation and cannot be changed afterward.

How to create an Advanced Group

Create an Advanced Group by following these steps:

• Go to the Community > Groups and click on New Group.
• A pop-up window will open. Right next to "In need of advanced features?", click on Find Out More
• A new pop-up will appear with an advert about the related costs. Confirm by clicking Create Group.

• Now, there are 3 final steps to define the settings. First, fill in all the necessary information. 

• Next, in the Enable tools section, decide which tools to activate for your new group.

• Finally, choose the type of group: dependent (an entity within your organization) or independent (a distinct legal entity), and mark the checkbox.

You will be charged $10.00/month per group, as soon as the group is activated.

Main features within Advanced Groups

Community

The functionality is similar for all types of Advanced Groups.

Any member created in an Advanced Group will also appear in the Community tab of your main platform. Similarly, all Advanced Groups will be able to create and publish their own membership and donation campaigns. 

It is also possible to merge their own member accounts (do this when two accounts are accidentally created for the same contact). However, the validation of a created account and the management of archived members is done on the main platform. 

Accounting

An Independent Group defines its own accounting setup. In addition, the entries are not consolidated at the main level and the accounting is separated.

For a Dependent Group, accounting is consolidated at the main level: you can consult your accounting documents at the level of the advanced group and on the main platform.

Website

All types of Advanced Groups will have the choice between creating their own pages on the main platform's website or creating their own separate website entirely.

You can access this configuration by going to Group Pages > Main Settings > Website Type.

Email

All types of Advanced Groups will be able to send their own email campaigns.

The emails used by a dependent advanced group will use the elements (logo, name, address, etc.) of your main platform.

Manage Administrator Rights

You have the ability to appoint administrators by going to the Settings > Administrators page.

Here, you can assign administrator rights in exactly the same way as for your main platform. You can decide between giving an administrator main access rights or granting them access per feature.

Note that it is not possible to delegate specific feature rights at the platform level if you have delegated main access rights at the advanced group level.