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How to a kind of intranet or …

HI,

For a non profit org (church) I want to create a kind of intranet.

The purpose is to create an environment to create groups to share messages and questions. Where everybody from this group can see messages and interact.

I thought about the Forum or Community plugins for this purpose, but don’t know if they are the best solution.

They will have a group for ex. Group 1, Group 2, Group 3. Each member can access only messages from own group. i.e. member from group 1 sees only messages from group 1 and so on…

Suggestions????

Thanks!

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 15:11:00
  • Kasia Swiderska
    • Support nomad

    Hello mpress & Faydra,

    I would recommend the same thing as Faydra – BuddyPress. You could use Communities, but this is very simple plugin and don’t have a lots of options – also it works only in the WordPress Dashboard – it doesn’t have the front end pages.

    Kind regards,

    Kasia

  • Kasia Swiderska
    • Support nomad

    Hello mpress,

    When you say Community is simple. What do you mean exactly?

    I mean that there isn’t lot of options there, please see usage page https://wpmudev.com/project/communities/#product-usage – there are nor user profiles, no moderators for forums (and so on).

    If you need very simple plugin and you don’t need much customization (and works only in WordPress Dashboard), then you could try Communities.

    Kind regards,

    Kasia

  • Rupok
    • Ex Staff

    Hi mpress

    If you want to develop membership system on your site, then Membership 2 Pro is a must-have plugin. With Membership 2 Pro you can make your content available to members and hidden to logged-out users, release your membership content in timed intervals and lots of other important stuffs.

    But if you rather want your site to be forum based, then you can try bbPress. It’s also a popular plugin.

    Have a nice day. Cheers!

    Rupok

  • mpress
    • Code Wrangler

    Hi @Rupok,

    It is going to be a kind of intranet that will never have paid groups or something like.

    The main purpose is to have different kinds of groups. People will be assigned to group1 or group2 or group3. Each member will be able to see only own group. One member can participate in more than 1 group.

    All members will be from this particularly church. No “strangers” allowed.

    Do I still need to have Membership plugin ?

    or is the bbpress a better solution?

    Thanks!!!

  • mpress
    • Code Wrangler

    Hi @Rupok,

    Somehow I had the assumption that I need t have both bbpress and buddypress at the same time :slight_frown:

    Let’s see if I understand it correct now :slight_smile:

    – buddypress is for a bigger community and gives me more funcionalities than bbpress

    – bbpress is for small to medium communities with bit less funcionalities than buddypress.

    is it correct?

    Using buddypress gives me already the possibility to have open – private groups (where only members can participate) and hidden groups.

    Thanks so much!

  • Rupok
    • Ex Staff

    Hi mpress

    I hope you had a wonderful day.

    Actually you can use both BuddyPress and bbPress for larger community. But the purpose is different.

    BuddyPress is a powerful plugin for WordPress that transforms into a fully functional social network platform. It provides all the features that allow you to build a community on your network. BuddyPress enables you to build passionate users around a specific niche.

    On the other hand, bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress. Easily setup discussion forums inside your WordPress.org powered site.

    So you can have both BuddyPress and bbPress installed to have a more powerful network for your members.

    Have a nice day. Cheers!

    Rupok

  • mpress
    • Code Wrangler

    Thanks @Rupok,

    In the meantime I have done a lot of homework.

    So I understand I can use both of them together, but that brings up that a group with a forum has two different places of comments. Customer wants comments in only one place.

    So I am still in doubt about which one would be the best solution…

    As my first message :

    They will have a group for ex. Group 1, Group 2, Group 3. Each member can access only messages from own group. i.e. member from group 1 sees only messages from group 1 and so on…

    My question now is:

    is it also possible to get this construction with bbpress only?

    so it would be:

    members of forum 1 can only see topics/comments from forum 1,

    members of forum 2 can only see topics/comments from forum 2, and so on…

    and some members will be assigned to more than one forum.

    It looks like bbpress has a more structured layout for different topics

    Cheers!

  • mpress
    • Code Wrangler

    So you can have both BuddyPress and bbPress installed to have a more powerful network for your members.

    I have also tried this, but then you have comments in 2 different places for the same subject.

    Is it possible to have both plugins but disable the comments from the groups?

    Thanks again!

  • Kasia Swiderska
    • Support nomad

    Hello mpress,

    Did you set your groups and forums for that groups as private? This way access for groups and it’s forums will be only for members of that group.

    I have also tried this, but then you have comments in 2 different places for the same subject.

    What do you mean by that? I can only find that updates to topics are showing in the activity stream of the group and that all – and this how the activity stream works.

    kind regards,

    Kasia

  • Alex Stine
    • System Administrator

    The way you are explaining this gave me an idea. If you used the Membership plugin and assigned your users different memberships to what they could access this could work.

    Membership plugin

    https://wpmudev.com/project/membership/

    Membership1=group1

    Membership2=group2.

    Group1=page1

    Group2=page 2.

    Now use a function to call the comments. So now you are using the power of WordPress in itself to just have your private discussions right in the comments area.

    Call comment form.

    <?php comment_form(); ?>

    List the comments.

    <ol class="commentlist">
    
<?php wp_list_comments(); ?>
    
</ol>

    Now use this plugin to embed this PHP via a shortcode in your pages.

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/php-code-for-posts/

    Good Luck.

  • mpress
    • Code Wrangler

    Hi @KAsia,

    Thanks.

    I have also tried this, but then you have comments in 2 different places for the same subject.

    What do you mean by that? I can only find that updates to topics are showing in the activity stream of the group and that all – and this how the activity stream works.

    What I mean here is:

    members are able to make comments by the groups and the forums, but comments from the forum are not seen by the groups and vice-versa.

    Is there a way to disablel comments by the groups?

    Did you set your groups and forums for that groups as private? This way access for groups and it’s forums will be only for members of that group.

    That’s exactly what I want to have. Do you mean that members from one specific group will not be able to see the other forums/groups?

    for example: assigned member to group1 will be able to see only group1 and forum/topics for this group1, others groups and forums will not be open to this member.

    Cheers!

  • Kasia Swiderska
    • Support nomad

    Hello mpress,

    That’s exactly what I want to have. Do you mean that members from one specific group will not be able to see the other forums/groups?

    Yes, that is why there is private group and group forum. So only members of that group can see and access whole activity of that group. When they will try access forum form other group they will see that this is private forum and they need to be member of that group.

    members are able to make comments by the groups and the forums, but comments from the forum are not seen by the groups and vice-versa.

    If I understand correctly you would need to disable activity stream in Settings -> BuddyPress, so it will only have tab for forum and nothing else. Activity stream is part of BuddyPress and Forums are from bbPress – those things (comments and posts) forums are not integrated, their purpose is different.

    kind regards,

    Kasia