By default, when groups are created, the status is set to Hidden and Closed, which means people can't see or join them from the group page in Church Center. Only an Administrator can change a group's status.
To allow people to view and join groups from Church Center, Administrators and Group Type Managers can set the enrollment status and the visibility from the Availability on Church Center section of the group's Settings tab. Administrators can also edit this setting in bulk from the main Groups page!
This section shows the group's current status and allows you to change it to Open or Closed by selecting the enrollment button.
Closed enrollment prevents additional people from Requesting to Join or signing up. It does not prevent leaders or administrators from inviting or adding new members! The group is still active for the current members.
This section allows you to choose if the group is displayed in Church Center.
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Select Listed if you want people to be able to view the group from Church Center.
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Select Unlisted if you do not want it to be visible to the public. Unlisted groups will still be accessible to group members.
Administrators can set all groups to be visible in Church Center at the same time. For example, select Unlisted while you are setting up all of your groups, and then an Administrator can use the Bulk Edit button to change them all to Listed at once.
Unlisted groups are only visible to Administrators, the group's leaders, and the group members.
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The URL of an unlisted group page will redirect someone not logged in to Groups. However, if members of that group are logged in, they'll be able to get to the group page directly.
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On the Groups on Church Center Page, members of the hidden group can see their group in the My Groups section, but non-members will not be able to find the group, even in a search.
Note
If all the groups in a given group type are hidden, the whole group type will be hidden from the Groups on Church Center page.
Various enrollment settings can be set here that control how and if people can enroll in the group.
Open Strategy
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When a person requests to join this group, an email is sent to the group leader, who must approve the request before the person is added to the group.
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When a person requests to join this type of group, they are automatically added as a member
Auto-close
These settings allow you to automatically close the group on a date or if the enrollment reaches a certain number. Once you set the capacity number, you can choose to include pending join requests in that count.
If a group is closed or full, leaders and administrators can still add new members to this group.
Note
Group Leaders are also members, so they are counted toward the total number enrolled.
Alert
You can use this setting to alert the group's leader if the membership reaches a certain number.
Depending on your selections in the group's Settings tab, each group image will have an Open, Closed, or Full label on it in the Group Type page on Church Center.
Note
Check the box above the groups list if you want to see closed and full groups. If the box isn't checked, groups with these statuses will be hidden. If all groups in a Group Type are closed, the box will be checked by default.
On the group page for a Closed or Full group, the Join This Group button will be missing, and the group will have a message in its place.
If the person viewing the group page is logged in as a member of the group, the message will not show, whether the group is open or closed.