I don't think this makes sense at all to be honest. It kind of defeat the purpose of a "closed" group because in essence "closed" means shut. Nothing visible to anyone

Hi Mark

Thank you for taking the time to reply to these suggestions.
Lets imagine if you will that some day there is a working paid component for Groups in ES.
Similar to a third party solution such as from:
http://www.readybytes.net/
(Currently for Profiles/Profile Types but not Groups)
Or indeed a home made SI solution.

Would it not make sense to be able to ease people slowly into a group.

Here is an eg for an online training:

http://www.rippletraining.com/products/final-cut-pro/warp-speed-effects-in-final-cut-pro-x/

You get to look at 4 videos for free.
See Descriptions, Outlines, Delivery Method, Reviews (Comments), Author Bio before taking the plunge.
You purchase access to these videos and then get the same interface just more videos (info)
Instead of 4 videos you have 40 videos etc.

As of now there are no out of the box solutions for doing something like this.
And as you probably know my focus is very much on online video training preferably in a group.

If you have any ideas I would be all ears

thanks

Paul

Hey Paul,

This is quite an interesting idea but we are not sure if this could be a simple task to implement it inside the group. Perhaps you can post it inside our voices page as well so we can consider this in the future.

Hey Erzul, Hey Mark

If it is OK I would like to get this a little more focused before posting in the suggestions area.

Here are the scenarios that I see.

1) Make the Group open for a limited period of time and then close it.

Advantages: This is pretty simple and would technically work today.

Disadvantages: Once the group is closed it is harder to find
- e.g. Blog Posts/Stream items posted from this Group would no longer be visible for non members.
- e.g. Not sure how this would work for External links going to a now closed group?

Possible work around?

Allow for truncation ONLY of Blog post in a Closed Group.
i.e. the full posts are not visible but you can see the truncated version?

2) Have the group open but use tricks such as Tabs/Shadow boxes/Viewing Preferences for specific pages.

Maybe some thing like this:

Meta Mod
http://www.metamodpro.com/chameleon/chameleon
or something from NoNumbes
https://www.nonumber.nl/extensions/advancedmodulemanager

Could be used to show different things to different people?
Maybe something that specifically works with PayPlans “Plans” or similar?

3) Make clones of Groups!!!

Partner Groups/Clones/Twin Plans what every you want to call them.

a) Set up a free Group. (Give it a free plan with Payplans or similar)
b) Clone it (make copy of it)
c) Add more stuff to this group and make it a closed group/paid group (Give it a free plan with Payplans or similar)
d) If you need to update the free Group do so.
e) Have a way of feeding the updates to the free group into the paid group.

Last but by no means least.
If the Groups have plans assigned depending on whether you have paid/subscribed or not you either see the free or paid group?

That is about it.

Please advise what is the best option from a SI perspective before I post this in the voices section

thanks

Paul

We will see what we can do about this in the future but as of now, I don't think we will be implementing such functionality.

Hey Mark

Just thinking aloud here.

When publishing a Blog post there are the following Privacy options:

Everyone
Registered Users
My Friends
Only Me

And then there is a password option as well.

Why not add a preview/truncation option?

You get to see the Blog post on the main blog list page.
i.e. the truncated version.

When you click on the article you are asked to login/register to the site/group to see the full Blog post?

It would be a way of getting more members and could be used in conjunction with paid plans in the future!

Maybe this is insane but it just occurred to me

best

Paul

Do you see the feedback that we received on the forums Most of them are complaining that there are just too many settings. Adding more settings would be a disaster because we end up having to explain to users what are these features for when probably only 0.1% of our customers are using it

Yes Mark I know I am the exception but the idea in and of itself is not all that bad
I understand your position.

Thanks for understanding Paul