In the next product update, which is scheduled to be rolled out to all customers October 11, we are releasing new capabilities that will enhance your approach to team collaboration:

• To save time when creating a new group space, you won't always have to start from scratch. Now, you have the option to clone an existing widget configuration or choose from one of four templates (department, project, committee or task force).
• To better organize your group spaces, you can establish hierarchies by creating sub-groups. For example, you can create a group space for the marketing department and sub-groups for different disciplines, such as product marketing, field marketing and corporate marketing.
• To increase your responsiveness as an administrator, you can also delegate management of a group space to an administrator(s) that you appoint.

And since decentralizing the management of your group spaces introduces important considerations, we wanted to provide additional details so you can immediately take advantage of this powerful capability. 

What changes are we introducing to the management of group spaces?

Site administrators will now have visibility into a group space's membership right from the control panel and the ability to delegate management of a sub-group to one or more members of that group.

The tiered permission structure remains and will be enhanced by a more intuitive user interface. We have also broadened permissions on individual content types to include blog posts and forum topics.

Permissions can now be applied:

• globally, by site administrators, based on enterprise-wide roles or groups
• by location (group space) by either site-wide or group space administrators
• by application (ex. wiki, blog), channel or content type by those with full access

How does this impact me?

As your intranet or extranet grows, the best way to organize and manage the information flow is by forming group spaces around projects, teams and departments. But as you add group spaces, it becomes difficult to keep up with the needs of each space. Now you have options: you can decentralize management of those group spaces, so an administrator of a particular space can create hierarchy, add new members and manage permissions.  

What do I need to do?

No action is required if you wish to maintain centralized control over all group spaces. However, if you wish to begin delegating management of your group spaces, then you must begin to use the new group space membership model.

To ease the transition to this model, we will pre-populate each group space's members group, so administrators may easily select a group space administrator(s) and begin assigning permissions to content within that space. 

How can I learn more?

For those that wish to take a hands-on approach to learning, check out the new features when they rollout to all customers the evening of Tuesday October 11.

For those that wish to partake in more of a guided tour, register for the upcoming product webinars with IGLOO's technical product manager, Ivan Chevelev, on Thursday October 13 and Monday October 17 or watch for a video demo which will be posted to the Customer Care community in the coming days.