Owning groups

If you've created a group that allows people to apply to join, you accept or decline membership requests and invite people to join. As a group owner, you can also manage content you don't own. You can share public content to your group, which is useful when you find content that relates to the focus of your group but the owner is not a member. You can also remove content that members have shared to the group.

Tip:

Only group owners and administrators can manage membership requests, invite people to join, share public content, and remove content from the group.

Managing new membership requests

When someone requests to join a group you own, you see a New Membership Requests link in the group with the new request. To accept or reject a request, follow these steps:

Steps:

1. Verify that you are logged in.
2. Open Groups.
3. Click the Membership Requests button.
4. In the Membership Requests window that appears, click Approve or Decline.

If you approve the request, the user is automatically added to your group. If you decline the request, the user is not added to your group. In either case, the user receives a message in his or her Notifications window.

Inviting members

You can invite people who have the same type of account you have. If you have an organizational account, you can invite other organizational accounts to join your group. If you have a public account, you can invite other public accounts to your group. You cannot invite people who have set their profiles to private.

If you are an administrator of your organization, you can add members directly to groups without the members needing to accept invitations.

To invite or add members to your group, follow the steps below.

Steps:

1. Verify that you are logged in. If you want to add members directly, verify that you are logged in with an organizational account that has the administrator role.
2. Open Groups and click the name of the group you want to invite people to join.
3. Click the Invite Users button.

   The Invite User window appears.

4. Search for users to invite to join your group.

   You can search for users by name or words someone may have put in their profile description, for example, Mike Jones Redlands GIS.

   Note:

   You cannot invite people who have set their profiles to private. You also cannot invite people who have a different type of account than you have. If you have an organizational account, you cannot invite public accounts to join your group. If you have a public account, you cannot invite organizational accounts to join your group. For more information, see What should you share?

5. Click a name in the Users list to add the name to the invitation list. To remove a name from the invitation list, click the name.
6. To add members directly, check add members of the organization immediately, without requiring confirmation. You only see this option if you are an administrator of your organization.
7. When the list is complete, click the Send Invitation to invite the users to join your group or the Add to Group button to add members directly.
   Note:

   You only see one button option on the Invite User window. The button changes from Send Invitation to Add to Group when you check the option to add members of the organization immediately without requiring confirmation.

Users receive a message in their Notifications window. They can view the invitation on Groups and accept or reject it. If they accept the invitation, they will automatically be added to your group.

Removing members

If you no longer want a member to participate in your group, you can remove them from the group. Their items are also removed. The user's account and items are not removed from ArcGIS Online or your organization. To remove a member, click the remove button to the right of the member's name.

Sharing public content

You can share public content with your group by following the steps below. If the content owner makes the item private, it is automatically removed from your group.

Steps:

1. Find and open the item details for the public item you want to share with your group. Items that have been shared with everybody (public) include a Share button on their Item details page. The Share button appears when you own at least one group.
2. Click the Share button. You see the Share window with a list of groups you own.
3. Check the box to the left of the group you want to share the item with and click OK. You can check more than one group if you want to share the item with multiple groups you own.

Removing content

If a group member has shared an item you do not think fits into your group, you can remove it. The item no longer appears in the group but it is not deleted from the owner's account. It is still available to the owner and retains its other sharing properties, for example, being a public item. To remove an item from your group, click the delete button to the right of the item name on the group page.

Sharing your group

If your group is public, you can share it with others using the Share button at the top of the group page. You can copy a short URL and paste it in an e-mail, blog, or website; embed the group items into a website; and create a gallery application with configurable templates. For more information, see Sharing groups.