Creating a Group Folder Structure

One of the most important tasks when first setting up your site is to create a group structure that accurately reflects the life of your community. These are the Group Folders.

Determining an appropriate structure allows content to be stored on the web site in a logical manner that is easy for visitors to understand and for administrators to maintain. Bear in mind that there is no single correct way to structure your web site; and you don’t have to set things in stone at this stage (you can always adapt the structure later) but some planning now will save time later. You can determinine an appropriate group structure by following these steps:

Step 1 - List your activities
Try listing all of the activities that go on in your organisation.

Step 2 - Sub-divide the groups
Once you have a list of groups go through each of them dividing them into sub-groups. Within each of the sub-groups there may be further sub-groups. Try to bear in mind which groups of people you may wish to communicate with - for example in the children's work group you may wish to have a sub-group for leaders, one for helpers, and possibly an additional one for parents.

Step 3  - Arrange the groups into a hierarchy
Try to group the activities of your organisation together under a common heading. For example a group for youth and children's work group may be placed in a group called 'family'. This can be one of the most difficult parts of creating your group structure - certainly some groups are easier to place than others. The following are some 'rules of thumb' which may help:

• Each sub-group should make sense as a logical division of the containing group (the parent group). If a someone is a member of a sub-group then they must be a member of the parent group.
• Try to limit the number of sub-groups to a maximum of around 10 at any point. Longer lists can be difficult to remember. This means that a group at the primary level should have a maximum of 10 sub-groups, each of those sub-groups should have a maximum of 10 sub-groups and so on.
• Try to 'balance' the structure by not allowing different parts of it to become too deep - aim for a maximum depth of four levels.
• Choose concise and appropriate names for each group. The group name can be used after the url to automatically take the user to the appropriate group e.g. https://thetownchurch.org.uk/weddings

Once you have a group structure on paper and are ready to implement it refer to the How do I change the navigational structure of my web site? article for detailed instructions on creating, renaming, moving and deleting groups.