How to structure your network?

Before inviting your members, it is essential to define the structure, parameters and objectives of your organisation. This step will make it easier for your members to navigate and get involved in your network.

1. At the organization level

A. Set up your organization

As an organization manager, you play a key role in the strategic definition of the network. Through the administration pages, you can set up and manage your organization.
In the settings tab, the following items can be set:

General information about your organization (name, description, type, logo and color)

A public portal and invitation request button

A number of sphere options and features (message restrictions, disabling certain tools, etc.)

E-mail domains automatically accepted

Badges for your members

A customized banner and background

A charter to the organisation

Automatic customized emails sent to your members

Sphere families

Advanced options

B. Customize your internal portal

The internal portal is the showcase page of your organization.

The organization manager can customize it with organization widgets in order to enhance this interface from an ergonomic and functional point of view.

Here are some examples of available widgets: spheres directory, useful links, videos, RSS feeds, iframe, event highlighting.

The widget for the "Internal Homepage Article" is used to introduce the purpose of the network and provide information to members.

To go further, create other sections and write several articles and sub-articles on your portal.

C. Create spheres and organize them per family

Types of sphere

Create spheres and choose a sphere type adapted to their use.

The closed sphere will be preferred for projects related to a specific group and will be accessible by invitation, while the global sphere will automatically aggregate all members of your organization and will be used for transverse communication. The open sphere can be used to address open topics such as monitoring and will be accessible according to the wishes of each member. The restricted sphere can be used for top-down communication, etc.



Sphere visibility

Define the visibility of your spheres: the "visible spheres" will appear on your organization portal while the "hidden spheres" will only be known by their members and visible on their sidebar. This notion is to be defined according to the standards of confidentiality wished.

Sphere families

Organize the visible spheres in your portal: a structured network allows a better navigation for your users. When there's a high number of spheres in your organization, we recommend setting up sphere families to organize them on your portal by theme, project, team, etc.




TIPS :

Create a federation, i.e. a tree-like network consisting of a parent organization and daughter, grandchild and other organizations. Depending on the size and structure of your network, this configuration may be relevant.

Examples: a national network with regional branches, an organization with many departments, a sports association with several clubs...

For an advanced level of customization, set up a white label for your organization with your own URL, custom designs, and custom ways to connect. Contact us at : contact@whaller.com

2. At the sphere level

A. Set up and personalize your spheres

In addition to the type of sphere previously mentioned, your spheres are customizable according to the utility you wish to give them. Thus, from the sphere settings you can choose to activate certain tools, restrict rights, define a charter of good conduct and manage certain notifications.

As on the internal portal of your organization, you can feed the content of your sphere by adding widgets on the right column, under the list of members. You can highlight an event, useful links, RSS feeds, the latest messages from another sphere, ...

B. Create groups

To save time when communicating, create groups within a sphere: you can then send messages to a group made up of several members rather than mentioning them one by one.

These groups can represent members of the same project, the same team or a department of your organization for example.




TIPS:

Automatically feed a sphere by integrating an RSS feed for news or monitoring topics. Viewing and reacting to industry news directly on the platform will become a ritual for your members.

Updated on: 09/02/2023