Google Groups: Creating a Web Forum

Want to bring together people with similar interests or expertise in your organization? Maybe you want to create a community around a specific subject, product, service or function? If so, setting up a Google Group as a web forum might be the most suitable solution for you. With a web forum, you can create a subject-specific Google Group that anyone in your organization can join email.

1. Web forum: how to set it up

To set up a web forum, you create a Google Group that’s configured to allow anyone in the organization to post questions to the group via email. Then finally, when adding people to the group, you assign each one their appropriate role.

Note: To set up a web forum we need to be a G Suite Group Owner. For help in this regard, you need to contact your company's G Suite Administrator.

2. Create and configure the group

• From the Groups, welcome page, click Create Group.
• Enter the group's name and description.
• Select Web forum as the Group Type.
• Update the group's email address as desired.
• Click Create when you’re done.

3. Review group roles and permissions

You can assign roles in order to regulate specific tasks to be performed by certain group members. Each role has some special characteristics. When creating a web forum or Group three default roles are set up with the permissions shown below. You can modify these roles for the group or even create new ones based on permission. But first, take a look at the default roles to see if they’ll work for your requirement

Member: can post and view topics

Manager: They can also add or remove members; they can also able to edit, delete, and move topics in and out of the forum.

Owner: creates the group and adds members

Each role’s exact default permissions are specified. In addition to the Basic permissions, you can set other permissions when creating the group, related to Posting, Moderation, and Access based on the group type you select.

By this process navigate to Manage then Permissions to adjust permissions for the group.

4. Create or modify group roles

If the default roles and permissions work for your team, you can use them as is. If not, you can modify a user's permissions, say, to only let an Owner edit the welcome screen.

To do this:

1. Navigate to the group’s welcome page and click the Manage button.

2. At the left of the page, click Roles.

3. To change a user's permissions, click the role you want to change. Navigate to create a new role, save the Create button.

5. Create the group’s welcome screen

For making this more interesting you can add a banner or description to your group’s home page to greet people who come to browse topics. After creation of the group, navigate to the home page and click the Edit welcome screen link. Then we can use the Rich Text Editor to compose and format the text, upload images for a banner or logo, and even we can add links.

As per functionality, only Group Owners and Managers can create or modify the welcome screen.

6. Web forum: launch it with your team

Before launching the group team, you need to think how the users will use the services

• Need to identify who should be the group's members, manager(s), and owner(s).  
• For adding tags, select Manage > Settings > Tags.
• Make sure all group members have G Suite accounts with the domain name.

7. Add or invite members

Once your group is set up and all concerned have G Suite accounts, it’s time to add team members to your group. You can either invite new members, who must accept the invitation in order to join the group, or you can add them directly without requiring that they accept.

1. Navigate to the group’s welcome page and click the Manage button.

2. Left of the page, under Members, we need to click Direct add members.

3. We need to enter a welcome message, such as the one below:

4. Select Add.

Now your web forum is ready to go!