Communities is a social engagement feature within the Vibe HCM system. Communities allow
users to view and share knowledge over many different topics.
This user guide is intended to help you create and maintain communities in the Vibe HCM
System.
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Contents
1. Types of Communities ......................................................................................................................................... 3
2. Communities Hub .................................................................................................................................................. 6
3. Creating a New Community............................................................................................................................... 8
4. Community Homepage .................................................................................................................................... 13
5. Posts ......................................................................................................................................................................... 16
6. Content Page ........................................................................................................................................................ 26
7. People Page .......................................................................................................................................................... 27
8. Administration ...................................................................................................................................................... 28
9. Additional Information ................................................................................................................................. 32
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1. TYPES OF COMMUNITIES The following configurations are available for Communities utilization
• Role-based
• Program-based
• Special Interest
• Course Related – refer to the Learning Management System Reference Guide
ROLE-BASED
OVERVIEW
Role-based Communities are typically made up of members of departments, locations,
positions, or other groups where people are auto-enrolled based on their specific job role (i.e.,
Marketing, Managers Community). They are designed to ease administration by ensuring that,
as employees are hired or transferred, they are automatically part of the conversations which
impact their job responsibilities. Also, access is removed by the system when roles change, or
people leave the company.
Some departments may also choose to create sub-communities or Spaces within their
communities for specific project teams and initiatives.
For reference purposes, Role-based Communities can be created to:
• Decrease the learning curve for new employees.
• Provide a support mechanism for employees in need of role-specific information.
• Capture and retain knowledge and best practices from subject matter experts.
• Share common experiences, insights and new ideas to encourage innovation.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE: SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS
Given its role-based capabilities, Vibe HCM can support the auto-creation of resource
communities made up of experts in specific subject matter areas. These resource communities
can then be used to create next-generation processes. These next-generation processes
leverage resource communities to embed experts and knowledge centers right in the process –
in effect creating just-in-time knowledge and resources where they are needed most. Experts
can provide best practices, answer questions, and facilitate the completion of business
processes.
PROGRAM BASED
Launching a new corporate program? Program-based Communities are a great medium to
leverage in support of specific corporate campaigns, programs or initiatives that may be running
indefinitely or for a specific point in time (i.e., support launch of a new employee wellness
program, innovation program, internal sales program competition). These new initiatives can be
broadcast throughout the enterprise while concurrently providing the full set of Communities
tools to enable broad-based participation and interaction.
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLE: WELLNESS PROGRAM
The following is an example of a Program-based Community launched in support of a new
enterprise-wide employee wellness program.
SPECIAL INTEREST
Special Interest Communities are deployed as communities that are public, allowing
employees to choose if they wish to participate in them. Employees self-enroll in these types of
communities based on specific areas of interest.
Special Interest Communities are a great communication medium for employees who share a
common interest to collaborate & exchange information. Members are not necessarily experts
or practitioners of the topic around which the community has formed, but they do have a
passion or interest in the subject matter at hand. Special Interest Communities typically
engage users from multiple areas of the company to come together for cross-functional project
teams, company-sponsored philanthropic ventures or initiatives that enhance and expand the
workplace culture.
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLES:
Supporting interests or causes that employees are passionate about such as fitness, parenting or
Green initiatives.
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2. COMMUNITIES HUB To access the Communities Hub, start by selecting Communities from the Social dropdown in
the horizontal navigation bar.
The Communities Hub is the first page that a user comes to before navigating into an
individual community. This page serves as the welcome page and jumping off point for
community members to access all the content and tools relevant to the community as a whole.
The following figure is an illustration of the Communities Hub with examples of the various
communities and portlets:
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1. FIND A COMMUNITY
This option displays a listing of all Communities available to this user. Clicking on one of them
would open that community page in a new frame.
Note: Private communities only display if the user is a member.
2. RECENT ACTIVITIES
The Recent Activities portlet displays a summary of recent actions that have taken place within
the community, for example:
• Blogs - new posts, comments and ratings
• Questions: - questions presented to members
• Ideas - sharing of ideas
• Wikis - new wiki entries, updates, and ratings.
• Document - the addition of a new document, the modification of a document, ratings,
comments, and deletions
• Media - new photo albums, videos, images, comments, and ratings.
3. FEATURED COMMUNITIES
The Featured Communities show any communities that a community manager has chosen to
highlight.
4. MOST ACTIVE COMMUNITIES
The Most Active Communities portlet displays a summary of the communities that have
recently received the highest level of interaction among its members.
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3. CREATING A NEW COMMUNITY
To create a new community, start by clicking the create community link on the Communities
hub.
Note: Only those with Communities Admin Access can create a community.
1. DEFINE THE COMMUNITY
In the Create Community form, start by entering a name for the Community. Then enter a
summary of what employees can expect to find in the Community.
Note: This can be modified later if needed.
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2. SET PRIVACY
Next, you’ll need to define your privacy settings. These settings determine who can see the
community, who can post in the community, and which roles have automatic access to the
community.
There are 3 privacy options:
• Public
o If a community is public, ALL employees can access it and create posts and
participate in conversations.
• Semi-Private
o If it is semi-private, ONLY members can post and add content, but ALL employees
can view it. They have the option to Join the Community. Once they are a
member, they gain access to participate.
• Private
o If it is private, only members of the community can see the community and
interact.
Further to this, automatic membership can be configured. The default option allows for anybody
to become a member of a community. However, the dropdown provides a variety of configured
options to auto-enroll specific audiences.
• For example, you can select the manager role. In this case, all employees with the
manager role would automatically become a member of the community. The option
extends to anyone hired/transferred into a manager role. If removed from a manager
role, they will no longer be a member of the community.
o In this scenario, if you were also to set it to Private, only those in the manager
role would be able to see this community in the Communities Hub.
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Note: Privacy settings changes after community creation require a support ticket.
3. CONTENT CATEGORY SELECTION
Communities have a variety of different content categories. Use the checkboxes to determine
the types of content used in the community. Once all fields are complete, click create to publish
your community.
Note: After you click create it may take a few moments before the Community is
published.
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CONTENT CATEGORY DESCRIPTIONS
Blog Posts provide an interactive method of communication broadcasting,
combined with personal or informal quality. Blog Posts are a great medium within
Communities for providing regular editorial commentary and updates pertinent to
the members of the community. Typical post owners and contributors range from
executives, project champions, and community managers/moderators. Members
can share feedback on posts through the ability to add comments.
Questions are the topics of a discussion, and the replies are the online discussions
where users can converse in an organized and chronological fashion and are
generally regarded as the optimal community component to raise questions to a
broader user group. The most helpful responses can be noted as such and added
to the knowledge base for future searching.
Ideas provide a venue for collaborators to share their ideas relating to the
Community. Administrators can update the status of an idea through 3 stages, to
show how close to fruition an idea is.
Wikis provide a collaborative knowledge capture tool. Knowledge is categorized,
stored and referenced via dynamic index pages. Wikis are most often used to
reference approved, role-specific information. Wikis are set up at the community
level; for private communities, users with the required access can view and edit
content within the community knowledge base. Wiki topics become living
documents, which can become fixed points of reference for information which
may be static upon creation or updated on a constant, even daily basis.
Media provides an area where both videos and photos can be uploaded and
viewed. Photos can be viewed individually or as part of a ‘slide show’
presentation. The tool allows users to upload, organize and view image files within
communities. Photo albums and videos are leveraged in several ways, for example:
• Visual aid for training purposes within a community (i.e., to help explain
a new product offering).
• To provide a virtual slide tour of company facilities which are relevant to
the community.
• Photos and videos from company/community events.
Documents provide a flexible way for community members to share documents,
images, and various files with other community members. Example resource
documents might be an FAQ document, brand guideline or policy manual.
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Note: You may not necessarily need to use all categories in your community. When
creating the Community, it is best to determine which categories are most
beneficial based on the subject matter.
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4. COMMUNITY HOMEPAGE Selecting a community from the Communities Hub takes the user to the individual community
home page.
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PAGE LAYOUT
1. COVER PHOTO AND PROFILE PICTURE
• This feature is identical to your public profile and is managed in the same way
using the Manage link in the page header.
2. HEADER LINKS
• Contact
• Allows you to contact a community manager.
• Manage (Only accessible to Managers and Moderators)
• Access to manage the page header content (just like in your public
profile)
• Create Spaces
• Feature your community in the Community Hub
• Interact
• List of category types that you can post on the community.
• Join the community (if not already a member)
3. NAVIGATION BAR
• Links to different pages within the community.
4. RATE COMMUNITY, TAGS, AND TOP CONTRIBUTORS
• Give the Community a thumbs up.
• Add tags to the page to allow for easier searching from the Vibe Homepage.
• Top contributors is a system driven portlet. The most active users within a
community display here.
5. POLLS
• Create, manage and participate in polls.
6. ACTIVITY STREAM
• A serial stream of all posts created in the community.
7. FEATURED CONTRIBUTIONS
• A user-driven feature that allows managers and moderators to feature specific
posts.
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8. HIGHEST RATED CONTRIBUTIONS
• A system-driven feature that displays posts with the highest ratings.
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5. POSTS
CREATING A NEW POST
• Click on the Interact link in the page header.
• Select the category of the post you wish to create.
1. Enter a title for your post
2. Enter the post content. An advanced editor is also available in the top right-hand corner
which allows you to include images in addition to the text.
3. You can add tags to allow your post to be searchable.
4. Click submit.
5. The post displays in the Activity Stream.
VIEWING AND MANAGING A POST
• Click on the post title from the Activity Stream to open the post.
• When the post opens, there are a variety of different actions available. Some options
may not be available depending on the user’s role:
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1. You can add a tag (manager, moderator, creator) or give a thumbs up.
2. You can edit the posting (manager, moderator, creator). This selection opens the editor
screen to make any changes.
3. Delete the posting (manager, moderator, creator).
4. You can lock the posting so now comments can be made (manager, moderator, creator)
5. You can feature the post (manager, moderator). Featuring the post displays it in the
Featured Contributions on the Community’s Homepage and in the Community Hub.
6. You can report a post for inappropriate content. Notification is sent to the community
managers for evaluation and action on the offending post. Once reported, a post is
unavailable any longer in the community until further decision by the managers.
7. You can add a comment to the post. This comment would then display in the activity
stream on the Community Homepage and also beneath the post.
Note: Questions act in the same way as Blog Posts.
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POSTING MEDIA
1. Click on the Interact link in the page
header. Then click Upload Media.
2. Click Create New Album in the popup window.
3. Enter the title/name of the album. Then enter a description of your album — the
description displays in your activity stream.
4. Click ok
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5. Click on your new album, a check mark appears to show selection. Then click select
and then search for the image/video you wish to upload.
6. You can edit the Name of the file by clicking on the name.
7. Click done.
• The media appears in a popup.
• You have options on the bottom, just like in an original post. You can also download
the file.
• You can also add tags, give thumbs up and make comments, on the right-hand side.
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Note: You can upload jpeg, gif, png image files and mp4/wmv for video files.
Larger files can take longer to upload/download.
POST DOCUMENTS
1. Click on the Interact link in the page
header. Then click Upload a
Document.
2. Select a folder to upload the document to, by clicking the folder name. If needed, you
can also create a new folder/sub-folder by clicking create new folder.
3. Enter a title/name for your document. Then click select and find the document you
wish to add.
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4. Enter a description of the document — the description displays in the activity stream.
Then add any tags.
5. Click upload.
6. The document opens. You can view it by clicking the name of the document at the top.
You also have the same posting management tools at the bottom.
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QUICK POLLS
Polls are brief surveys (typically multiple-choice) geared at garnering rapid, broad-based opinion
on a topic of interest (i.e., the future course of action, general sentiment). They are also an easy
and effective way for community moderators and the organization to demonstrate to
members/employees that their opinion matters.
When a new quick poll is published, the first time a user navigates to the page containing the
poll, it displays in answer mode. It remains this way until the user completes the poll or a new
poll is published. Once the user has completed the poll, it displays in completed mode showing
the current results across the member group as well as indicate the user’s response. The poll
continues to display in this mode until a new poll is published. Many polls can be published at
the same time, and users can toggle between them.
CREATING AND MANAGING POLLS
Polls are found in the bottom left-hand portlet.
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To Create a new poll, click the .
1. Enter your question.
2. Enter all possible responses. If you get one wrong, click the .
3. If you need to add additional, you can click add answer.
4. Then click save.
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Here is how your published poll
appears.
You can edit the poll or delete the
poll as highlighted.
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Once a user responds to
the poll, it displays as
shown on the left.
Users can only provide
one response, so these
results display and show
real-time data until the
poll is removed.
You can create multiple
polls at once.
When a new poll is
created, it becomes the
visible poll by default.
You can toggle between
polls by clicking View
Other Polls.
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6. CONTENT PAGE The content page lets you view/sort/filter/access all posts in the community.
1. To access the content page, click CONTENT in the navigation bar.
2. One the page opens you can select the post category to view all in a particular
category. You can use quick filter to enter keywords and find specific posts. You can
also use the sort by dropdown to sort the posts by age, name, or rating.
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7. PEOPLE PAGE The people page is where you see a directory of all the members of the community.
1. To access the People page, click on PEOPLE in the navigation bar.
2. This page initially displays all members of the community. In addition to filtering and
sorting, you can use the letters to find people whose last name starts with a specific
letter.
3. The business cards displayed show employee contact information or allow access to
their public profile.
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8. ADMINISTRATION Access this page via the link in the navigation bar in the page header.
This page allows community managers to manage post categories, notification preferences, and
security.
Note: This link is only accessible to Community Managers.
MANAGE CONTENT CATEGORIES
1. You can change content categories available in the community. Each one can be
toggled on and off by selecting the or beside the category name.
2. Email Notifications can be toggled on and off in the same manner. It set to as
default. If you turn this on, all activity within the community generates an email for all
members.
SECURITY
Communities have 2 different security roles available to allow other users to assist with the
management of the Community.
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MANAGERS
The community manager is responsible for coordinating and facilitating the overall function of
the community. The focus is primarily on the quality, organization, and strategy of the
community as an efficient communication environment, and therefore their security privileges
permit them to:
• Set up various privileges and permissions
• Upload content, files, and multimedia
• Solve problems that are out of the scope of the moderator
• Monitor and support moderators, ensuring they are fulfilling their roles and
responsibilities
• Respond to escalations
• Assist with the promotion of the community
MODERATORS
Moderators play an equally important role, which is to guide the community and assist with its
adoption and overall health.
The role of a moderator is to act as a knowledge expert and encourage member contribution
within a community.
Moderators typically have additional security privileges to:
• Remove, move and lock as required
• Seed communities and upload content, files, and multimedia
• Monitor and support members by contributing to conversations and answering
questions that they may have
• Escalate issues to administrators
Note: The specific role and privileges of moderators are configurable based on the
needs of each organization.
MANAGING SECURITY
This panel allows community managers to manage security roles for specific members of the
community.
1. To add a member to a role, start by selecting the pencil icon.
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2. A list of existing role members appears. To add another, click the .
3. Search for the member by entering their name, or partial name, in the search field and
click search.
4. A list of names appears. Select the member/s, by clicking the .
5. Once the member/s are selected, click close.
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6. The member/s selected appears in the role member list. To save the changes, click the
.
7. If at any time you need to remove someone from a security role, click the beside
their name. Again, you would need to save changes.
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9. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Vibe HCM, delivers a personalized, interactive HRMS, talent management and employee
collaboration suite. Unlike typical HR systems, Vibe HCM is a dynamic hub of employee-focused
processes, communications, connections, and collaboration – driving efficiency while fostering
engagement. As its name implies, Vibe HCM delivers personalized, highly branded experiences
tailored to our customer’s culture and unique story.
Your employees will love Vibe's intuitive web-familiar design and its engaging social
communications capabilities. End-to-end process automation and embedded social capabilities
are redefining expectations for HR technology.
