Public or Private? Configure how your network should be accessed by your community.
On Honeycommb, you can launch two kinds of communities at the preference of the administrator. Both open and closed communities are easily turned on/off and the decision to launch either a closed or open network is not a long-term decision forced on the community owner. The differences between both networks are as follows:
Open Communities:
Open communities provide a simple onboarding experience for new users as there are no pending users in the signup workflow. Some of the callouts of an open community:
- All users will be approved on account creation
- If a user is banned, they will not have the ability to view content or users in your community
- Content for public networks IS crawled by Google SEO crawlers
- Content in open communities can be shared externally and viewed externally in a logged-out experience
Closed Communities:
In a closed community, users must be approved before they can have access to your network. If a user is not approved, they won't have access to view any of the items inside your community including content, users and groups.
- New users that are NOT pre-approved will exist in a pending state until approved by a community administrator
- Pre-approved users will have immediate access to your network upon account creation
- Content for private networks is NOT crawled by Google SEO crawlers
- Content in closed communities CAN be shared externally but users must be logged in to view the content
Switching from Closed ➡ Open in the Control Center:
To switch from open to closed, or vice versa, go to your community details page and click "edit." From here, navigate down to the OPEN section of your community details and you'll see the option to open OR close your network:
[ABOVE] In this case, your community is CLOSED as the "open" box is unchecked
[ABOVE] In this case, your community is OPEN as the "open" box is checked