Communities are an easy way to connect teachers, students and/or parents outside the classroom. They can be used for:
Coordinating students who are working on a group project.
Parents who would like to communicate with each other.
Staff members to share experiences & class content.
Planning your next field trip.
Sharing important announcements.
With Communities, everyone can stay informed. Parent volunteers are always in the loop and teachers can share permission forms with everyone quickly and easily. Students can easily be accounted for during roll call just by viewing the community members list. You can even pin posts in communities so that important announcements don't get missed!
Create a Community
To create a community:
Tap on the Community tab (chat bubbles icon).
Tap the (+) icon.
Select New Community.
Select a name for your community, adjust the community settings (listed in detail below) and tap Save.
Community Settings
Name:
Type the name of your community here. There are no character restrictions so be as creative as you want!
About:
Write a brief description of the communities’s purpose here and it’ll show up in the Community Info.
Code:
This is the code to be used by others to join. Tap the refresh arrow to generate a new code.
Registration:
Open - Members can join with the community code and have access to the community right away.
By Approval - Members can join and will get a message saying "Waiting to Join Community" The community owner will need to approve the join.
Closed - No new members can join the community.
💡 By default, a New Community registration setting will be set to 'open.' After two weeks, the community will automatically change to 'join by approval.' This helps keep your community secure.
Announcements Only
When toggled on, community owners only will be able to post comments and other participants will only be able to view the community.
Parents can Join
Allow parents to join your community or not.
Students can Join
Allow students to join your community or not.
Archiving, Restoring and Communities
Community owners can archive and/or delete a community. In doing so, the community becomes hidden for all members and only owners can unarchive the community afterwards.
Archiving a Community
To hide or archive a community from your list of communities:
Navigate to your communities list in Showbie
Tap the Menu Icon in the top left corner, and tap Communities.
Select the chosen community from within the communities list.
Tap the Settings Icon (...) in the top right corner and select Community Info.
Tap the Community Settings option.
Tap Archive Community.
💡You can swipe left on the community for a quicker way to archive communities!
Restoring (unarchiving) a Community
To restore (unarchive) a community:
Navigate to your communities list in Showbie
Tap the Menu Icon in the top left corner, and tap Communities.
Tap the plus icon (+) at the top of the communities list.
Toggle Show Archived Communities to on (green).
Scroll down on the communities list and select the archived community you’d like to restore. This will open the Community Settings menu.
Scroll down on the Community Settings menu and tap Restore Community.
💡You can also swipe on an archived community to unarchive it.
Deleting a Community
Communities can only be deleted by the owner if they are the only owner of the community. Communities need to be archived before they can be deleted.
Navigate to your archived communities list.
Tap the Menu Icon in the top left corner, and tap Communities.
Tap the plus icon (+) at the top of the communities list.
Toggle Show Archived Communities to on (green).
Scroll down on the communities list and select the archived community you’d like to delete. This will open the Community Settings menu.
Scroll down on the Community Settings menu and tap Delete Community.
🚨 Deleting a community is permanent for all members of the community. This action cannot be undone, and deleted communities cannot be restored.
Changing Community Settings
To change the community settings after the community has been made:
Navigate to your communities list in Showbie
Tap the Menu Icon in the top left corner, and tap Communities.
Select the chosen community from within the communities list.
Tap the Settings Icon (...) in the top right corner and select Community Info.
Tap the Community Settings option.
Community Notifications
We’ve added more notification settings to help you stay on top of things in Showbie! For example, you can now choose to turn off all notifications from communities except specific communities.
Learn how to adjust account-wide notification preferences and preferences for specific communities in the following support article: Notification Settings in Showbie.
Joining a Community
To join an existing community, you will need the community code from the community owner.
Joining via Community Code
Once you have the community code, navigate to your communities list in Showbie.
Tap the Menu Icon in the top left corner, and tap Communities.
Tap the plus (+) icon at the top of the communities list.
Tap Join a Community.
Type in your community code and tap Join.
If you see the message, "Waiting to Join Community" this means that the community owner needs to approve to join first. They will have received a push or email notification letting them know you've requested to join. As soon as they approve your request, you'll be able to see all the messages in the community. Learn more here.
💡 Don’t have a community code? Please get in touch with the community owner, and they can give the code to you.
Managing Group Members
You can manage group members by granting/revoking ownership to other teachers or blocking/unblocking members. Members can also leave a community on their own.
Leaving a Community
Select your own name in the group members list and to get the option to leave the group. You’ll be able to rejoin via group code/invitation. If you’re a community owner, you can only leave the community if there is another owner. Non-owners can leave a community anytime.
To leave a community:
Navigate to your communities list in Showbie
Tap the Menu Icon in the top left corner, and tap Communities.
Select the chosen community from within the communities list.
Tap the Settings Icon (...) in the top right corner and select Community Info.
Select the Community Members option, and select your name.
Tap Leave Community.
If you are the only owner of community in Showbie, you will need to grant ownership to another teacher before you are able to leave the group.
Grant, Resign, or Revoke Ownership of a Community
To grant ownership to another member of your Showbie community:
Navigate to the community in Showbie.
Tap the Settings Icon (...) in the top right corner and select Community Info.
Select the Community Members option, and select the member's name.
Select Grant Ownership.
Once you have granted ownership to another member, you can optionally resign ownership by selecting your own name from the community's member list and then tapping Resign Ownership.
Community owners can also revoke ownership from other members by selecting that member's name in the members list and tapping Revoke Ownership.
There can be multiple owners of a group and only teachers can be granted ownership. Owners can manage group settings and members, and annotate any PDFs and images in the group.
Blocking Members from a Community
Community owners can block community members to prevent those members from viewing or posting to the community:
Navigate to the community in Showbie.
Tap the Settings Icon (...) in the top right corner and select Community Info.
Select the Community Members option, and select the member's name.
Select Block from Community.
Community members can be unblocked by following the same steps as above and selecting Unblock from Community.
Blocked members will be hidden in the group members list and will be unable to rejoin the group unless unblocked.
🚨 If blocked members try to join the group again by code, they’ll receive a "This isn't a valid group code" error message.