Topics Map > Settings Tab

KB User's Guide - Settings Tab - Managing Group Relationships

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You must have full administrative permissions in your space to perform these steps. This means access to the Documents, Settings, and Users tabs.

The Group Relations link allows KB group administrators to manage key relationships with other KB spaces. This includes automated sharing with the Unified KB, sharing with individual spaces, inheriting internal KB access, and trusting activation for shared documents.

Navigation

The Group Relationships page can be accessed in the KB Admin Tools under the Settings tab > Group Relations link.

The image below shows the Group Relationships screen for the Knowledgebase User's Guide group space.

Group Relationship screenshot highlight relationships for the Knowledgebase User's Guide

Types of Relationships

There are three types of relationship—sharing documents, sharing internal KB access, and trusting activation.

Sharing Documents

Sharing relationships includes the automated sharing of external documents with the Unified KB, as well as the sharing of individual documents with one or more other group spaces.

Unified KB Sharing

In order to make your group's external documents indexed in the Unified KB, you can establish an automated sharing relationship. An institution's Unified site is an aggregate site in which KB subsites allow their external content to be seen.

The image below shows the UW-Madison Unified KB Site. To see which UW KB sites have chosen to share their external documents with UW Unified, click on the Knowledge Base Partners link in the upper right section of the page.

Screenshot identifying the Knowledgebase Partners link in the upper right section of the UW-Madison Unified KB site

Individual Sharing

This page can also be used to establish a sharing relationship with another group space. When you do so, the external and internal sites of the selected KB space will appear under the SiteAccess section of the document edit screen for your group space. You are then able to check the boxes for these sites in order to share the documents out.

The image below shows the SiteAccess field in the KB Admin Tools. This image indicates that this document has been shared with two other KB sites (i.e., they will be able to view this document from their own KB site). This Admin also has the option to share this document with 9 other KB sites, but has not shared this particular document with them.

Screenshot displaying the numerous sites available to share a document out to

Enabling a Sharing Relationship

  1. On the Group Relationships page, find the group you wish to share with.

    • Note: The Unified KB (if one exists for your institution) will be first group listed, and the name will be in bold.
  2. Check the box in the green Share Docs column, then click Update.

  3. The following changes will take effect:

    • For individual group sharing, the next time you open the document edit screen, you will see the site(s) of the group(s) you selected under the SiteAccess section of the page.

    • For Unified KB sharing, all of your currently published external documents will immediately be available in the Unified KB of your institution.

Sharing Internal KB Access

In some cases, your KB space may have a close affiliation with another. It may then make sense to allow the internal users of the other site to automatically have access to your internal site, without having to add them to your users list separately.

Note: You will not know which exact users gain access to your internal site via this setting, as they will not appear under the Users tab for your space. It is recommended that you only use this setting if you are also an admin for the other group space, or if you are in regular contact with the group admin(s).

  1. On the Group Relationships page, find the group you wish to provision internal site access to.

  2. Check the box in the blue Share iKB column, then click Update.

  3. All users who currently have internal KB access in the group space you selected will now be able to log into your internal KB.

Trust Relationships

Normally, when the owning group of a document activates it for the first time after sharing it out to another group space, it will be set to In Review for the non-owning group. The non-owning group then has the opportunity to review it separately and verify that it is appropriate for their site(s) before activating. All subsequent updates will be activated automatically, with the exception of "major" changes, which trigger the review process again.

When the "Trust Activation" setting is used, the non-owning group is agreeing to bypass this review process. This means that any document that is shared with them and activated by a trusted group is automatically activated for their site. This applies an initial share as well as major changes.

Trust Activation

To trust the activation of documents shared with you by another group space:

  1. On the Group Relationships page, find the group you wish to trust.

  2. Check the box in the red Trust Activation column, then click Update.

  3. All future documents that are shared with you by that group will be automatically activated when the owning group activates them.

Trusted By

The "Trusted By" column will display a Yes for groups that are currently trusting the activation of docs your group space shares with them.



Keywords:
site preferences share sharing trust activation skipping reviewing step process grant automated automatic internal access knowledgebase unified indexing make documents available listed kb.wisc.edu another space sites siteaccess
Doc ID:
5797
Owned by:
Leah S. in KB User's Guide
Created:
2007-04-22
Updated:
2023-06-01
Sites:
KB User's Guide