Joining communities

Join a community that is devoted to a subject that you are interested in and start participating.

Before you begin

To find a community that you want to join, browse all the public communities in the organization in the My Organization Communities view. Or you can search for a community that is devoted to a particular subject. You can also use suggestions from the Recommendations app to find communities that might interest you. You must be logged in to join a community or to request to join a community.

Note: You can join public communities by clicking a link, but you must request to join moderated communities. Restricted communities are private and they do not display in the My Organization Communities view. You can join this type of community when a community owner adds you as a member or invites you to join.
Tip: Community owners might modify their restricted communities so that the community's name, description, tags, and owners appear in the My Organization Communities view. These communities (known as "restricted but listed communities") can also appear in search results. You can apply to community owners to join these communities.
Tip: If you are a member of a restricted community and you want to include a colleague in that community, ask a community owner to invite your colleague to join. To identify community owners, click Members in the navigation and then select Owners in the Filter by field.

Procedure

To join a community, complete the following steps.
  1. Select Communities > My Organization Communities and select the community that you want to join.
  2. Depending on the level of access that the community has, do one of the following actions:
    • To join public communities, open the community and click Join this Community.
      Note: If the community is a public subcommunity, and you are not already a member of the parent community, you automatically join the parent community when you click Join this Community.
    • To join moderated communities, open the community and click Request to Join this Community. Type your reason for wanting to join the community and click Send. Your request is sent to the community owner, who can then decide whether to add you to the community. If they add you as a member, you receive an email notification to that effect.
    • If you click a listed restricted community in the My Organization Communities, a form displays. Use the form to request membership from the community's owners. Give an explanation of why they want to join the community and click Send. An email is sent to the community owners who can decide whether to add you to the community.

Results

When you join a public community, the community is immediately added to the list of your communities in the I’m a Member view. When you request to join a moderated or restricted but listed community, the community does not display in the I’m a Member view until your membership is approved by the community owner.