1. technology and computing
2. software
3. databases

Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between
establishment sites
The ability to copy Glow Groups between establishments site can be valuable. You
may wish to use this process to:

Share examples of good practice
The content of a Glow Group can be copied, as well as the structure. So, a
local authority wishing to publicise examples of good practice, might choose
to copy a Glow Group from a school site and replicate it on the authority site.

Move a school Glow Group to the authority site in order to give users
line-of-sight
For example, a school may have created a Glow Group for use within the
school community only. The original intention of the Glow Group may then
have developed into a collaborative project involving a number of other
schools in the authority. With the Glow Group located on the school site, only
members of that school can have direct line-of-sight to it and therefore see it
listed in their ‘My Glow Groups’ list and receive targeted news from it.
Members in other schools will need to be sent the link to the Group in order
to access it. Copying the Glow Group and replicating it on the authority site
would allow all users to have equal access to it, including receiving targeted
news.
Important note: Copying and replicating Glow Groups bypasses the standard
‘Glow’ method of creating a Glow Group, instead the process described in this
document uses the Sharepoint functions which underlie Glow. This means that
there are a number of limitations to the process, which you should take into
account whenever copying a Glow Group. A summary of these limitations is given
below and further detail is given on page 5 of this document.

In a replicated Glow Group, the ‘Contributor’ level of permissions gives a
higher degree of rights than normal. This can be modified, if required.

The ‘Reader with Discussions’ level of permissions is not available by default
in the replicated Glow Group. It can however be added, if required.

The amount of content (for example, documents and images) that can be
copied and replicated is limited to 10MB.

Sub-groups are not copied.
Author: Glow Team
Page 1 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites

Content within the original Glow Group, such as postings on a discussion
board, will display the SCA’s name when copied to a new Glow Group.

Graphics held within ‘Image’ web parts may need to be restored in the
replicated Glow Group.

The process of copying and replicating a Glow Group has been tested as fully
as possible. However, it is possible that you may find other limitations to the
process. If you do, please let us know so that this document can be amended
for other users’ information.

This process has not yet been tested for Learning Spaces (ie. Glow Groups
which link to Glow Learn).
Copying and replicating a Glow Group between establishment sites
The process of copying and replicating a Glow Group is split into four stages:

Saving an existing Glow Group as a template

Exporting the template

Importing the template on a different establishment site

Creating a new Glow Group from the template
Note: in order to start this process you must be logged on as the Site Collection
Administrator (SCA) for the establishment from which a Glow Group is to be
saved as a template. Importing the template into a second establishment has to
be done by the SCA of that establishment.
Saving an existing Glow Group as a template
Note that in order to carry out this process, you must be logged on to Glow as the
Site Collection Administrator for the establishment.
1.
Log on to Glow and navigate to the Noticeboard page of the Glow Group that
you want to replicate. Ensure that you are happy with the layout of pages,
web parts and any content.
2.
Click on Advanced Settings then on Site Settings.
3.
In the Administration section, select Go to Site Administration.
4.
In the Management and Statistics section, click on Save site as template.
To ensure that you are indeed copying the correct Glow Group, check that the
name displayed at the top of the screen is that of the Glow Group you wish to
Author: Glow Team
Page 2 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
replicate. (If it’s not, for example if the name of the establishment is
displayed, click on Back to Noticeboard in the top left corner of the screen
and start again at step 1.)
5.
Give the template a name, title and description.
6.
Tick the Include Content box and then click OK.
7.
On the ‘Operation Completed Successfully’ screen, click OK.
8.
Click on Back to Noticeboard in the top left corner of the screen. The
template is stored in the template gallery and can now be exported for use on
other sites.
Exporting the template
Having created the Glow Group template, you are now ready to export it to a
location outside Glow. You must be logged on as the SCA for the establishment
where the template has been created in order to carry out this process.
1.
Navigate to the Noticeboard page of the establishment site.
2.
Click on Advanced Settings then on Site Settings.
3.
In the Administration section, click on Go to Site Administration. Ensure
that the name of your establishment is displayed the top of the screen. If it is
not, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on Go to Top-Level
Site Administration.
4.
In the Site Collection Galleries section, click on Manage site template
gallery.
5.
Click on the name of the template you saved previously.
6.
A dialogue box will open. Click Save.
7.
Choose a suitable location to save the template and then click Save.
8.
If a dialogue box appears to tell you the process is complete, click Close. The
template has now been exported.
Importing the template
To do this, you must be logged on as the SCA for the establishment that the Glow
Group template is to be imported into.
1.
Navigate to the Noticeboard page of the establishment site into which the
template is to be imported.
2.
Click on Advanced Settings then on Site Settings.
Author: Glow Team
Page 3 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
3.
In the Administration section, click Go to Site Administration.
4.
In the Site Collection Galleries section, click on Manage site template
gallery.
5.
Click on Upload Template and then browse to where the template was
exported (in step 7 above). Click Open.
6.
Click Save and Close to import the template.
7.
Click on Back to Noticeboard in the top left hand corner. The template is
stored in the template gallery and can now be used to create new Glow
Groups.
Creating a new Glow Group from the template
Before you continue, consider where you want your new Glow Group to be
created. This will either be as a top-level Glow Group on the establishment site or
as a sub-group of an existing Glow Group.
1.
If you want the new Glow Group to be a top-level Group, navigate to the
Noticeboard page of the establishment site.
If you want it to be a sub-group of an existing Glow Group, then on the
establishment site click on the Glow groups tab and open the appropriate
Glow Group. Ensure that you are on the Noticeboard page of this Glow Group.
2.
Click on Advanced Settings then on Site Settings.
3.
In the Administration section, choose Manage sites and workspaces.
Check the name shown at the top of the screen. If this shows the name of
your establishment site, then your Glow Group will be created as a top-level
Group. If the name of a Glow Group is displayed, then your new Group will be
created as a sub-group of it. Make sure this is what you intended, before
continuing!
4.
At the top of the page, click on Create.
5.
You are about to create a new Glow Group, based on the template that you
have uploaded. Give the new Glow Group a title and description. These can
be the same as used on the original site or can be different, if you prefer.
6.
In the Web Site Address section, enter the name of your new Glow Group at
the end of the URL, but this time don’t put spaces between words. For
example, if in step 5 you called the Group Weather and Climate enter the
name here as WeatherandClimate.
Author: Glow Team
Page 4 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
7.
In the Permissions section select Use unique permissions. This enables you
to select the members of the new Glow Group and assign appropriate rights.
8.
Click Create at the bottom of the screen.
9.
In the ‘Template Selection’ screen scroll down the list of templates and select
the template you imported. Click OK.
10. The replicated Glow Group will open but with no page tabs displayed. To put
this right, click on Advanced Settings, choose Add, Edit or Remove
pages and then simply click on Back to Noticeboard in the top left corner
of the screen. (You don’t need to do anything on the ‘Add, Edit or Remove’
pages screen).
11. The replicated Glow Group currently has no filter policy set. Click Advanced
Settings and then Change Content Policy. From the drop-down menu,
select the appropriate filter policy and then click Save.
12. The Glow Group has now been successfully replicated, but currently has no
members. Please read the information in the next section ‘Group Membership
Permissions’ before setting the membership of the new Glow Group.
Limitations of the copying process
Group Membership Permissions
The membership of the Glow Group you have replicated is not copied. Once a new
Glow Group has been created, its membership and permissions need to be set.
Using a template to produce a Glow Group differs from the way in which a Glow
Group is normally created. This has an effect on the way access rights behave
and it is essential to take the following differences into account:

‘Reader with Discussions’ rights
In a Glow Group created from a template, the ‘Reader with Discussions’ right
is not available by default.

‘Contributor’ rights
Normally, Contributor rights enable users to add news and what’s on events,
upload documents, and modify their own view of pages within a Glow Group.
Author: Glow Team
Page 5 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
However, in a Glow Group created from a template, the Contributor
permission additionally allows users to modify the shared view of all pages,
other than the Noticeboard. This means that users could re-design the pages,
by closing web parts or adding new web parts, affecting the view seen by all
users of the Glow Group.
It is fairly straightforward, however, to customise the permissions to meet your
requirements for the Glow Group. The steps below explain how to create the
‘Reader with Discussions’ permission (or ‘site group’ in Sharepoint terminology)
and how to modify the existing ‘Contributor’ site group.
Creating a ‘Reader with Discussions’ site group
1.
Navigate to the Noticeboard page of the Glow Group, click Advanced
Settings then Site Settings.
2.
Click on Go to Site Administration then Manage site groups.
3.
Click Add a Site Group. In the ‘Site group name’ box type in Reader with
Discussions.
4.
In the List Rights section, select the checkbox for View Items and in the Site
Rights section, select View Pages.
5.
Click Create Site Group at the bottom of the screen.
6.
Click Back to Noticeboard.
7.
Click on the Discussions link in the title bar of the web part.
8.
Click Modify settings and columns then Change permissions for this
discussion board.
9.
Select Reader with Discussions then select View, insert, edit, delete
items. Click OK.
10. Click on Modify item-level security. In the ‘Item-level Permissions’ section
check that Read access is set to ‘All Items’ and Edit access is set to ‘Only
their own’. Click OK.
11. Repeat steps 7-10 for any other discussions web parts contained in the Glow
Group.
12. The ‘Reader with Discussions’ permission can now be used as normal when
setting the membership rights of the Glow Group.
Author: Glow Team
Page 6 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
Modifying the ‘Contributor’ site group
This situation with the Contributor site group is different from that described
previously with the ‘Reader with Discussions’ site group.
Where the latter site group was not present at all and needed to be created, the
Contributor site group does exist as a default site group for the replicated Glow
Group, but gives additional (and perhaps unwanted) permissions. This occurs
because the process of replicating a Glow Group uses Sharepoint procedures,
rather than the usual Glow functions. The steps below explain how to modify the
permissions of the site group to replicate the usual Glow permissions.
1.
Navigate to the Noticeboard page of the Glow Group, click Advanced
Settings then Site Settings.
2.
Click on Go to Site Administration then Manage site groups.
3.
Click on Contributor and then on Edit Site Group Permissions.
4.
A number of checkboxes will be selected by default. In the List Rights section
deselect the box for Edit Items. This is the option which gives more
permissions than would be normal for Contributor rights on a Glow Group.
5.
Click Submit at the bottom of the screen.
6.
Click Back to Noticeboard.
This has amended the overall rights of Contributor across all web parts in the
Glow Group. Any user given Contributor rights would be able to add and delete
items from web parts, and modify their own view of the Glow Group pages.
However, they cannot currently edit anything in the Glow Group. If you want
Contributors to have this right, you now need to change permissions on individual
web parts.
7.
Click on the link in the title bar of the web part, for which you wish to change
the permissions (e.g. the News web part).
8.
Click Modify settings and columns then Change permissions for this
list.
9.
Click on Contributor.
10. Checkboxes will already be selected for the ‘View List Items’, ‘Add List Items’
and ‘Delete List Items’ options. Add the checkbox for Edit List Items. Click
OK.
11. Click on Back to Noticeboard.
Author: Glow Team
Page 7 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
12. Repeat steps 7-11 for other list web parts, such as What’s on, Web links and
Discussions. Ensure that you include any additional list web parts that have
been created, such as a new Web links web part or a survey. Note that the
Documents web part offers slightly different options and will already be set to
allow Contributors to edit.
13. The modified Contributor site group can now be used as normal when setting
the membership rights of the Glow Group.
Other limitations of the copying process
Glow Group Content

If the original Glow Group (used to create the template) contained content,
such as postings on a discussion board or news items, these will be copied to
the new Glow Group but will display the name of the SCA, not the name of
the original contributor.

If the Glow Group used to create a template contains sub-groups, these will
not be copied.

It is recommended that Glow Meet and Glow Chat web parts are removed
from a Glow Group before it is copied and exported for use on other sites. If
these web parts are included when the template is created, then it will be
necessary on the replicated Glow Group to remove the web parts, add them
afresh from the Virtual Server Gallery and configure them in the usual way.

If the original Glow Group contained a graphic in an ‘Image’ web part, it may
not be displayed correctly in the new Group. If this is the case:
1. Click Advanced Settings then Existing Documents and Lists.
2. Select the Picture Library; this contains all the images used in the Glow
Group.
3. A file can be saved from here and uploaded to the individual ‘Image’ web
part again, if required.

Any content contained in the Glow Group, such as images, documents and
discussions, is copied as part of the template. The maximum size of template
that can be created is 10 MB. To check the size of the Glow Group’s content:
1. Go to the establishment site, click Advanced Settings then Site
Settings.
Author: Glow Team
Page 8 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
2. Click on Go to Site Administration then View storage space
allocation. The size of document and picture libraries is displayed. Look
at the URLs to check which are relevant to the specific Glow Group.

Saving templates uses part of a site’s storage allocation. It is recommended
that templates are deleted when they are no longer needed. To check the
storage allocation:
1. Go to the establishment site, click Advanced Settings then Site
Settings.
2. Click on Go to Site Administration then View storage space
allocation. Total usage is displayed at the top of the screen.
3. To delete templates, go to the establishment site, click Advanced
Settings then Site Settings. Click Go to Site Administration then
Manage site template gallery. Click on the edit icon next to the
template you wish to delete.
And finally…
Once you have replicated your Glow Group, consider whether it is necessary to
keep the original. If your aim was to move the Glow Group not duplicate it, it can
now be deleted. Ensure that you are happy with how the replicated Glow Group
looks and works, before the original is deleted.
Note: You must be logged on as the SCA for the establishment where the original
Glow Group is sited in order to carry out this process.
1.
Navigate to the Noticeboard page of the Glow Group you want to delete.
2.
Click Advanced Settings.
3.
Click Site Settings.
4.
In the Administration section click Go to Site Administration.
5.
In the Management and Statistics section click Delete this site.
6.
The name of the Glow Group is displayed both at the top of the screen and as
the last section of the URL. Check both of these to ensure that you are
deleting the correct Glow Group, then click Delete.
7.
Click on the link to return to the Staff home page.
Author: Glow Team
Page 9 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1
Helpsheet: How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites
Further information:
You may also be interested in reading ‘Helpsheet - how to copy Glow Groups
within an establishment site – GC460’.
Author: Glow Team
Page 10 of 10
Ref: GC461_v1.1