Follow this tutorial to learn the differences between Space Groups and Spaces within Circle, and how to start setting up the areas where your community will connect with one another.

Within Circle, there are Space Groups and Spaces. Think of a Space Group as a category or a way of unifying your Spaces. For example, you might have a Community Space Group that has Spaces within it such as Introductions, Community Guidelines, Events & Announcements and so on.

You can either create a new Space Group, or you can edit the one that already exists when you create your Circle community for the first time. To edit an existing Space Group, click on the three dots next to the Space Group title. If we were creating a new Space Group here, the custom URL slug would mimic the name, but since we are editing an existing one, we need to update the URL slug.

Next, move on to the Visibility settings. If we toggle 'Hide from non-space members’ on, then only people who are members of spaces within this group will see this. Likewise, if we toggle ‘Only show joined spaces in the sidebar’ on, then members will only see spaces within this group that they have chosen to join. Members can click on this Space Group to see all of the Spaces to join, but they won’t see every Space in the side bar.

Next, under Permissions, you can allow members to create Spaces.

Under Members you can toggle on, ‘Automatically add members to new spaces within group’. This is ideal if you are creating a Space Group that will have Spaces you want every member to be a part of. Lastly, you can enable members to be added to every space within a group by just joining one Space.

To add a new Space within this Space Group, click the + icon next to the Space Group.

Similarly to Space Groups, you can set visibility at the Space level. You can hide spaces from logged out visitors, hide the Space topics from the homepage, if you’ve enabled it, and you can make the Space private. When you toggle, ‘Make this a private space,’ you have the option to hide it completely from non-members. Otherwise, you have it visible, but with a lock that has a custom locked page.

Under Members, you can invite or add members, but if you have a large list of people to invite or add, we'd recommend watching the tutorial on inviting and adding members where we dive deeper into this. You can also ensure that members are added to this Space by default if they are a member of the Space Group by toggling ‘Add members from space group’ on.

Under Layout, you can choose whether you want your topics to look like posts, lists (which is more condensed) or a card view.

If you click the little arrow next to Default Settings, you have a whole range of settings depending on the nature of your space.

Finally, under Default member notifications, you can set the default email and app notification setting for new topics.

To create an entirely new Space Group, instead of clicking the + icon next to the title of your existing Space Group title, hover under the title and a new + will appear — click this.

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