Learn About and Create Channels

In this article, you can read about Channels, their use cases, and how to create and manage them.

What is a Channel?

A Channel is a social space where you can communicate and collaborate with others. This is done through posting, commenting, and liking as well as sharing and collaborating on documents.

What are the use cases for Channels?

The three main use cases are company news, collaboration, and social.

Company news

This use case is focused on top-down communication via the internal comms team or management. Setting up primary and secondary news channels allows you to ensure that relevant news for each employee is seen.

Collaboration

Collaboration Channels should be created by the employees and grow organically. They could be used for a specific project or as a place for a group of people to collaborate. These types of Channels will normally come from a specific need or problem. One good use case that we recommend is a Happeo implementation project Channel. This will allow you to collect questions and answers during the setup and transform the Channel into a Q&A Channel after launch.

Social

Social Channels should be aimed at driving social interaction within your business. They should be a combination of central and employee creation. These Channels can be both business-related and completely social. Use cases include office, department, social club, and recognition Channels.

How to create a Channel

The ability to create a Channel depends on whether the Happeo Admin has given permission through the Admin Settings. We recommend that Admins allow all users the ability to create Channels. You can find details on how to set those permissions in this article under "Permission management." 

To create a Channel, you will need to open the Channel Navigation. You can create a new Channel from there by clicking on the + icon on the top right.

To create a Channel, you only need to choose a name and give a Channel description (optional: tags).

Fine-tuning and managing Channels

After creating a Channel, you can fine-tune the Channel to personalize it and ensure that it fits your use case. You can set the following:

Channel color

The color will be displayed on the left of the Channel name within the Channels menu. This will allow you to color code Channels that are related.

Header image

The header image will be displayed at the top of the Channel. Please see the recommended image specifications.

Manage Channel members

Here, you can change sharing options for users and groups in the Channel.

Happeo tools

Activate Channel tools such as discussion, files, calendar, and your video calling provider.

1. Discussion: Enabling this option will allow you and Channel editors and members to create posts and articles 
2. Files: Connect an existing team drive or folder or a new folder to the Channel for users to collaborate on. Any files shared in the Channel will be saved to this folder
3. Calendar: Add an existing calendar to the Channel or create a new one based on the Channel Participants
4. Google Meet: Allow Channel members to invite each other into Google Meets directly from the Channel
5. Microsoft Teams: Allow Channel members to invite each other into Microsoft Teams directly from the Channel

Channel discoverability

1. Only invited users: By choosing this option, only users who have been invited to join the Channel can find the Channel within the Channel discovery
2. Anyone in my organization can ask to join: Visible in discovery, anyone can ask to join from the Channel discovery
3. Anyone in my organization can join: Visible in discovery, anyone can join automatically and also view the Channel contents without joining

Set posting and commenting restrictions

Here, you can adjust the level of participation by restricting commenting and posting.

1. Anyone can post and comment: All Channel members have the ability to create posts, articles, and comment on either of the two types of content
2. Anyone can post and comment, but posting an announcement is restricted to Channel editors: This option entails the same as above, however, announcement posts can only be made by Channel editors and the Channel owner
3. Anyone can comment, but posting is restricted to channel editors: All Channel members can comment on posts and articles, however, they are unable to create either posts or articles as this feature is only available to Channel editors and the Channel owner

Archiving a Channel

If you want to know how to archive a Channel, please see this article. 

Archiving a Channel will remove it from the Happeo user interface and can only be undone by a Happeo Admin. If you, an Admin, would like to unarchive a Channel, you can view this article for a step-by-step guide through the process.

Channel member roles

Owner

The user who has created the Channel (the Owner) has the ability to add users and user groups. The Owner also has the ability to assign editors.

The Owner gets an email notification when a user requests to join the Channel. The Owner can also assign user permissions and adjust additional settings such as:

• Basic settings (name, description, hashtags, etc.)
• Tools (discussion, files, calendar, etc.)
• Integrations (Slack, Google Chat, etc.)
• Discover (who has the ability to discover the Channel)
• Restrictions (posting and commenting restrictions)

The Owner can still post and comment when the Channel's posting and commenting restrictions are turned off.

Moreover, the Owner can create post drafts, collaborate with the Channel editors before posting, and post Announcements to the Channel. You can read more about Channels in our article or our document called Channel Owner Guide.

Note: Channel Owners can be changed by the Admin. The Admin can navigate to the:

1. Channel you wish to change the Owner of
2. (Skip if the user is already a Channel Member): Add the user you wish to make into the Channel Owner
3. Click the user's Channel permission (listed under their name)
   1. i.e. Editor or Participant
4. Select Owner

Editor

Editors are able to add users / groups, assign permissions, and set Channel settings.

When posting and commenting restrictions are turned on, the Editor can still post and comment. Editors also have the ability to create post drafts and collaborate with other Editors before posting and also post Announcement Posts to the Channel.

Participant

Participants can post and comment on the Channel as long as the posting and commenting restrictions are set appropriately. 

These restrictions can be altered by navigating to the:

1. Channel settings
2. Scroll down to Restrictions

The types of posting and commenting restrictions include:

• Anyone can post and comment
• Anyone can post and comment, but posting an announcement is restricted to channel editors
• Anyone can comment, but posting is restricted to channel editors
• Only channel editors can comment and post

Channel tools, adding members, and posting

Channel overview

The Channel page is made up of three sections:

1. Channel Feed
2. Channel Navigation
3. Channel Sidebar

Adding members

After adjusting the Channel settings to your liking, you can add Channel members if you wish. This can be done by selecting the people option next to the Channel settings in the Channel menu.

You can add either specific users or groups. When users or groups have been added, they will be notified that they have been added to the Channel, which will show in their Channel overview.

Related article: Access Permissions for Channel Folders, Files, and Calendars.

Customizing the Channel sidebar

The Channel Sidebar is visible to all Channel members and can be customized with different Channel widgets such as:

• Quick links – These links act as links for Channel members where they can link Happeo Pages, Drive, and external content
• Important files – Here, you can add easily accessible files from Google Drive, OneDrive, and SharePoint
• Upcoming events – This widget will show any upcoming events on the Channel calendar
• Drafts – Here, you can find all the draft Posts and Articles that you have created
• Notification settings – You can adjust the notification settings for a specific Channel here

Please see this article to learn more about how to customize the Channel sidebar.

Using the Channel Feed

In the Channel Feed, you can post, comment, like, share documents, and tag people.

FAQ: Upon the release of the new Channel experience (November 28th, 2023)

What if I don't see the new design?

You should be able to have the new Channels experience in your Happeo on the 28th of November around 9-11 pm CET / 3-5 am EST. If you don’t see the update after that time, please refresh the page or manually refresh the cache. In the highly unlikely event that you don’t see it until the end of the day, please contact your CSM.

Is anything going away?

Nothing is going away with the new Channels experience. There is, however, a change in the location of the Widget settings. While you can access Notifications settings in the sidebar, just like before, the Widget settings are now accessible from the Settings tab of the Channel menu. Channel owners and editors can toggle the widgets they’d like to be visible in the Channel sidebar. 

Will I need to make any changes to the size of my header?

While the header image in your Channels will stay the same, it is possible that after the new Channels experience is launched, the header image in some of your Channels will be slightly cropped either at the bottom or at the top. This might happen if your image has a significantly different aspect ratio from the header container. You can easily change that by cropping the image in any image editing tool and re-uploading it as the header image.

We recommend using images with an aspect ratio of 4:1 and dimensions 2,560 x 640 px. The minimum required image size is 1,142 x 285 px. You can also use Happeo’s built-in cropping tool while uploading the image to the header. This will work best when you need to resize the image or change its location within the container.

Troubleshooting

I’ve enabled Admin Mode, however, I cannot manage a Channel’s contents

As an Admin, it is not possible to manage a Channel’s contents if you are not a member of the Channel. The way you can manage a Channel’s contents is by accessing them from the Admin Settings and adding yourself as an Editor of the Channel.

1. Click on your avatar at the top right of the platform and select Admin Settings
2. Click Channels
3. Search for the Channel you wish to manage
4. Click the three dots next to the Channel
5. Click Manage Channel
6. Click the Members icon at the top-right corner of the page
7. Click Share to Users and Groups
8. Type in your name in the search bar and select your user profile
9. Click Share
10. Find your user profile from the list of Channel Members
11. Click on your Channel permissions label (by default, you will be a Participant) and change it to Editor

I’ve enabled Admin Mode, however, I am not able to manage the Channel Settings

As an Admin, it is not possible to manage Channels that are labeled as Only Invited Users and Anyone in my organization can ask to join. The way you can manage these Channels is by accessing them from the Admin Settings and adding yourself as an Editor of the Channel.

1. Click on your avatar at the top right of the platform and select Admin Settings
2. Click Channels
3. Search for the Channel you wish to manage
4. Click the three dots next to the Channel
5. Click Manage Channel
6. Click the Members icon at the top-right corner of the page
7. Click Share to Users and Groups
8. Type in your name in the search bar and select your user profile
9. Click Share
10. Find your user profile from the list of Channel Members
11. Click on your Channel permissions label (by default, you will be a Participant) and change it to Editor