You can control your group's privacy settings from your group’s Admin settings. Privacy is set on a per-group basis. In other words, you can set your main church group to one setting and each subgroup to a different setting. Privacy settings are controlled on two levels:
- Group privacy controls who can see your group and its public content on Faithlife.com.
- Content privacy permissions control what content is visible to the public, followers, or members who can see your group.
Note: Learn about adjusting your group settings or your personal Faithlife account's privacy.
Adjust Your Group’s Privacy on Faithlife.com
The first level of privacy control allows you to set who can view, follow, and join your group on Faithlife.com. This setting determines how visible your group (and its publicly-shared content) is on Faithlife.com.
1. Open your group settings.
Log in to Faithlife.com and select your group from the left-hand sidebar. Scroll down to the left-hand Admin panel, expand Settings, and click Group Settings.
2. Adjust your group’s privacy.
Your selection here controls how visible your group is on Faithlife.com. In Faithlife terminology, a follower is anyone with a Faithlife account that has read-only access to your group while a member is someone you accept into the group.
Public Privacy Level
- Anyone can find and follow your group. Only those you invite can become members.
- Only content privacy level permissions within your group that are set to Public or Followers will be visible to those who haven’t joined your group. Setting content privacy level permissions is covered below.
- Even if your group is to the public privacy level, you can set individual content to display for members-only.
Note: This is often the best setting for a church, as it allows people to find you online. If you’re concerned about the public viewing your content within your group, anyone who posts to your site can restrict who can view their post by setting the “To: members” only.
Private Privacy Level
- People can find your group on Faithlife.com.
- No one can join or follow your group without your permission. You can set whether or not people can request to join your group (select one of the sub-options to set your preference).
- If any content privacy level is set to Public (shown below), that content will still be visible to anyone who views your group whether or not they are a member.
Secret Privacy Level
- The group is invisible to those not currently members or invited.
- All privacy level permissions set within the group (shown below) are limited to Member and higher.
- In other words, no one outside your group will be able to view your group or any of its content.
Adjust Content Privacy Level within Your Group
You can set specific privacy permissions for content types within your group. Your group privacy level will influence the possible privacy level adjustments here.
1. Open your group’s Features & Permissions.
Log in to Faithlife.com and select your group from the left-hand sidebar. Scroll down to the left-hand Admin panel, expand Settings, and click Group Features & Permissions.
2. Adjust permission levels.
Change the permission levels for any setting by moving its slider to your desired level. Your changes save automatically.
- Admins: complete control over all group settings and actions
- Mods: maintain and manage the group
- Members: regular members of the group
- Followers: those with a Faithlife account who can read group posts for followers or public without becoming members
- Public: anyone online with a link to your content
Certain actions are restricted so you cannot inadvertently extend this privilege too far. Others are more flexible and will require your active adjustment.
Note: To change a person’s role in you group, navigate to the Group Members menu option in the left-hand sidebar. Learn more about changing members' roles.
Activity Feed
Control who can see and interact with your activity feed. Posts in your group default to these settings, though users can further limit who can see their individual posts. Learn more about posting to your group feed.
Members
Learn how to invite people to your group.
Group Chat
Set who can send group-wide messages (learn more about Faithlife Messages).
Content
Set permissions for group files and bulletins.
Note: Setting "View files in the group" to "Public" means anyone on the internet can access your entire file vault. Remember, this is the master setting for your group. You can always set an individual file to "Public" or create a share link directly from your files. If you have a Faithlife Site or want a file, video, or image to show to the public, however, that media’s Can View file permission must be set to Public.
Bible Study
Learn more about reading plans or prayer lists.
Note: Created reading plans are available to Followers of your group.