Here at Oregon State University, our Colleges and Administrative Divisions tend to have some sort of structure, whether it's an organizational structure (such as a college) or one that is more topical (such as a service based units).

Currently, Organic Groups does not offer the ability to nest groups in a hierarchy, so to achieve the grouping that our organizations usually expect, we had to build in a couple of extra processes.

When creating your group structure for your site, if you have several groups that are collected within something like a school or administrative department, a Parent Unit must first be created. Parent Unit is the default label for this content type, but the label can (and may probably) be customized so that it's more intuitive for your users.  For example, the Parent Unit content type may be labeled School for a college or Service Category for an administrative unit.

To create a Parent Unit, just do the following:

  1. Go to Admin menu > Content > Add content > Parent Unit (look for School or Service Category)
  2. Title field = this is the name of the School (such as School of Arts and Communication) or the Service Category (such as Accounts and Technical Support)
  3. Body field = replace any default text with the overview information about this parent unit
  4. Click the Save button

Your parent unit has just been established.  Chances are your organization may have more than one parent unit.  Repeat this process for any additional ones that are required.

Please note that not all organizations will have a hierarchy and will not need a Parent Unit as a result.  The system will still work if a Parent isn't added.