Verint Group Overview

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Two Community Platforms

APAN uses two platforms.  Communities are created based off requirements group owners and teams may have. 

• Verint Groups
• SharePoint Sites

What is a Verint Group?

Verint Groups are virtual spaces created for a specific organization, team or topic where members may collaborate and share information with each other. All Groups are made up of Group Owners and Members.

Within a Group, you may use various applications such as blogs, forums, wikis, media galleries, and calendars with event registration. 

Groups are Verint based.

What is a SharePoint Site?

SharePoint Sites are virtual spaces created for a specific organization, team or topic, where members may collaborate and share information with each other.  All Sites are made up of Site Owners and Members.

It is recommended to use APAN Sites if you would like to create a more formalized information-sharing environment with robust options for content management, or if you need to utilize custom lists with predefined data fields.

Sites are SharePoint based.

How do I create a Community of Interest (COI)?

How do I create a Group?

Once you have decided that an APAN Community is the right tool for your collaboration, follow this process to get started:

1. Submit a Support Ticket ( https://www.apan.org/APAN/pages/servicenow ) The APAN staff will review your request and send you an email with a link to the APAN Community Requirements Form. 
2. Complete and Submit the Community Requirements Form  APAN requires one form for each community requested.  Include as much information as possible.  Once the APAN staff receives your requirements form, they will contact you to further discuss your information sharing & collaboration objectives.
3. Get Approval  Once your requirements are fully captured and understood, the request is sent to APAN Application Service Provider(ASP) for review and approval. Requested Communities usually need to meet the following criteria for approval:
   1. Have a need to share unclassified information between the DOD and non-DOD entities (Non-Governmental Organizations, International Organizations, Foreign Nationals, other government agencies)
   2. Community participants who do not have access to the traditional DOD networks
   3. Originate from a U.S. DOD entity or have a U.S. DOD sponsor
4. Community Owner Information Assurance Training and Agreement Form  A short training document will be sent to all new community owners that covers Information Assurance issues applicable to APAN.  All new community owners are required to review this training document and sign the accompanying Agreement Form.  The signed form must be returned to the APAN staff before you can be granted control of your community.
5. Customize the Community If your community is approved, an APAN staff member will build the basic shell of your group and contact you when it is ready.  They will send you an email with the URL of your new community and some online resources for community owners. From there, it is the community owner’s responsibility to:
   1. Customize the layout and brand the community
   2. Provide and monitor community content
   3. Manage the community’s membership
6. Attend Training The APAN staff provides live online training weekly for community owners.  There are also other community resources to assist users and owners with using APAN including the APAN Knowledge Base, Community Owner’s blog, and the Ask APAN Forum. https://community.apan.org/support/default.aspx

Group Types

Within Verint Groups, there are a couple of different types of groups.

1. 1. Joinless - All content is visible to anyone via the Internet without requiring an APAN account. Membership is not tracked. Group permissions are managed using site-level roles. Joinless groups are managed by Owners. By definition, joinless groups do not have "members"; only owners who manage content.
   2. Public (Open membership) - Anyone with an APAN account can join this group as a member without an approval process AND all content is visible publicly via the Internet without requiring anyone to log in. Community users can also see group members and activity. Additional group information is visible in the sidebar.
      1. NOTE: IT IS NOT AN APAN BEST PRACTICE TO USE THIS COMMUNITY. IF YOU SELECT TO CHANGE YOUR GROUP TYPE TO PUBLIC OPEN. APAN STAFF WILL LIKELY CHANGE IT FOR YOU TO JOINLESS OR PUBLIC CLOSED. PLEASE CONTACT APAN’S HELP DESK FOR MORE INFORMATION.
   1. Public (Closed membership) - Everyone can read content in your group, it is listed publicly, but users must be approved before becoming group members or posting content.
   2. Private (Listed) - Community users can see users and group activity, but can't participate in group activity.
   3. Private (Unlisted) - Community users can't see users or group activity.

       

When submitting the Community Requirements form, you may wish to determine they type of group you will need.

What's Next?

Opportunities to talk with the APAN staff

A community requestor will have at least two distinct opportunities to consult one-on-one with the APAN staff that is building the community.  First, when the Requirements Form is submitted, the APAN staff member will contact the requestor to clarify requirements.  Second, the APAN staff member will contact the requestor when the community is ready.  When the new community owner takes control of the group, the APAN Help Desk is then available 24/7 for assistance.

Sign a Community Owner's Agreement Form

The APAN staff will send the requestor a training document and a Community Owner Agreement form to sign and return.  The requestor must sign, scan and email or fax back the signed form to the APAN staff before control of the community is transferred to the requestor.

Autonomy

Once the new community owner is granted control of their community, they can manage the community's look and feel, add and delete applications, change privacy settings, manage membership, and more.  The owner can customize the community to the extent the tools will allow.

Resources for Learning

APAN provides many sources to train new owners:  Weekly live webinars, Knowledge Base articles, Community Owner’s Blog, demo groups, and the 24/7 Help Desk Support Hotline. 

What are my responsibilities as an APAN Community Owner?

Customize your group

APAN staff will build the basic shell of your group.  The shell will include a home page, shared document library, and the applications recommended to you by the APAN Knowledge Manager helping you set up your site.  You will then add your logo, description, welcome message, and initial content.  You will have the power to add pages, additional applications, tabs, and customize the tools on the community for exactly what your audience needs.

Monitor content

Community owners are responsible for ensuring that only unclassified information is posted to their communities.  If a classified information spillage occurs, it is the owner’s responsibility to immediately report the incident to the APAN staff and assist in cleanup. 

Manage members

Owners are responsible for publicizing their new community to their target audience. If the community is closed, Owners must then monitor and respond to membership requests. It is the owner’s responsibility to ensure that only authorized users have access to the content under their control.

Nurture your group’s membership and content

Communities need continual attention to increase membership and provide fresh content.  Owners need to ensure that members are engaged in conversation and appropriate content is provided.  If your group becomes inactive, it is the owner’s responsibility to either revive it or notify the APAN staff that it should be archived.

Identify what can be posted and what cannot be posted within APAN

APAN is for unclassified sharing only.   

I have my community, now what?

Keep in mind the following when launching your new community:

• Use the KB as a guide - The KB is set up as a curriculum for self-training purposes at your own pace.
• Attend training webinars – APAN provides weekly training webinars for community owners.  These training sessions will introduce you to all your new tools and controls
• Explore the Administrative Options – After you’ve taken the training, click around the controls to get used to where they are and what they do.
• Experiment before publishing – Experiment with adding and editing new pages and applications.  Mistakes can be fixed with assistance from the APAN staff
• Collect starter content – Upload files, announcements, and forum thread ideas to give your new members something to see when they first visit your community.
• Publish and market - Make an announcement to your target audience using your existing methods of communication.  Publicize the existence of your new APAN community in locations your audience will see.
• Maintain and grow – Keep new content flowing into the community, and encourage members to keep contributing.  Continue to reach out to potential new members to ensure awareness of your APAN presence.

Who's who within a group?

There are primarily two types of group permissions. 

• Members
• Owners

For more on group membership, please identify the membership and permissions content.

Understand APAN Retention Policy

The APAN application service provider removes obsolete data from the system in an effort to conserve server resources. APAN is not an official records management system.  The normal content retention practice for DOD information systems is to retain operationally relevant information for no more than 3 years.  The APAN platform has many applications and features for communities to utilize such as chat, maps, virtual meeting rooms, a variety of widgets and web parts, and other tools. Determination of dated content that deems a community as “inactive” is performed by system administrators who manually review the community usage of the various applications on a quarterly basis.  

It is the community owner's responsibility to understand APAN's Community Maintenance Policy which reflects the following:

Inactive for > 2 years = Communities with no new content or files uploaded within the last 2 years will be deleted with no advance notification.

• All community membership, including owners, will be permanently removed
• All applications, pages and content will be permanently deleted
• Deleted communities cannot be restored

Caveats to the community retention policy may include major HADR events and large-scale operational exercises supported by APAN staff

• Community owners must create a new post or upload a file to keep community current and avoid meeting deletion criteria
• CUI communities are subject to additional policy stipulations and will be deleted at the end of the approval period; unless otherwise stated in the approved from, usually mission end-date or one year after approval was originally granted

How is the Group KB section divided?

1. Group Basics - applies to Group Members and Owners
2. Group Applications - contains content that applies to Group Members and Owners
3. Group Advanced - contains content for Group Owners only, specific to group setup and managing your APAN community

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