A group’s “Group Type”, set under the group’s “SETTINGS” screen (see Section 7.2) and displayed as “Type” under the group’s “SUMMARY” screen, controls how a group may be joined.
A group owner may choose to have the Polar Cloud generate a group join code, which will then be visible to (only) the group owner on the group’s “SETTINGS” screen. The group owner may choose to pass this code along to Polar Cloud members whom the group owner wishes to allow to join the group: for instance, for a class group, a teacher might pass out the group join code to all the students in the class. By clicking the “JOIN” button (towards the upper right of the Polar Cloud list of groups screen) and entering this group join code at the resulting “JOIN GROUP” screen, a Polar Cloud member may instantly join that group, as discussed in Section 7.3.1.
Alternatively, Polar Cloud members may search for and find “PUBLIC” or “MODERATED” groups (in contrast, “PRIVATE” groups aren’t visible or searchable), click on the group to go to the group’s non-member “SUMMARY” screen, and then ask to join the group via the “JOIN” button on that “SUMMARY” screen.
For a PUBLIC group, clicking the “JOIN” button at the group’s “SUMMARY” screen for non-members will add the member immediately to the group.
For a MODERATED group, clicking the “JOIN” button at the group’s “SUMMARY” screen for non-members will generate a request notification to the group owner; if the group owner chooses to “ACCEPT” that request, then the requesting Polar Cloud member is added to the group.
(Again, note that in order to join a “PRIVATE” group, a Polar Cloud member must either know and enter the group join code, or be specifically invited by the group owner or a group manager to join the group; as a “PRIVATE” group cannot be seen by non-members, non-members cannot formally request to join.)