It's important that you know who can access your community, and that when somebody logs in, you know that they are who they claim to be. Broadly speaking, Access relates to who you allow to join your community and Authentication is how they verify their identity.
If your community is open to the public community, you need to consider what methods of authentication you want users to provide, but you don't need to grant access to users as anyone can register an account in an open (public) community.
If you'd like more information on the difference between open (public) and closed (private) communities, please have a look at our guide to Changing your community access.
Authentication
There are a number of different ways that you can ask users to verify their identity when they register on your Crowdicity platform. The table below explains what they are and what information users need to provide.
Authentication type
| User experience
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Crowdicity account
| Users register a new Crowdicity account and are asked to provide a username, email address and password. They get an email to verify their email address.
|
Social media sign in
| Users connect their social media account to a new Crowdicity account. They can then use their social media credentials (eg facebook, twitter, etc) to verify their details.
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Organisation log in
| Users are taken to an organisation log in page, they use their existing work username and password and are then redirected back to the Crowdicity platform. Our guide to Single Sign on has more information.
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Whichever method of authentication you choose, if you have a closed (private) community you still need to invite users to the platform, to provide them with access. Inviting users gives them permission to log into the platform, the authentication proves that they are who they say they are.
Access
If you have an open (public) community, then anyone can register an account and join your community. If you have a closed (private) community then you need to grant access to users that you want to allow into your community.
You can grant access to your community in the following ways:
Inviting users with their email address
| You can invite users to your community by adding their email address to the 'invited' list. They can then create an account using that address. Our guide to inviting users explains how to do this.
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Allowing email domains
| In Community Settings, you can add a list of email domains that are allowed for your community. In other words, when you allow a domain (eg crowdicity.com) anybody who has an email address from that domain (eg support@crowdicity.com) can create an account in your community. Our guide to allowing domains has further instructions on how to set this up.
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