A group is a set of one or more CNAV community members. A group can also include other groups. CNAV uses groups to limit access to specific areas of CNAV such as individual forms and surveys, and specific CNAV tools. CNAV users can create groups to function as email aliases and to create restricted-access discussion boards.
Two main types of groups are available within CNAV:
System-generated groups
Manually-created groups
A system-generated group is automatically created and updated by CNAV based on the contents of the databases that CNAV accepts as input. Some common system-generated groups include all students, all faculty members, all on-campus CNAV users, all alumni, etc.
A manually-created group is created one-person-at-a-time (or one-group-at-a-time) for a specific purpose. For example, a campus organization such as the Pre-Law Society might create a manual group that contains only the members of that campus organization.
Each group in CNAV can be declared to be public or private. A private group is viewable only to the members of that group. A public group can be viewed by any person, within or outside of CNAV.