Understanding contacts, groups, teams, circles NC32

Hi friends! :smile: First of all, thank you a lot for this software.

The Basics

  • Nextcloud Server version (e.g., 29.x.x):
    • NC 32

Summary of the issue you are facing:

My issue is that i’m trying to create a calendar/event which would be added to everyone on my nextcloud instance.

From the comment in here If I go to the contacts app I should be able to add a contacts group and use it to invite to an event. The issue is that I can’t add any user of my nextcloud instance to a group.

I’m also quite confused why share a folder to a team works perfectly, but inviting a team to an event, or sharing a board from deck to a team is not possible.

A very confusing thing is the nomenclature of groups/teams. In the list of accounts as an admin is shown as groups. in the Files app is shown as teams, in calendar you can share a calendar with a team but you can’t add a team as a participant. In the contacts app is even more confusing having contact groups, teams and collectives. It seems that the collectives app allows to create collectives which can have teams inside, this is very confusing because this collectives are then available as a Team on other apps.

i’m trying to understand the current state of nextcloud, teams, circles, contacts, users, calendar, shares, collectives app.

I didn’t find until now any documentation talking about all of this. But I found many github issues and issues here in the forum.

The only thing I wished I could do right now, is to be able to invite all the users of my nextcloud or a team instance as participants of an event! I can also code in js/php but this is all so confusing that I don’t known where to start, so I decided to start here :slight_smile:

Configuration

Nextcloud

It’s a managed nextcloud, i don’t have access

Apps

Enabled apps

Enabled:

  • activity: 5.0.0
  • admin_audit: 1.22.0
  • announcementbanner: 2.3.1
  • announcementcenter: 7.3.0
  • bruteforcesettings: 5.0.0
  • calendar: 6.2.1
  • circles: 32.0.0
  • cloud_federation_api: 1.16.0
  • collectives: 4.1.0
  • comments: 1.22.0
  • contacts: 8.3.5
  • contactsinteraction: 1.13.1
  • dashboard: 7.12.0
  • dav: 1.34.2
  • deck: 1.16.3
  • external: 7.0.0
  • federatedfilesharing: 1.22.0
  • files: 2.4.0
  • files_accesscontrol: 3.0.2
  • files_downloadactivity: 1.18.1
  • files_downloadlimit: 5.0.0-dev.0
  • files_pdfviewer: 5.0.0
  • files_reminders: 1.5.0
  • files_sharing: 1.24.1
  • files_trashbin: 1.22.0
  • files_versions: 1.25.0
  • firstrunwizard: 5.0.0
  • flow_notifications: 3.0.0
  • forms: 5.2.5
  • group_everyone: 0.1.19
  • logreader: 5.0.0
  • lookup_server_connector: 1.20.0
  • notifications: 5.0.0
  • notify_push: 1.3.0
  • oauth2: 1.20.0
  • openotp_auth: 1.32.0
  • password_policy: 4.0.0
  • polls: 8.6.3
  • privacy: 4.0.0
  • profile: 1.1.0
  • provisioning_api: 1.22.0
  • quota_warning: 1.23.0
  • recommendations: 5.0.0
  • related_resources: 3.0.0
  • richdocuments: 9.0.5
  • serverinfo: 4.0.0
  • settings: 1.15.1
  • sharebymail: 1.22.0
  • side_menu: 5.2.1
  • suspicious_login: 10.0.0
  • systemtags: 1.22.0
  • text: 6.0.1
  • theming: 2.7.0
  • theming_customcss: 1.20.0
  • twofactor_backupcodes: 1.21.0
  • updatenotification: 1.22.0
  • viewer: 5.0.0
  • workflowengine: 2.14.0
    Disabled:
  • app_api: 32.0.0 (installed 32.0.0)
  • encryption: 2.20.0
  • federation: 1.22.0 (installed 1.21.0)
  • files_external: 1.24.1
  • fulltextsearch: 32.0.0 (installed 32.0.0)
  • groupfolders: 20.1.12 (installed 20.1.12)
  • nextcloud_announcements: 4.0.0 (installed 3.0.0)
  • photos: 5.0.0 (installed 4.0.0)
  • shiftsnext: 2.10.0 (installed 2.10.0)
  • support: 4.0.0 (installed 4.0.0)
  • survey_client: 4.0.0 (installed 4.0.0)
  • tables: 1.0.5 (installed 1.0.5)
  • tasks: 0.17.1 (installed 0.17.1)
  • twofactor_nextcloud_notification: 6.0.0 (installed 5.0.0)
  • twofactor_totp: 14.0.0
  • user_ldap: 1.23.0
  • user_status: 1.12.0 (installed 1.12.0)
  • weather_status: 1.12.0 (installed 1.12.0)
  • webhook_listeners: 1.3.0 (installed 1.3.0)
  • webhooks: 0.4.3 (installed 0.4.3)
  • whiteboard: 1.5.7 (installed 1.5.7)

Hi @albjeremias
Welcome to the Forum!

I understand the different terms and concepts are confusing and inconsistent behavior in apps does not help.

First of all let me explain the building blocks:

  • Groups: are managed by admins in the admin panel and can only contain users. In some instances these are also managed by external services such as LDAP. Think of a university where all students belong to a faculty - but they cannot start a new one or switch without administrative intervention.
  • Teams: (used to be called circles) are managed by the users themselves. If the configuration of the instance permits every user can create, join and leave teams. Teams can contain other teams. Teams can contain groups.
  • Collectives: provide a way to collectively own files as a team. All membership management is delegated to the team. All other apps also interact with the team - i.e. you can share with the team if you want everyone in the collective to have access. Each collective has exactly one team and they are named the same.

In terms of what you are trying to do. Sharing a calendar event with a team works for me. I am not sure about groups.

The group_everyone app creates a group with all users on the instance. If you can get this enabled on your instance that would be the easiest way. Add the everyone group to a team and share the event with that team.

1 Like

thank you so much for your reply. it helps a bit to understand all of this. but I have to ask you which version of nextcloud and which version of the calendar app are you using?

I am able to share a calendar, but i’m not able to invite a team as participants, correction somehow now I am able to invite collectives as participants to an event, just not teams.

I do have the group_everyone app, and works in many apps.

It seems there is currently an old issue on nextcloud about this here and here

Also one of the biggest confusions right now is the creation of collectives with the collectives app, as mentioned in here