Creating docs within groups

Hi @mbarany,

As a first step, you should create a non-admin user to test the functionality to see if you can recreate what your users are seeing. A site admin can successfully do pretty much anything, so will not see snags that regular users run into. My guess is that your regular users are being prevented from associating the doc with the group because of permissions. Do note that they’ll probably have to be a member of the group to associate the doc with the group.

When you are logged in as that basic user, what is the url used to create the doc that should be associated with the group? I’m less familiar with the Commons in a Box pieces, but I’d expect to see something like site-name/groups/group-name/docs/create or maybe site-name/docs/create/?group_id=xx.

Best,

-David

Thanks David. Am thinking it must be a permissions issue too, however the users having the issues are all confirmed members of the group and logged in at the time. Logged in on a different browser with a test non-admin user and it’s working fine (didn’t reproduce the issue). What would you suggest next?
The URL for a new doc in the group is site-name/docs/create/?group=group-name

Thanks,
Michael

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by mbarany.

Update: one of the users having this problem reports taht the Create Doc link goes to site-name/docs/create/ without the ?group=group-name and manually going to the full link (including ?group=group-name) doesn’t produce the group settings. So it does seem like probably a misaligned permissions thing?

Check the doc permissions for the group in question. For each group, you can choose who can associate items with the group, so it could be that this user is a group member, but only group admins can associate docs with the group. To check the setting visit the group’s manage pane, Docs tab, and see what is set for “Minimum role to associate Docs with this group” which could be “member” “moderator” or “admin”.

Thanks, also had that thought. “minimum role to associate” has been “member” all along, have just triple-checked.

Does the fact that it’s only happening to some users (and I can’t seem to reproduce with a test account, but a user who had the issue also wasn’t able to fix it by creating a new account or changing browsers) tell us anything?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by mbarany.

Hmm, well in the BP Docs Edit template, the conditional that shows the Associated Group box requires
? BP Groups are active
??User can bp_docs_manage (which should be allowed for new docs unless you’re filtering the access settings via a filter)
? the filter bp_docs_allow_associated_group (true by default) has been set to false

Can you verify that you’re not filtering either the caps or that allow value in custom code?

I don’t think I’m running custom code (not intentionally anyway!) unless there’s some backend thing happening with commons in a box? But then not sure why it would affect some users and not others. Where would I look in the wordpress backend to check those user variables/filters? (Sorry, comfortable-ish with a lot of computer/web things but not very experienced with wordpress specifically.)

Is it possible commons in a box does something different with the wp database,… I’m not seeing bp_docs variables when browsing in cpanel, but also quite possible I’m looking in the wrong place.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by mbarany.

Hi @mbarany – Can you say a little more about your setup? You say you have a “Group Wiki” powered by BuddyPress Docs. Commons In A Box does have a Wiki feature, but it’s not tied to groups; and when I go to a group in CBOX, I don’t see a ‘Group Wiki’ navigation item. Can you share the format of the URLs that you’re seeing when you’re at various parts of the creation process?

It’s possible that users are visiting the top level Wiki > Create, and expecting to see a group association UI there. But group association is explicitly disabled in the CBOX Wiki feature.

Thanks for hopping in, @boonebgorges , was going to ask you as I figured it was probably your cbox integration on the backend! “Group Wiki” is just the heading for “Docs within Groups” on my cbox install, I think that’s just the name I chose under “Group Tab Name” in the buddypress docs settings in wp-admin (sorry for the confusion!), the default is just a “Docs” tab in the group page/settings. I think I’m just using the vanilla version of docs-within-groups, beyond that.

I was wondering about your hypothesis that the user is accidentally going to wiki>create , too, especially as I haven’t been able to reproduce with my own test non-admin account, especially because they said the url that takes them to is site-name/docs/create/ but I asked them to navigate directly (while logged in) to site-name/docs/create/?group=group-name (which is the url that works as it ought to when I try it) and they still didn’t have the associate option, so I’m not sure.

I’ll ask the users with the problems to send the sequence of URLs beyond just the sequence of clicks. Anything else to check in the meantime?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by mbarany.

Hi @boonebgorges , here’s the sequence of URLs from one of the users with this issue:
Profile page: site-name/members/member-name/
Groups: site-name/members/member-name/groups/
This Group: site-name/groups/group-name/
Group Docs: site-name/groups/group-name/docs/
Create Doc: site-name/docs/create/?group=group-name
But only options are “tag” and “parent” and it doesn’t appear to be associating with the group.

Also this user has tried different browsers, unjoining/rejoining the group, and joining with a new account, so I’m really puzzled by this one, especially as unable to reproduce on my own computer. Not sure if that gives any clues.

It sounds like it must have something to do with the ‘bp_docs_manage’ cap. Either it’s failing here https://github.com/boonebgorges/buddypress-docs/blob/297a9d11239ca6bd28e6f8959b0d061823e249a3/includes/caps.php#L54 or https://github.com/boonebgorges/buddypress-docs/blob/297a9d11239ca6bd28e6f8959b0d061823e249a3/includes/integration-groups.php#L1804. Without being able to reproduce myself, it’s hard to see why this might be happening. But maybe this is a pointer in the right direction?

Many thanks for continuing to give this some thought! Any troubleshooting steps to try or any places where something might show up in a log on the backend where I should look?

If you’re unable to do code-level debugging, then the next best thing would be to develop reliable steps to reproduce the issue. This means narrowing down why it’s only happening for certain sorts of users. Try in public vs private groups, with members vs mods vs admins, with various Docs settings for the group, etc. If you can find a pattern, I may be able to reproduce myself.

Cheers, will keep trying to reproduce…