Members, Profiles, and Privacy

A member profile is two things at once. Part of it is the handful of fields GroupFlow keeps for every member in every group — a name, a photo, pronouns — because the product needs them to show the member in a directory, on an attendee list and in your admin screens. The rest is your group’s own questions, which you write yourself: a membership number, a boat class, a dietary note, whatever your group needs to know. Who sees each of those is decided in three separate places, and that is the part worth understanding before you set a profile form up. A section decides for everything inside it, a field decides for itself, and then each answer carries a setting of its own that says whether other members see it. Organizers see everything either way. This page covers all three, and where the two kinds of field differ.

Where the profile form is edited

Go to Members & Users in the admin menu and choose Profile Form. The screen is titled Profile Form Editor. It needs the Members Management permission — see Admin Permissions. The form is a list of sections, each holding fields. Add Section adds one, and Add Field inside a section adds a field. A section’s own settings are under Section Details; a field’s are in the Field Editor, which opens when you edit a field.

The fields GroupFlow keeps for every member

When you add a field you can mark it as a Special Field, which tells GroupFlow what that field means. A field with no special field set is an ordinary question of your own.

Special Field	What GroupFlow uses it for
Display Name	The name shown everywhere the member appears — the member directory, the event attendee list, and Members & Users
Primary Photo	The member’s profile photo, used across the site
Pronouns	The pronouns the member goes by
Introduction	A short bio shown on the member’s profile
Location	The member’s location, such as city and state
Phone	The member’s contact phone number
Meetup Question	The question used for the group’s Meetup event integration

Two rules come with them:

A profile form must have a Display Name field. So must an application form.
The special field is chosen when the question is created and can’t be changed afterward.
A field’s type is fixed once the field has been created — restricted or prohibited depending on the type, because answers to it may already have been recorded. A text field can still be switched between single-line and multi-line; anything else is read-only from then on.

Display Name and Primary Photo are always enabled and always visible to members, and can’t be deleted. GroupFlow needs them to show the member wherever members appear. Their tick boxes in the Field Editor are greyed out, and the editor says so: “This field is always enabled and visible to members.” Display Name is also always required.

The three places that decide who sees a field

On a section

Section Details has two tick boxes:

Is this section enabled? — off, and the section and everything in it is gone from the form, for members and organizers alike.
Visible to member? — off, and the section is yours alone. Members never see it on their profile; organizers still fill it in and read it in Members & Users.

On a field

The Field Editor has three:

Required field? — the member can’t save the form without answering.
Field enabled? — off, and the field is gone from the form entirely.
Visible to member? — off, and the field is organizers-only, the same as a hidden section.

A field’s section wins. The editor notes it: “The field’s containing section also controls whether the field is enabled or visible to members.” A visible field inside a hidden section is still hidden.

On an answer

Each answer to one of your group’s own questions carries a Visible to other members? tick box. An open eye means other members see that answer; a crossed-out eye means they don’t. The member sets it for their own answers, from the edit link or the eye icon beside the field on their Edit Profile page — see Updating Your Profile. Anyone with the Members Management permission can set it too, in the same window, from the Profile tab of the member’s record. The special fields in the table above don’t have this setting at all.

Putting it together

	The organizer sees	The member sees on their own profile	Other members see
Section or field not enabled	No	No	No
Visible to member? off	Yes	No	No
Visible, answer’s eye open	Yes	Yes	Yes
Visible, answer’s eye closed	Yes	Yes	No

Visible to member? off does not make a field private from your leadership team. It means the member doesn’t see it. Anyone with the Members Management permission reads it on the member’s record, where a hidden section carries a Hidden from members badge so they know the member can’t see what they’re looking at.

What a member in the directory shows

The member directory lists members whose membership is currently active, and opens each one’s profile. What that profile shows is the result of the table above: the fields GroupFlow keeps for every member, plus the answers the member has left visible. A member whose status is not Active Member is not in the directory. See Membership Lifecycle.

Before someone is a member

An account that has not become a member yet sees only the Basics section of their profile — the name, photo and the other fields GroupFlow keeps for everyone. Your group’s own sections appear once they are a member. That is also why the Admin Permissions section is absent from a non-member’s record: permissions are given to members. See Admin Permissions.