Understanding The Parent-Child Relationship Of Action Network Groups
What Does Parent & Child Mean?
The Parent-Child relationship in Action Network is simply a way of describing the relationships between different Groups in Action Network. There isn't just one Parent-Child relationship and just like in real life it's possible to be both a Parent and Child.
All regional parties are Children of the main GPEW Action Network Group, and each of these regions has Children of their own in the form of local parties. If you were to create a family tree of the different Green Party groups it would start with GPEW at the top, before branching out into Wales & regional parties- plus liberations groups and any other self-organised groups with a presence on Action Network.
In the example below you can see a few things:
- The Green Party of England & Wales is the parent to the North East region.
- The North East is a child of The Green Party of England & Wales, and a parent to Darlington Green Party.
- Darlington Green Party is a child of the North East but doesn't have any children of its own.
What About Siblings?
If Action Network groups share a parent, then they are indeed siblings. But siblings don't really communicate and don't share- unless the parent intervenes.
How Is Information Shared Between Groups Based On Their Relationships?
What Paths Can Data Travel Along?
Just like in real life parents may choose what information they share with their children, but unlike real-life parents can easily access information that their children hold. The diagram below shows the paths that data is shared along.
The lines between parent and child groups show how data can travel. Data can travel in either direction. So there are a few things we can work out from this diagram. For example, we can see that:
- Information can travel directly between Manchester & The North West.
- Information can't travel directly from Manchester to Darlington.
- Blaby, Darlington & Manchester have a common ancestor in GPEW.
Is All Data Shared Between Parent & Child?
Not all data is shared from parent groups to child groups. Certain centrally maintained fields are shared with all child groups of the national party. You can find out more about these fields here: Which custom fields are synced to Activists on Action Network from the Green Party's national database?
All information held at the child level is visible to parent groups. So, in the diagram above, any data held by Darlington Green Party would be visible to both the North East Green Party and GPEW.
What Data Can I Share With Child Groups & How Do I Do It?
There are two different kinds of data that you can share with Child Groups- Custom Fields (& Question) and Tags.
If you want to share this data with your Child Groups just go to DETAILS from the START ORGANIZING menu, go to either Tags or Questions & Custom Fields, find the Tag or Custom Field you want to share with Child Groups and click on SEND TO CHILDREN.
How Do I Share Data With A Parent Group?
Any information captured at the Child level will be visible at the Parent level, so there's no need to manually share this data.
What If I Need To Share Information With A Sibling Or Other Group Which Doesn't Have A Direct Link To My Group?
If you need to share information from a Tag or Custom field to another Group with which you don't have a Parent-Child relationship will require intervention from a common ancestor.
To give an idea of how this would work we'll use the example of Cardiff Green Party capturing data, which they wish to share with Greens of Colour.
As you can see there is no direct relationship between Cardiff and Greens of Colour and so custom field data would not be shared. There is also no direct relationship between Wales & Greens of Colour. The only common ancestor shared by Cardiff & GOC is GPEW. Therefore, if we needed to share data from Cardiff Green Party with Greens of Colour the data would have to be sent to children from GPEW.
Why Isn't All Data Shared Across Groups?
There are a number of reasons that data isn't shared across all Groups in Action Network including:
- If all data was shared across Action Network groups there would be literally thousands of Tags and Custom Fields in each Group, a lot of which would not be relevant or necessary to share.
- We have an obligation to our members to handle their data in line with GDPR, and share only what is necessary. We also need to make sure individuals know how their data will be processed and who will have access to it. For example, an activist may choose to share that they identify as LGBTIQA+ with LGBTIQA+ Greens voluntarily, but may now want this information to be shared with administrators of their local party.
- Although we can remove the data en masse from Custom Fields, we can't remove the fields themselves for every Group. So if we wanted to stop using a particular field it would need to be deleted in every Group it had been shared to.
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