Access Groups are one of the most powerful features in Heartbeat — and they're built to help you segment your community, personalize content delivery, and scale your member experience. Whether you're running a 50-person cohort or managing 10,000 members, Access Groups make it feel like every member is getting exactly what they need.

🎉 What Are Access Groups?

Access Groups are simple: they’re buckets of people.

Once you've built a group, you can connect it to:

• Discussion channels

• Courses

• Documents

• Events

• Matchups

• And much more!

This means anyone who joins the group automatically gets access to all content linked to that group.

✅ A Quick Example

Let’s say you’re running a marketing community and want to build a space for people focused on SEO and Content Creation.

1. You create:

   • Channels: #content-prompts, #content-feedback

   • Course: SEO Essentials

   • Documents: SEO Guides

   • Event: SEO Content Planning Workshop

2. You then create a new Access Group called SEO & Content and link all this content to it.

3. Add members to the group manually, with a signup page, or via automation.

4. Boom — members get access to all that content instantly.

You can also make this group:

• Admin Controlled: you decide who joins.

• Joinable: members opt in via buttons or onboarding.

• Automated: members are added when they meet specific criteria.

⚙️ Advanced Use Cases

Access Groups get even more powerful when combined with automation:

• Automated Access Groups: auto-assign members based on activity (posts, logins, event attendance, etc.)

• Joinable Groups: let members self-select into segments, like interest groups or experience levels

• Gamification via Groups: reward members who complete actions (e.g. 5 comments + 2 events = course unlock)

🔍 Available Filters for Automation

When building automated groups, here are some filters you can use:

• Location-based: radius around cities, zip codes, or countries

• Joined on: absolute or relative dates (e.g. "joined in the last 14 days")

• Last login: same as above

• Posts or Comments made: with optional time spans (last month, last year, etc.)

• Reactions received: can be filtered by who reacted (e.g. only admins) or by emoji (e.g. 🧠 only)

• Events attended: e.g. more than 5 events

• Group membership: match existing group combinations

• Email conditions: e.g. emails containing @mycompany.com

Combine multiple filters with AND/OR logic to create complex, high-quality segments.

🚀 Making It All Work Together

Once you’ve created an access group, you can:

• Link content to it during group creation

• Use Workflows to send automated DMs or emails when someone joins a group

• Create Signup Pages to invite people into the group (new or existing members)

⬆️ Start Simple

Access Groups are powerful, but you don’t have to go complex right away.

Start with 1 group tied to a few pieces of content. Then expand from there.

And if you’re not sure which path to take:

• Use admin-controlled for manual assignments

• Use joinable for opt-in journeys

• Use automated to scale segments with logic

📢 Need Help?

Still unsure how to set this up? Check out our additional guides:

• How to Use Automated Access Groups

• How to Create Joinable Groups

• How to Gamify Your Community

Or, reach out to our team anytime: support@heartbeat.chat