Groop - Community Management Platform
Groop is a Software as a Service (SaaS) business providing a Community Management Platform under a licensing model, based in Wiltshire, England.
Groop offers an eco-system which covers all aspects of managing a hierarchical organisation. Groop provides risk management for volunteering, 24/7; taking care of the compliance, communications and data.
Features
- Communication tools including video conferencing and live chat
- Online payments - invoices and donations
- Online resources library and governance
- Easy to use and intuitive cloud based platform
- Unlimited cloud storage with flexible sharing through your organisation
- Event management including planning, evaluating and supporting your beneficiaries
- Manage your network, report on outputs, outcomes and longterm impact
- Report on your data with, dashboards and bespoke reporting-tools
- Customisable organisational structure and data fields
- UK Sovereign Server Hosting with UK based support
Benefits
- Empower your network to remain engaged and connected
- Get paid on time
- Safeguard and Quality Assure your network with up-to-date consistent material
- Accessible anytime, anywhere on both web and mobile app
- Keeping your network informed and up-to-date in real time
- Providing structured sessions for your staff, volunteer and beneficiaries
- Time and cost saving having all information in one place
- Providing valuable date insight for analysis, planning and projecting
- Efficient and effective operations with a high quality user experience
- Secure and reliable expertise and support
Pricing
£1,000 a unit a month
- Education pricing available
- Free trial available
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 12
Service ID
3 7 9 8 5 9 4 0 8 3 8 1 5 5 6
Contact
Groop Ltd
Samantha Bland
Telephone: 01249 691491
Email: samantha.bland@groop.com
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- No
- Cloud deployment model
- Public cloud
- Service constraints
- None
- System requirements
-
- An Internet Connection
- Up to date, secure internet browser
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
- On average 2.5 hours including weekends.
- User can manage status and priority of support tickets
- No
- Phone support
- Yes
- Phone support availability
- 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
- Web chat support
- Web chat
- Web chat support availability
- 9 to 5 (UK time), 7 days a week
- Web chat support accessibility standard
- None or don’t know
- How the web chat support is accessible
- Web chat is accessible from all areas of our platform. Automated responses direct user to support articles first before connecting to a live agent.
- Web chat accessibility testing
- None
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
- All Groop customers receive UK based telephone, live chat and email support. Depending on your Groop package we are able to provide differentiated support levels - this can range from a dedicated Account Manager to on-site technical support.
- Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
-
We have an comprehensive on-boarding process for our customers, additionally we can deliver onsite workshops and ‘train the trainer’ days for organisations at an additional cost.
Users have 24/7 access to our knowledge base and are supported via the platform, online chat, email and phone. - Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
-
- HTML
- End-of-contract data extraction
- Users can extract data as a CSV file or via their dedicated Account Manager if applicable.
- End-of-contract process
- At end of contract, clients are offered all their data in an appropriate and secure form. There may be an additional cost for this. We will delete or obfuscate historic data depending on requirement.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Supported browsers
-
- Internet Explorer 10
- Internet Explorer 11
- Microsoft Edge
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Safari 9+
- Application to install
- No
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- Yes
- Differences between the mobile and desktop service
- The platform is responsive and designed to work across all devices. However, mobile application functionality is limited to specific user roles. Full administration features are only available on desktop.
- Service interface
- No
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
- API connection and functionality is available on request.
- API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
- API sandbox or test environment
- No
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
-
Roles assigned to users enable permission based access which then provide the ability to customise certain areas. Users can customise labelling, data fields and library/governance materials - managing taxonomies and the content.
Organisation users can customise their hierarchical structure and the forms, content and fields for their regional and local groups.
Individual users can customise their avatar and groups can customise dashboard imagery and logo.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
-
Groop has been built from the ground up using an API centric model, enabling it to be utilised as a scalable platform from day one, giving the the ability to build an even more connected network, enabling engagement with existing CRM style applications for example.
Designed as a scalable and resilient architecture that is capable of handling millions of users and securely stores client data, backed up daily.
This model allows separate services to be developed in tandem and yet easily integrated. We have wide ranging monitoring of our server and systems performance.
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
- Service metrics include a wide range of event management and membership records. Demographics, geo mapping, frequencies and impact within data parameters. Other parameters can be applied by the user with a range of tagging options. These metrics are available in real time for users. Record data is date/time stamped on creation, updating and deletion and this data can be provided on request.
- Reporting types
-
- API access
- Real-time dashboards
- Regular reports
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Not a reseller
Staff security
- Staff security clearance
- Other security clearance
- Government security clearance
- Up to Developed Vetting (DV)
Asset protection
- Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Data storage and processing locations
- United Kingdom
- User control over data storage and processing locations
- No
- Datacentre security standards
- Managed by a third party
- Penetration testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Penetration testing approach
- Another external penetration testing organisation
- Protecting data at rest
-
- Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
- Physical access control, complying with another standard
- Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
- Other
- Other data at rest protection approach
- Physical access control to the datacentre and cloud platform, conforming to ISO27001 standards. In addition, any sensitive data is encrypted.
- Data sanitisation process
- Yes
- Data sanitisation type
- Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
- Equipment disposal approach
- Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
- Users have access to self serve reporting currently downloadable as CSV files.
- Data export formats
- CSV
- Data import formats
- CSV
Data-in-transit protection
- Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- Data protection within supplier network
-
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- Other
- Other protection within supplier network
- Private VPC
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
-
We currently achieve 99.9% availability on our platform. Any planned developments are released outside office hours to minimise disruption to user experience.
We ensure a minimum 98% availability in our SLA. We do not have a refund policy and in six years of operation we have never delivered below 99.9% availability. - Approach to resilience
- Groop make use of multiple regions and availability zones within UKCloud, ensuring that the N+1 architecture is deployed across these regions and zones to reduce the risk of an outage causing any down time for the users. In the event of a catastrophic outage, the entire platform Is backed up to a different geographic location and can be re-deployed automatically within minutes.
- Outage reporting
- Email alerts to our user base.
Identity and authentication
- User authentication needed
- Yes
- User authentication
- Username or password
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- All administrative access is controlled and logged via a secure VPN with each user having their own user account and secure private key.
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Management access authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
- Dedicated link (for example VPN)
- Username or password
Audit information for users
- Access to user activity audit information
- No audit information available
- Access to supplier activity audit information
- Users contact the support team to get audit information
- How long supplier audit data is stored for
- At least 12 months
- How long system logs are stored for
- At least 12 months
Standards and certifications
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification
- No
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- No
- Other security certifications
- Yes
- Any other security certifications
- Cyber Essentials
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- Yes
- Security governance standards
- Other
- Other security governance standards
- Cyber Essentials
- Information security policies and processes
-
We have a security policy last updated in February 2020. An extract includes…
Ultimate responsibility for information security rests with the Chief Executive of Groop but on a day-to-day basis the Innovation and Insight Director and Chief of Staff shall be responsible for managing and implementing the policy and related procedures.
Line Managers are responsible for ensuring that their permanent and temporary staff and contractors are aware of:-
The information security policies applicable in their work areas.
Their personal responsibilities for information security.
How to access advice on information security matters.
Regular reporting is to Board level via the responsible Directors.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Configuration and change management approach
-
All development and update work is planned and communicated to our users. Release versions and dates are within these communications.
Our platform and planned developments are all tracked through their lifetime using our project management tools and workflows. All areas are constantly assessed for security impact. New features and developments are fully tested in a test environment prior to delivery. - Vulnerability management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Vulnerability management approach
- Groop conforms to the ISO20000 and ITILv3 approach to operational management of their platform. Standard change controls, incident management and service management processes are in place.
- Protective monitoring type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Protective monitoring approach
- Groops platform is protected by a GPG13 compliant protective monitoring service. Groop conforms to the ISO20000 and ITILv3 approach to operational management of their platform. Standard change controls, incident management and service management processes are in place.
- Incident management type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Incident management approach
- ISO20000 and ITILv3 management approach.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- Yes
- Connected networks
- Other
- Other public sector networks
- Potentially through our API on request.
Pricing
- Price
- £1,000 a unit a month
- Discount for educational organisations
- Yes
- Free trial available
- Yes
- Description of free trial
- Included are all the features of the Groop platform. Trialing is available on request.
- Link to free trial
- https://groop.com/contact-pricing-billing/