You cannot invite communities into member groups and you cannot invite member groups into communities. Here, by community we mean the group of community members in the narrower sense, i.e. not the associated community workspace and also not the member group of this community workspace, which also contains at least the manager and/or owner.
•If you could invite a community into a member group, then that community would be a member of two workspaces, which contradicts the principle of a 1:1 relationship between the community and its associated community workspace.
Note: When searching for BSCW groups that you want to invite to the member group of a workspace, only member groups are found. However, this may also include member groups of community workspaces that themselves contain a community as member.
•If you could invite a member group into a community, the potentially different roles held by members of a member group would be contrary to the concept of the community as a group of many members with the same role.
Note: When searching for BSCW groups you want to invite to a community, only communities are found.
If you want to give a community A access to a workspace B, you have two options.
•Create a (possibly empty) community for B and invite community A into B's community.
•Invite the community workspace member group from A to workspace B.
If you want to give the member group of a workspace B access to a community workspace A, you also have two options.
•Invite the member group from B to the community workspace A.
•Make the member group a community B (as in the example case "crowded workspace") and invite this community B to community A.
If you invite a member group A to a member group B, this always means embedding workspace B in workspace A (see 5.1.4.2 Embedding one workspace into another) if you invite a community A to a community B, the community workspaces A and B remain independent. Which of the solutions outlined above is preferable depends on the individual case.
Reminder: When inviting communities or member groups, always use the option 'Search for BSCW groups' in the invitation form.