Connections, groups and open networking: which to use

Three channels, three jobs

FirmLinks only ever matches you with firms you have some channel to. There are three channels, they do different jobs, and picking the wrong one is the commonest reason a firm sees no matches.

A direct connection

Two firms, matchable to each other. That's all it does — it doesn't put either firm in a group, and nobody else can see that it exists.

Use it for a firm you already know and work with. A direct connection carries no referral incentive — incentives belong to open networking and to groups.

Worth knowing: the firm you invite doesn't need a paid subscription. It can accept, connect and receive engagement invitations for free.

A group

Several firms in one place, so you can put an engagement in front of all of them instead of inviting them one at a time. Two shapes, chosen when the group is created:

• Member-to-member — every member firm can collaborate with every other member firm.
• Member-to-host — every member firm can collaborate with the host firm, and not with each other. This is the shape for a firm that brings work to a panel of suppliers.

Groups are private (not listed anywhere; firms join only when an administrator invites them) or public (listed in Browse public groups, where any firm can see the name, the type and the member count — not who the members are — and apply).

An alliance

An alliance is a group, run by a host organisation that brings member firms together — often paying for their FirmLinks membership. Everything in this help centre about groups applies to it. What's different is usually who pays and who administers it, not how it works.

Open networking

Not a relationship. With it on, your firm can match with any other firm that also has it on — no group, no connection, nobody's approval. Those firms do not appear in your connected firms list, because you have no actual relationship with them.

Use it when you want work to find you from outside the network you already have. See Open networking and your referral incentive.

Choosing

• To work with one firm you already know, use a direct connection.
• To put work in front of a set of firms, repeatedly, use a group.
• To bring suppliers to your own firm only, use a member-to-host group you host.
• To be found by firms you've never met, use open networking.

What your plan affects

On Free, your firm is matched to work created by firms that connect to it, but you can't create engagements, create groups, or use open networking.

If your membership is paid by an alliance, some of these may not be included — the screen says so and points at the upgrade when that's the case.

Where to see it all

Collaboration Center holds the lot: an overview, your Groups, your Direct Connections, Requests (anything waiting on you) and Open Networking, which is also where you set the referral incentive you offer firms that find you through it. The sidebar counts your network — group member firms, direct connections, and your collaboration score.

How many firms you're connected with

The headline is the N firms on the Your connections card on your dashboard, and the N firms can be matched with yours today figure on the Collaboration Center overview. Under it, the dashboard card breaks the number down into Group members, Direct connections, Open network and your Collaboration score; the Collaboration Center shows the same three routes as Groups (with the line "member firms in N groups"), Direct connections and Open networking.

Group members counts the other firms in your groups. Each firm is counted once, even if it is in two of your groups, and your own firm is not included — so a five-member alliance reads 4 under Group members.

The headline total counts firms, not relationships. It's every firm you share a group with, every firm you're directly connected to and — when your firm has open networking switched on — every firm you can reach through open networking, each counted once. So if Pacific Ridge is in your alliance and you connected to it directly, it adds 1 to the total, not 2 — which is why the total is often smaller than the rows above it added together, and the Collaboration Center says so when that happens. Two more things to know: your own firm is counted in the total (it is a member of its own groups), and open networking only counts while it is switched on — with it off, or not in your plan, those firms can't be matched with you, so they stay out of the total.

To see the firms themselves rather than the count, use Direct Connections for the ones you connected to, and a group's own Members tab for the ones you reach through it.