tencent cloud

Group Types

• Work group (Work): after a work group is created, users can join the group only after being invited by group members. The invitation does not need to be accepted by the invitee or approved by the group owner. This group type is the same as private group (Private) in earlier versions.
• Public group (Public): after a public group is created, the group owner can designate group admins. To join the group, a user needs to search for the group ID and send a request, and the request needs to be approved by the group owner or an admin before the user can join the group.
• Meeting group (Meeting): allows users to join and leave freely and view historical messages sent before they join the group. Meeting groups are ideal for scenarios that integrate Tencent Real-Time Communication (TRTC), such as audio/video conferencing and online education. This group type is the same as chat room (ChatRoom) in earlier versions.
• Community group (Community): allows users to join and exit freely and is ideal for ultra-large community group chat scenarios, such as knowledge sharing and game communication
• Audio-video group (AVChatRoom): allows users to join and exit freely, supports an unlimited number of members, and does not store message history. Audio-video groups can be used with Cloud Streaming Services (CSS) to support on-screen comment chat scenarios.

The following table describes the features and limitations of each group type:

Feature	Work Group (Work)	Public Group (Public)	Meeting Group (Meeting)	Community Group (Community)	Audio-Video Group (AVChatRoom)
Available member roles	Group owner and ordinary member	Group owner, group admin, and ordinary member	Group owner, group admin, and ordinary member	Group owner, group admin, and ordinary member	Group owner and ordinary member
Requesting to join a group	Not supported	Supported with group owner or group admin approval required	Supported with no approval required	Supported with no approval required	Supported with no approval required
Joining group via invitation by a member	Supported	Not supported	Not supported	Supported	Not supported
Group owner quitting group	Supported	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported
Who can modify group profile	Any group member	Group owner and group admin	Group owner and group admin	Group owner and group admin	Group owner
Who can kick group members out of group	Group owner	Group owner and group admin. Group admin can only remove ordinary group members.			Group members cannot be removed. The same effect can be achieved by muting members.
Who can mute members	Muting members is not supported	Group owner and group admin. Group admin can only mute ordinary group members.			Group owner
Unread count	Supported	Supported	Not supported	Supported	Not supported
Viewing message history earlier than user's entry time	Not supported	Not supported	Supported	Supported	Not supported
Retaining message history in the cloud	Trial Edition: 7 days Pro Edition: 7 days by default, up to 360 days via value-added service Flagship Edition: 30 days by default, up to 360 days via value-added service				Not supported
Number of groups	Trial Edition: up to 100 existing groups, and deleted groups do not count against the quota. Pro Edition or Flagship Edition: unlimited			Trial Edition and Pro Edition: not supported Flagship Edition: 100,000	Trial Edition: up to 10 existing groups, and deleted groups do not count against the quota. Pro Edition: up to 50 existing groups, and deleted groups do not count against the quota. You can upgrade to unlimited number of audio-video groups by purchasing the value-added service. Flagship Edition: unlimited
Number of group members	Trial Edition: 20 per group Pro Edition: 200 per group by default, can be increased to 2,000 per group via value-added service Flagship Edition: 2,000 per group, can be increased to 6,000 per group via value-added service			100,000	Unlimited number of group members

Note：

• Group types are upgraded in the new SDK version and they are work group (Work), public group (Public), meeting group (Meeting), community group (Community), and audio-video group (AVChatRoom). Private group (Private) and chat room (ChatRoom) in earlier versions (which have Public, Private, ChatRoom, and AVChatRoom groups) correspond to work group (Work) and meeting group (Meeting) in the new version respectively.
• In the Pro Edition or Flagship Edition SDKAppID, the maximum net increase in group count per day is 10,000 for all group types. Free peak group count is 100,000 per month, and you will need to pay for usage not covered by the free quota.
• The community group (Community) feature is supported only in SDK 5.8.1668 enhanced edition or higher. To use the feature, you need to purchase the Flagship Edition package and apply for activation.
• Work groups (Work) and public groups (Public) do not allows group members to view messages sent before they join the group. To enable the feature, submit a change request by referring to Configuration Change Ticket.

Creating a Group

If you want to initialize group information (for example, group introduction, group profile photo, and initial group members) when creating a group, call the GroupCreate API. For parameter details, see CreateGroupParam.

TencentIMSDK.GroupCreate(CreateGroupParam,(int code, string desc, string json_param, string user_data)=>{
})

Joining a Group

The processes for joining groups of different types are described as follows:

Type	Work Group (Work)	Public Group (Public)	Meeting Group (Meeting)	Community Group (Community)	Audio-Video Group (AVChatRoom)
How to join group	Users must be invited to join the group.	users join the group after requests are approved by group owner or admin.	Users can join and quit the group freely.	Users can join and quit the group freely.	Users can join and quit the group freely.

Scenario 1: users can join and quit the group freely

Meeting groups (Meeting) and audio-video groups (AVChatRoom) can be used for interactive scenarios where users join and exit groups frequently, such as online conferencing and show live streaming. The group joining procedure is therefore the simplest.

After a user successfully joins a group by calling GroupJoin, all group members (including the joined user) receive the GroupTipsEventCallback callback.

Scenario 2: users must be invited to join the group

Resembling WeChat and WeCom groups, work groups (Work) are suitable for communication in work environments. The interaction pattern is designed to disable proactive group joining and only allows users to be invited to join the group by group members.

A group member calls GroupInviteMember to invite a user to join the group, then all group members (including the inviter) receive the GroupTipsEventCallback callback.

Scenario 3: users join the group after requests are approved

Public groups (Public) are similar to the interest groups and tribes in QQ. Any user can request to join the group, but will not become a member of the group until the request is approved by the group owner or admin. While approval is required by default, the group owner or admin can call the GroupModifyGroupInfo API to set the group joining option (TIMGroupAddOption) to forbid anyone to join, which is tighter, or to disable the approval process, which is more flexible.

• kTIMGroupAddOpt_Forbid: forbid anyone to join the group.
• kTIMGroupAddOpt_Auth (default): group owner or admin approval is required for group joining.
• kTIMGroupAddOpt_Any: disable the approval process to allow any user to join the group.

Quitting a group

Call GroupQuit to quit a group. Then all group members receive the GroupTipsEventCallback callback.

Note：

For a public group (Public), meeting group (Meeting), community group (Community), or audio-video group (AVChatRoom), the group owner is not allowed to quit the group but can delete the group.

Deleting Groups

Call GroupDelete to delete a group. Then all group members receive the GroupTipsEventCallback callback.

Note：

• For a public group (Public), meeting group (Meeting), community group (Community), or audio-video group (AVChatRoom), the group owner can delete the group at any time.
• For a work group (Work), the group owner does not have the permission to delete the group. To delete the group, you must have your service server call the RESTful API.

Getting the List of Joined Groups

Call GroupGetJoinedGroupList to get a list of work groups (Work), public groups (Public), meeting groups (Meeting), and community groups (Community) the current user has joined. Audio-video groups (AVChatRoom) will not be included in this list.

Group Profiles and Group Settings

Getting group profiles

Call GroupGetGroupInfoList to get the group profile of one or more groups at a time. To get the group profiles of multiple groups by a single call, pass in multiple groupID at a time.

Modifying group profiles

Call GroupModifyGroupInfo to modify the group profile. When the modification is completed, all group members receive the GroupTipsEventCallback callback.

Note：

• For work groups (Work), all group members can modify the basic group profile.
• For public groups (Public), meeting groups (Meeting), and community groups (Community), only the group owner and admin can modify the group profile.
• For audio-video groups (AVChatRoom), only the group owner can modify the group profile.

Setting the Group Message Receiving Option

Any group member can call the MsgSetGroupReceiveMessageOpt API to modify the group message receiving option. Available group message receiving options are as follows:

• TIMReceiveMessageOpt.kTIMRecvMsgOpt_Receive: messages will be received when the user is online, and push notifications will be received when the user is offline.
• TIMReceiveMessageOpt.kTIMRecvMsgOpt_Not_Receive: no group messages will be received.
• TIMReceiveMessageOpt.kTIMRecvMsgOpt_Not_Notify: messages will be received when the user is online, and no push notification will be received when the user is offline.

FAQs

1. Can an audio-video group (AVChatRoom) continue to receive messages after it was disconnected and then reconnected?

Yes, but since an audio-video group (AVChatRoom) does not support storing message history in the cloud, it cannot pull the messages that were sent when it was disconnected.

2. Why doesn’t the group receive notifications when a user joins or quits the group?

Verify the group type:

• Meeting group (Meeting) does not support member change notifications.
• An audio-video group (AVChatRoom) can receive up to 40 messages per second, therefore it prioritizes the receiving and sending of high-priority messages and discards messages with the lowest priority first once the frequency limit is exceeded.

3. Why does the unread count of a meeting group (Meeting) remain at 0?

Meeting groups (Meeting) and audio-video groups (AVChatRoom) are designed for conference and live streaming scenarios respectively, and they do not support the unread count feature.