Facebook Groups feature is undergoing radical change, specially for existing groups. With new format of Facebook groups, all existing or old Facebook groups have to convert into new format for Facebook groups. There are two ways for the conversion process: archive or upgrade. While archive option is available to every old group (and is done automatically), upgrade option will be available to only few selective Facebook groups.
How to archive old Facebook groups
If you do not get option to upgrade exisiting Facebook group or do not intentionally proceed with upgrade process – your Facebook group will be eventually archived in the future.
1. Your old Facebook group will be automatically archived, if you do not have upgrade option or have an upgrade option but do not use it.
2. The big drawback in archive method as against upgrading is – members of your old group will not be migrated and hence wont appear in the new format group. So once group is archived, you need to add members again manually one by one.
3. Once group is archived, you can view group photos, wall posts, group discussion threads (which become Wall posts).
4. Things not included in group after it is archived include: recent news, group officer titles, the info box under the old group picture, the group network and most important – members of old groups.
How to upgrade old Facebook groups
While archive method is available for every old Facebook groups, upgrade method is available to selective groups. This is decided on level of group activity and discussion by Facebook itself. Upgrade option has been restricted to few group to prevent spam activity as a result of new group format’s notification feature.
1. If your Facebook group is eligible for upgrade, then you will get upgrade option at top of the group page.
2. Once you click ‘upgrade this group’ button, your old group will be converted into new group format in few minutes.
3. Group after upgrade process will include: old group members, group photos, wall posts and dicusssion threads.
4. However, even some elements will be missing in new format of group after the upgrade process like recent news, group officer titles, info box under the old group picture and group network.
5. Once group is upgraded, you can use features like chat with the whole group at once, share photo albums, poll the group with questions, connect off Facebook using a shared group email address and create group docs to share information.
To summarize, every old Facebook group will be converted to new format through archive method (but this will not transfer your members to new groups). However, few selected groups (choosen by Facebook) will have upgrade option that also transfers members to the new format group.
