Resources

Rules integration

Since you seem to be using CiviCRM also, you should definitely also consider using the CiviCRM Entity module, especially because of its integration with the Rules module ... combined with automagically creating (or deleting) so called "Group memberships" (which you can do via Rules). For an example of how to use Rules to create or remove such group memberships, refer to my answer to "https://drupal.stackexchange.com/q/213291/39516".

Resources

• What are the various roles supported by the Group module?, which explains the various types of roles that can be used.
• How to bulk assign existing content to a group created with the Group module?, a typical issue when adding this module to an existing site).
• What are the features of the Group module versus Organic Group module?

• What are the various roles supported by the Group module?, which explains the various types of roles that can be used.
• How to bulk assign existing content to a group created with the Group module?, a typical issue when adding this module to an existing site.
• What are the features of the Group module versus Organic Group module?

Note

About your concern (as in your additional comment), which includes:

... having a list of permissions associated with each role multiplied so many times, editing and saving them taking extra processing power and stability issues. As well as the amount of work to the system each time the organization wants to add content. It just seems messy.

You're right, using standard Drupal permissions (with a zillion of roles) it would indeed become messy. But after you realize/discover how the Group module's roles/permissions work, your concern should be addressed ...

Resources

Sample configuration

Below is an example of a possible configuration, which may help to get you started with possible configurations (using the Group module):

Group type ID ! Group type ! Group role ID ! Role
--------------+------------+---------------+------------
 1            ! Class      ! 3             ! Instructor
 1            ! Class      ! 4             ! Student
 2            ! Customers  ! 5             ! Lead
 2            ! Customers  ! 6             ! Prospect
 2            ! Customers  ! 7             ! Licensed Customer
 2            ! Customers  ! 8             ! Sales
 2            ! Customers  ! 9             ! Support
 2            ! Customers  ! 10            ! Accounting
 2            ! Customers  ! 11            ! R&D
 3            ! Project    ! 12            ! Project Manager
 3            ! Project    ! 13            ! Developer
 3            ! Project    ! 14            ! Customer 

Group Types

The above example consists of 3 group types:

• Class.
• Customers.
• Project.

Group Roles

For each of the 3 group types, there are specific Roles defined, some more details about some of them:

• for the Class group, these are the 2 roles that are configured:
  • Instructor.
  • Student.
• for the Project group, these are the 3 roles that are configured:
  • Project Manager.
  • Developer.
  • Customer.

These are the Group Specific Roles: these roles can be configured per group type and will only be available on groups of that group type. As an example, for group type "Class", the defined roles are Instructor and Student (which are not available for the other group types.

On top of the group specific roles, there are also Special Global Roles: These are the special (hardcoded) roles named Outsider (= a signed in user that did not join a group) and Member (= a signed in user that did join a group). These cannot be defined by the Drupal administrator, and they are always available for any group. These roles can have different permissions sets for each group type. Special case: the role Anonymous is related to a user that is not signed.

Groups

Each of the configured group types can have any number of Groups.

Examples of groups:

• for the Class group type, there could be these Groups:
  • Getting started with Drupal.
  • Drupal for site builders.
  • Become an expert in using the Rules module.
• for the Customers group type, there could be these Groups:
  • Service Requests.
  • Order Processing.
  • Sales Orders.
  • Relationship Management.

Permissions

For each of the configured group types, you can then also configure for each Content Type which Role has what kind of access (= none, view, create, edit, delete). Be aware: even though this looks similar to Drupal's permission configuration, these permissions are not the same permissions (they are specific to the Group module).

Resources