A question if I am on the right track.

I've never used Organic Groups - but as a possible nudge in the right direction you might use user flags (flags module) to let people flag eachother, and trigger rules on when a user is flagged IF they are already flagged by the first user.

Once you have the two users in scope you should be able to load each users group and add eachother to them

Hi Bob,

my problem is that after a certain point I can not make heads or tails of the data selections offered be the rules system. In my example of trying to auto-add confirmed two-way relationships to each others private groups I start like this.

• Create a rule, i.e. "Add contacts to groups".
• React on event: "A user relationship has been approved"
• Save
• Action: "Subscribe user to group"
• User, Data selector: "site:current-user"
• Group, Data selector: "???"
• ...

Somehow I have the feeling that I am not really setting this up the right way at all. And the options ins the data selectors don't make any sense to me at all.

Have a nice Tuesday,
Paul

Now it works. It was just a matter of trying out the different selectors.

Now I just have to write a removal rule for when two members break their relationship.

Update: Spoke too soon. It is working alright, but it picks the group to which to add in alphabetical order. So I need to find a way to define the name of the group (group name = requestee/requester name).

Any ideas anyone?

Paul,

I have never had any success with Rules loops, so I don't use them. Therefore, unfortunately I cannot help you navigate the territory you're in.

FYI, I use flags and custom code to manage various business rules, with the flags usually set using Rules and the custom code triggered by hook_cron implementations. Depending on the case, the custom code leverages the APIs of other modules and/or Drupal's database API.

Cheers,

Bob

Re: "Is there is a way to automatically add a flag to the private group that is auto-created during registration for each user? Can rules identify that flag (without showing endless pages of totally incomprehensible data-options like OG-Rules)?"

Yes there is. Assuming you are on D7...

You can add whatever flags you need -- such as a flag named "New Private Group" -- at admin/structure/flags. Now you can "flag" or "unflag" each Private Group node whenever you need to.

Note that each flag is a Drupal entity, meaning you can also add fields to it, just like you can with each Drupal content type.

Now the flag is available so that a rule can "flag" or "unflag" a Private Group upon various events, as needed. When "flagging" a PG the values of the flag's custom fields can also be set.

Unfortunately the term flag is overloaded in Drupal-speak, which is why I used quotes above.

I hope that is not too unclear. When used with Rules, the Flag module can be very powerful. Also, you can have users "flag" something, and then capture these "flagging" events in Rules, so as to respond to them. E.g., a user "flags" an item of content as being "offensive"; this event triggers a Rule to respond to it; and the Rule sends you (the site's owner) a suitable email, including the identities of the user and of the piece of content in question...

I hope that helps. As with each of Drupal's powerful modules, there is a non-trivial learning curve.

Bob

Sometimes you dig and dig and overlook the most obvious solution:

Since the groups in question already have one unique identifyer "their node title, which equals the author's name" I just had to change one little aspect to make this work:

Match node title to the user names.

Many thanks to all and specially to bob for his patience and input.

Paul