Each data entry at the CRM system has an owner. Such an owner could be an individual user or a group of users, called a team. For better manageability, several users, roles, roles with subordinates and user groups can be collected in user groups. You may use this to assign data entries to the team.

The following sections explain what a group membership means and how it can be used.

Users can be collected in groups.

A group supports the following combinations

• Users: Selected users will be part of the group

• Roles: All users associated with a role will be part of the group

• Roles and subordinates: All users associated with the role, and its subordinates will be part of the group

• Group: All users associated with selected group will be part of the group

Let us assume we would like to build a small group of sales representatives, called Team A as shown in Figure: Group of Users Example.

Group of Users Example 

Person 1 and Person 2 suppose to be the members of this group, so we build a group of users. Each of these Persons is assigned to a role that defines the security settings for the individual user. You may now assign data sets to this group, as shown as an example in Figure: Activity assigned to Group. The assignment to this group means that all members of this group are the owners of this entry.

Activity assigned to Group

Therefore all CRM functions usually available for an owner for this entry are now available to all members of this group. That includes in this case:

• Permission to browse, modify or delete this entry

• Listing of this activity at the calendar of each Person who is a member of this group

Note that the group settings override the profile settings.

You can also build groups that are based on roles. That might be a helpful function if you do not know the individual users and their tasks within your company. An example is shown in Figure: Group of Roles Example

Group of Roles Example

At this group, all users that have the role “Sales” or “Marketing” are members of this group. If you assign a data entry at the CRM system to this group, all members become the owner of this entry. In Figure: Lead assigned to Group you see an example for lead entry.

All group members have now permission:

• to browse, modify or to delete this entry

• to convert this lead to a sales potential

• to send a mail to the person listed

Group of roles with subordinates

In addition to simple role-based groups, you may also build groups that include subordinates. That means the users who are assigned to roles that are below a selected role will be included. The following figures illustrate that. Let's assume your company has set up a hierarchical order as shown in Figure: Hierarchy Example.

Hierarchy Example

In this figure, the role “Sales” has a subordinated role “Sales Assistant” and the role “Marketing” is the master of the role “Marketing Assistant”. If you create a user group as shown in Figure: Group of Roles with Subordinates all users with sales and marketing related roles, including the assistants will become members of this group.

Group of Roles with Subordinates Example

If you assign a CRM data entry to this group all users who are a member of this group will become the owner. Related to the example shown in Figure: Potential assigned to Group that means:

• All members of this group are allowed to browse, modify or delete this entry 

Opportunity assigned to Group 

Note that the group settings override the profile settings. Group privileges may get limited by custom organization sharing privileges.

Group of Groups

You may build groups where the members are also groups. That means that all users who are a member of a selected group will also become members of the new group. Let's assume you would like to build a hierarchy as shown in Figure: Sample Hierarchy for Groups. Based on this structure you may create a user group “Sales” where the groups “Team A” and “Team B” are members. In this example, the “Team A” and Team B“ groups are built with users as members.

Sample Hierarchy for Groups 

If you assign a CRM data entry to the group “Sales” the Persons 1-4 will become the owner of this entry with all rights related to owners.

Note that the group settings override the profile settings. Group privileges may get limited by custom organization sharing privileges.

Groups are a very effective tool in order to summarize users and privileges. Any type of relationship can be used to form a group, such as:

• users at the same location

• users with a common task

• user at the same department

• users with the same working history

• users with the same interests

Click on the Groups menu to open the list view as shown in the following figure. You will see a list of all existing groups.

Editing Group

Click on the name of a group to get the details as shown exemplarily in the following figure. The detail view lists the name, the description, and the current users who are members of this group. You may change the group settings by clicking on the Edit button.

Creating New Group

To create a new group click on the Create New Group button at the list view. The new entry window as shown in the following figure, allows you to define the conditions for a group.

First, give the group a name and provide a short description. Then select the criteria for membership of this group. The filter function, as well as the search function, allows you to select members quickly. You may choose users, roles, roles, and subordinates as well as other groups as group members.

Click on Save to store your new group at the CRM system. The assignment of a user to a group will also be displayed at the users' detail view.

Deleting Groups

This feature enables you to delete the existing group if it doesn't meet your requirements. Follow a few simple steps to delete an existing group

• In the list view of groups, click on the pencil icon to the left of the desired group

• Transfer responsibilities to another existing group

• Click Save