Blogs

Groups vs. Teams: What is the difference and how does it affect each user?

By Stephanie McDonald posted 10-12-2021 17:49

  

What are the actual differences between Teams and Groups in Agiloft?

If you find this a bit confusing, trust me, you are not alone on this. It is a commonly asked question, especially from admins, when going through the setup and configuration of Agiloft. Groups and Teams play a pivotal part in the user's experience and accessibility.

Agiloft users belong to  both teams and groups. Groups membership grants access to tables, records, and fields. Team settings affect various parts of the user interface such as the color scheme, available table views, and the user's default home page. Teams also define the working team within an organization including who can receive emails that go to that specific team.

Let's start with the basics, what does each membership control?
TEAMS GROUPS
Working Hours Access and Permissions
Group Email Distribution Which Records a User may View, Edit, or Delete
Team-Specific Views Which License Type is Used
Look and Feel Scheme Used Access to Tables and Records
Access To Searches Power vs. End Users

What is affected by Team Assignment?
Teams represents a set of users who share a role and work on projects together. So whenever notifications are sent out, they are being sent to the appropriate teams. For instance, if an approval is sent out to a set of people, it is determined by the team assignment.  This is why setting up working hours for teams is important. It ensures that time-based rules are not triggered to send out an email at 3 a.m. on a Sunday to a team that is scheduled to work on Monday-Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Teams help model your business processes and the company's entire hierarchy or supplier/customer relationships. The nice thing is, there are several pre-configured teams that are available in the system that are setup out-of-the-box so that you don't have to create every single one. Can't find the right team in that list? You can create custom teams as well. 

Users must be part of a Primary Team. The Primary Team determines a lot about how you can interact with the system, so it is vital that users in your system are assigned to the right team. Improper team assignments can prevent employees from doing their jobs, or can enable someone to approve records they shouldn't be able to approve.

Teams can have subteams. For example, Sonya may be a member of the West Coast Sales Team, which is in turn a member of the US Sales Team.

Teams can be hierarchical. For example, email notifications sent to a parent team will also go out to all subteam members.

Teams serve different functions for Power User and End User groups:
Power User teams are used primarily to identify functional units to whom records and chat requests might be assigned, emailed, and so on. End User teams are used primarily to enable distinct branding in the end user interface (EUI). Customers on different teams can see a completely different EUI color scheme, logo, etc.

Now that you have a good understanding on Teams, let's talk about Groups.

What is affected by Group Assignment?
Group membership defines the access permissions each user has within Agiloft. For example, groups define the records a user may view/edit/delete and which fields within the record the user may view/edit. Groups are designated as either End User or Power User.  The type of group determines which license is needed to access Agiloft. 

A User can belong to multiple Groups. They will get all of the permissions that each group has assigned to them. With this in mind, there are two possible strategies for group permissions: using groups as permission layers, which are combined to give appropriate permissions; or creating self-sufficient groups, so each user might be a member of just one group that contains all the permissions they need.

Groups are assigned as either End Users or Power Users. End User groups cannot access the Power User Interface or edit records created by other users. By placing users who only need to create/submit record and use the only FAQ only in an End User group, you limit their access and reduce licensing costs.

For more information about Teams, check out these wiki articles on creating new teams as well as team management and overview. For information about Groups, check out creating new groups and group overview and configuration.

Comments

10-22-2021 09:38

@Alejandro Araujo Thanks for your great feedback on @Stephanie McDonald's blog post, and thanks for being a part of our community! ​​​

10-19-2021 11:25

This is helpful, as the subject is doubtlessly one of Agiloft's hardest concepts for new customers/users to understand.

Now, we just need an article or addition to this article that incorporates the concept of "Roles", and we'll have a really great document to share with new customers!

Permalink