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Setting Up Groups

Before you begin. To perform this procedure, your role must include the Manage Users and Access privilege.

To set up a group, you name the group, describe it, and then add members to the group. After that, if you want users to share records, you must enable the default group assignment option.

Setting up groups allows users to do the following:

  • If the user has the Calendar Sharing privilege, the users can view a merged calendar of all group members. This allows them to see everyone's appointment details and availability when scheduling an appointment.

    NOTE: Users who have the Shared Calendar privilege can set up their own groups.

  • If the company administrator selects the Default Group Assignment option in the company profile, all group members share ownership of tasks, accounts, contacts, and opportunities; otherwise, the groups are used only for shared calendars. By default, the current group's members have full access to group records created after the member joined the group.

    Exception: Details about appointment, task, and contact records marked Private cannot be read by other group members.

This behavior applies to groups:

  • Each user can belong to only one group.

    After a user is added to a group, his name no longer appears on the user list when selecting group members.

  • If you select the group assignment option at your company:
    • Records that exist before a group is defined are not updated unless the Owner field is updated with a new owner belonging to a group.
    • When a user joins a group, the user gains access to the group's records. However, records owned by the new group member prior to the user joining the group are not automatically visible to existing group members. If a user becomes the owner of any record after the user is added to a group, those new records are visible to other group members.

      The following example illustrates group record ownership:

      • User 1 and User 2 belong to Group 1. User 3 does not belong to Group 1.
      • User 3 owns Account 31. User 1 and User 2 will not have access to Account 31.
      • User 3 is added to Group 1. User 1 and User 2 still will not have access to Account 31.
      • User 3 becomes owner of Account 32. User 1 and User 2 will have access to Account32.
  • If users are deleted from a group, they are removed from all shared records the group owns. They retain access to their private records.

Sequence for Setting Up Groups and Importing Users

If you are using groups to apply record sharing, follow this sequence:

  1. Turn on the Default Group Assignment feature.

    For instructions, see Setting Up Your Company Profile and Global Defaults.

  2. Create groups and assign users to the groups.

    For instructions, see Setting Up Groups.

  3. Import your records with the default Owner (user), which will propagate groups to the records.

To set up a group

  1. In the upper right corner of any page, click the Admin global link.
  2. In the User Management and Access Controls section, click the User Management and Access Controls link.
  3. On the User Management and Access Controls page, in the User and Group Management section, click the Public Sharing Groups link.
  4. On the Group List page, click New Group.
  5. On the Group Edit page, complete the required fields.

    Field

    Description

    Name

    Limit of 50 characters. Required field by default.

    Description

    Limit of 255 characters.

    NOTE: You can rename the group without affecting existing records, since the application uses the underlying group ID to track group records, not the group name. However, your group name needs to be unique within your company.

  6. Click Save.
  7. On the Group Detail page, click Add Members.
  8. On the Group Members page, click the Lookup icons and add users.

    Only users who have not been assigned to a group appear on the list. To determine which group a user belongs to, you need to go to that user's Detail page.

  9. Save the record.

To select the group assignment option

  1. In the upper right corner of any page, click the Admin global link.
  2. Click the Company Administration link.
  3. Click the Company Profile link.
  4. On the Company Profile page, click Edit.
  5. In the Company Settings section, select the Default Group Assignment check box.
  6. Save the settings.

About Changing the Default Group Assignment Setting

If your company decides to no longer use groups, you should follow this sequence before turning off the Default Group Assignment feature:

  1. Delete all users except for the one you want to be the Primary Owner of the group's records.
  2. Delete the group.
  3. Clear the Default Group Assignment check box on the company profile.

Published 05/11/2007