Administering and Using Groups in Desk-Net

What is a group and what is it for?

Groups help you structure data and access rights in Desk-Net.

Groups are typically departments, desks in a newsroom or external groups such as a client of a PR agency, but they can also be used for virtual and project groups.

Example: Setting up a group "Sports desk" allows you to filter data so that all Sports reporters just see sports stories, notes directed at the Sports desk and the absences and shifts of other Sports reporters, but not those of say the Business desk.

In what way does the group feature filter and segment data stored in Desk-Net?

When a user selects a specific group he can see and access the following data:

• All stories assigned to the publication platforms and categories that the group has access to
• All events/appointments related to that group
• All notes assigned to the group
• The absences of all users working for that group
• The shifts associated with that group

Who should use it?

Small Desk-Net customers typically do not need to use Groups. Most of our clients with up to 25 users do not use it.

The main characteristics of Desk-Net customers using groups are the following:

• Size - Let's assume you have an editorial department with 150 users. With every user entering data, users would quickly be overwhelmed. In such a case it makes sense to group users into departments, desks (Sports Desk, Business Desk, etc.) or offices (New York office, San Francisco office, etc.)
• Restrictive access rights - In case certain groups absolutely must not see all stories, appointments, etc. of your company you should use groups. Example: Your company is a PR agency working for several clients. You may want to create one group per client and grant that group access only to the publication platform belonging to that one client.

How do I set up a group?

You need to have administrator rights to set up and administer groups.

Go to the Groups page in the admin area.

One group has already been pre-defined for your account (every Desk-Net account must contain at least one group). You can delete this group once you have created at least one additional group.

Add a group

Click on the "+ GROUP" link at the bottom of the list and enter the following data:

• Name/label (e.g. "Business desk")
• Optional description
• Select the country the group is in. If the group is located in multiple countries select the most important country.
• Administrator: You can grant administration rights just for this one group. Group admins can add users, but grant them access to this group only.
• Access rights: Select the publication platforms and categories that the user assigned to this group should have access to (e.g. grant access to all sports categories to the group Sports Desk)
• Email address: This is the email address you can use to send emails to Desk-Net (learn more). You can edit the address if you want to.

You can also create sub-groups that are located hierarchically below another group. Hover with the mouse over a group's name in the group list and select "+ SUB-GROUP".

Once you have added a group you can assign users to them (open their profile on the page Admin > Users and use the menu "User works for...").

Edit or delete a group

In order to edit or delete a group, you need to hover with your mouse over the group's name in the group list and click on the "wastebasket" to remove the group.

If you do not see the option "Remove" the reason is a) it is the only group in the list or there are sub-groups. In both cases, such a group cannot be deleted.

Change the groups' sorting order

You can change the sorting order of the groups via drag & drop. This order will be reflected in the group menus on the Dashboard and other pages.

How do I use a group as a user?

On most pages such as the Dashboard or the Short-term Calendar, there is a group menu with the label "Display data of". Select the appropriate groups and hit the apply button.