What Are Group Contacts?
Group contacts in 1Place serve dual roles: for incident notifications and for ticket resolution, managing both communication and access.
Default Group Contacts
By default, 1Place comes with two default group contacts: one for centers and one for rooms. These are named "center managers" and "room managers" respectively. Typically, center managers or directors are assigned to these group contacts to gain visibility into their center and its rooms.
For organizations with broader roles, such as regional directors, new group contacts can be created to further manage specific ticket categories.
Why Apply Group Contacts to Ticket Categories?
Assigning individual users to ticket categories can sometimes lead to unintended consequences. For example, if a center director at Center A is added as an individual user to a ticket category, they may inadvertently gain access to information from other centers they are not responsible for, such as Center B, C, or D.
The Solution: Group Contacts
To avoid this issue, group contacts are used. Center A's director is added to the group contacts of Center A and the rooms belonging to Center A. This ensures that they will only see, receive notifications, and take action on matters related to Center A.
Note - When Individual Users Suffice:
Contrarily, if your organization has a maintenance person who is responsible for maintenance across all locations/centers, they can be assigned as an individual user to, for example, the "Maintenance" category, regardless of their location. In this case, it doesn't matter if they have access to only certain centers for other purposes. As the maintenance person is responsible for all maintenance matters, they will receive notifications and have access to all maintenance tickets, regardless of their location.
How They're Used
Group contacts play a crucial role in both incident notification and ticket resolution. For ticket categories, center managers or room managers (or other group contacts you created to suit are usually assigned to categories where their oversight is needed.
Within Ticket Categories:
Creating New Group Contacts
To create a new group contact, navigate to Settings > Group Contacts and click the green "Add Group Contact" button.
Provide a name, description, and select the type (Center or Room) before clicking "Add" to complete the process.
Assigning Users to Group Contacts
When creating new centers and rooms, users can be assigned to respective group contacts within the "Group Contacts" section.
Alternatively, users can be assigned to group contacts directly from the Users page (note: group contacts can be applied to existing users only, therefore the new user needs to be added to the system first, then go through the user details page).
Dual Role in Health and Safety
Group contacts also come in handy in the Health and Safety module as well. For example, if the center director for Center A is added to the default group contacts, "Room Managers," for all the rooms belonging to Center A, they will receive instant notifications when an incident is submitted under any of these rooms (note: if you enabled the special workflow on incident categories, this will be overwritten and won't send the notification).
Thus, the default group contacts "Room Managers" serve dual roles as a "wild card" in ticket categories, and as messengers in the Health and Safety module.
Summary
Group contacts are invaluable tools for managing communication and access within the 1Place system. By understanding how to utilize them effectively, users can ensure that the right people receive the right notifications and have access only to the information they need.