Solution #621 - How do I use Workgroups in Dovetail Admin?

Workgroups should be setup to group common attributes of Employees within an organization. Traditionally in Clarify, each user had to be setup independently of one another, which could prove cumbersome and time consuming. This was particularly noticeable if a user belonged to many Queues - each Queue had to be managed separately from another. If a user was part of 25 Queues, it resulted in the Administrator opening each Queue up and changing the assignment(s).

Dovetail Workgroups allows for a Workgroup to be established with Employee/User attributes such as Privilege Class, Resource Configuration, Site, Supervisor, Business Hours, Notification Preferences, and Queues, among others. As new Employees/Users are added to the system an Administrator can simply assign the new Employee to a Workgroup and have all this information populated in one step, thus greatly simplifying the creation of new Employee/Users.

Administrators should be aware of how this feature works to simplify their Employee/User administration.

What are best practices associated with using Workgroups?

1. Create the Workgroup, defining all attributes and Queues necessary
2. As you create new Employee/Users, simply select the desired Workgroup from the Workgroup drop down list, and all defined Workgroup attributes and Queues will populate accordingly.
3. When moving an Employee/User from one Workgroup to another, there are multiple ways to accomplish this:
   3a) Open the Employee/User record in Dovetail Admin, and choose a new Workgroup from the Workgroup drop down list. Or,
   3b) From within the Employee/User’s current Workgroup, click the Members tab. Highlight one or more Employee/User records from the Selected Employees tab. Below th << Remove button, select the new workgroup to move this/these User/s to. Or,
   3c) From within the Employee/User’s targeted Workgroup, simply click List to populate the Available Employee’s list, select the desired Employee/User(s) and then click Add>>.

As you move Employees from one Workgroup to another you should see their Employee data change according to that Workgroup’s specifications. This behavior is controlled through a Configuration Item called 'Workgroup_Propagate’. As mentioned from the documentation:

If the ‘Workgroup_Propagate’ is set up, it should be set to "ask", "always", or "never".

ask - If the configuration item is set to "ask", a checkbox will be displayed to the right of the Workgroup dropdown list. When this checkbox is checked, the employee properties will get updated when a new Workgroup is selected from the Workgroup dropdown list.
always - If the configuration item is set to "always", the checkbox will not appear, and the User/Employee properties for the Workgroup will get updated from this page.
never - If the configuration item is set to "never", the checkbox will not appear, and the User/Employee properties for the Workgroup will not get updated from this page.

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FAQ:
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What happens if I change a Workgroup’s attributes?
Changing an attribute or Queue assignment for a Workgroup does not currently cascade down to the assigned Employees of that Workgroup. The new Workgroup settings will only take effect when an Employee is assigned the Workgroup using the steps above.

Can a user be assigned to Queues outside their Workgroup?
Yes. You can still manage individual Queues outside the scope of Workgroups.

Can I remove a user from a Workgroup?
Once an Employee/User is assigned a Workgroup, it will always have a Workgroup assigned to it. There is no method currently of removing an Employee/User from or having an “empty” Workgroup. Administrators might consider creating a “None” Workgroup, with appropriate data set to represent no Workgroup assignment. When the time comes to remove an Employee/User from a Workgroup, they can simply move them to the “None” Workgroup, effectively leaving them out of Workgroup configuration.