Account Groups Overview
The Account Groups within accessplanit are an essential part of your platform infrastructure. Account Groups are used to structure the data within your platform, and house all of your Accounts. The Account Groups page within the Administration area allows you to manage the Account Groups on your platform and assign Account Groups as either Parent or Child Account Groups.
To learn how to use Account Groups, click here.
Where to find Account Groups
Click on the Profile Icon at the top right hand side of the platform and select Administration:
Within this page, click the menu option Account Groups.
Setting up Account Groups
When setting up an Account Group, you will be required to enter some of the following details into the platform. Here's a break down of what they all mean:
ID
This is used to identify the Account Group. The ID can be pre-defined. If left blank, the platform will apply an ID. The ID cannot be changed once saved.
Label
This is where you can specify the name of the Account Group.
Protected
A protected Account Group prevents Users from being able to delete it.
Companies
This allows you to select the Main Account that this Account Group belongs to (if applicable).
Company Groups
Here, you can assign which Account Groups are associated with this new Account Group. A Parent Group is a group that this Account Group is nested within; a Child Group is a group that is nested within this Account Group.
Structure of Account Groups
When it comes to structuring your accessplanit platform, there are specific rules that can't be broken.
A User can only exist if they belong to an Account, and an Account must belong to at least one Account Group.
New Users, Accounts, and Account Groups can be added or removed at any point to elaborate on the structure within your platform.
The Account Group structure is decided at the time of project implementation and typically isn't changed once it's in place. But, as your company expands it isn't unusual to change, add, or remove Account Groups from this structure.
As standard, your platform will have a Parent Group, and every other group will be contained within this one - either directly, or via a subgroup.
Think of Account Groups as folders on your computer to simplify the structure. A folder can contain files, or other folders containing files. The only difference is that an Account can be in more than one Account Group at the same time.
The example above shows Account A nested within the Parent Group. Two other groups (Credit Checked Accounts and Accounts in the North West of the UK) are also contained within the Parent Group . You can also see Account B (Account in Two Groups) features in two separate subgroups, and Account C (Accounts in the North West of the UK) sits in one Group.
Due to the hierarchical nature of Account Groups, you can't add the main Parent Group to one of its child groups.
For example, if Parent Group A has a Child Group B, you can edit the properties of B and add individual Accounts and/or Account Groups, but you can't make Group A a Child Group of B, since it is the parent of this group.
External Trainers
By default, In-House Trainers will be created within the 'Training Provider Account' that they work for. However, as External Trainers are not typically directly employed by yourselves, they will be automatically assigned to the External Trainers Account.
It is possible for you to move them into a different Account if you wish later.
Guest Company Group
This Account is used to store all Users who choose to register without their company information. As all Users in your platform need to belong to at least one Account, those users are placed within this one.
The Guest Company has a special property on it which prevents Users from that Account selecting the Guest Company to be invoiced when they make a booking - they will need to pay for their place on the course themselves.
When a User visits your Shopping Basket to register onto a course, they may have the option to create an Account at this point. This new Account will be created within the Guest Company Group of your platform.
The Guest Company Group acts as a 'holding pen' for Accounts created in the Shopping Basket. Accounts will remain within the Guest Company Group until an Administrator assigns them to a new Account Group.
Why create Account Groups?
Depending on your organisational structure, you may only need one Head Account Group and have all of your Accounts listed under it.
However, if your business works with a number of providers or sites, you may wish to split your platform over several Account Groups. Dividing your staff and customers in this way will mean that Training Administrators will only be able to see the data that they need to have access to.