Getting Started with Global Groups

Follow these steps to prepare to use global groups and set them up.

Identify the global groups you need and the assets to be added.
- To use global groups to establish your organizational hierarchy, obtain a map of your organizational levels and identify what permissions each level should be granted. See tips for using this feature.
- To use global groups for notifications, identify the users who receive the notifications (for parent groups) and the global groups to assign as children.
Set up one or more roles to define the access each type of user needs. User types are:
- Internal users (your staff) who may be restricted or unrestricted.
  - If you are setting up restricted user roles (the MISC permission "Can see data for all assets" is not checked), you need to carefully consider the application permissions to assign. Most applications that recognize global groups have at least one additional permission to allow the user to administer configuration settings. Many applications have several permissions you need to consider.
  - Start by assigning Can use <application name> for each application the users assigned to the role need to access. Assign other permissions appropriate for the role.
- External users (your customers) who are restricted
  - Start by assigning "Can use QTRACS," so users can view vehicle position information.
  - Also consider the recommended QTRACS settings for external users.
Make a list of your customers to be given user accounts. Consider whether to:
- Create one or two generic user accounts for each customer to use. For example, customers in a company called Warehouse Distributors could be given IDs "WHSEDST01" and "WHSEDST02." With this option, your customer manages who knows the login credentials, and can change passwords as personnel changes occur.
- Create accounts for specific users at your customer. For example, create accounts for "MJONES" and "JSMITH." With this option, you need to manage the customer's users, adding and disabling user accounts for personnel changes.
Since there is no method to distinguish an internal user account and a customer user account, use a naming convention that clearly indicates which are customers. For example, start customer user IDs with a letter, such as "ZMJONES" and "ZJSMITH." Include an identifier for the customer in the first name field (example, "Whse Dist - Mike"), so the name is listed like this: "Whse Dist - Mike Jones."
Set up user accounts not yet defined and assign the role(s) you created in Step 2.
Set up the global groups and assign the users and associated vehicles and drivers.
- Identify a customer global group with the company name, for example, "Warehouse Dist."
- Identify groups used for your organizational hierarchy by the names used in your organization, for example, "District 1" and "East Region."
- Identify notification groups by the role in your organization that receives the notifications, for example, "Safety Dept" or "Maintenance." See steps for setting up this feature
Communicate the Services Portal URL and login credentials to your customers. List in the communication the type of data they have access to, for example, whether they can see drivers or the messages for their vehicles.

Important: Maintain global groups

After the initial setup, designate someone to maintain global groups as customers and asset assignments change. This ensures that your employees and customers can see authorized information only.

If you are using global groups for your organizational hierarchy, establish a procedure to update global groups whenever coverage membership changes for users or vehicles, or when users leave or change roles.