To manage groups, click the Groups tab. The Groups | Overview page appears.

Overview

In order to control spending, organizations can configure services such as Travel to allow certain kinds of bookings and disallow others. For example, a company may have a travel policy that allows executives to fly business class, while non-executive employees are allowed only to fly coach or economy class. Groups make it possible for you to assign different rules to different types of users. A user’s access to services and other options is determined by the groups to which the user belongs.

When you set up a service, you can set up rules for using the service, and then apply those rules to different groups within your organization. 

Each user belongs to at least one group called the Everyone group. By default, all users belong to this group. The Everyone group is the default group that applies to all employees of a company. You use it to define a default set of rules for all employees. These rules can be overwritten by rules that are assigned to groups with a higher priority. 

To implement a travel policy that allows executives to fly business class, while non-executive employees show business class as "out of policy", you can create two travel policy sets and assign them to two groups:

• A company-wide default travel policy set ("Default Travel Policy Set") assigned to the Everyone group.
• An executive-only travel policy set ("VIP Policy Set") assigned to the US VIP group. Rules in this set apply only to this group.

The policy sets have within them lists of policies, such as the Business Class Policy.

Once you have defined the groups under the Groups tab, and the policy list and policy set for each group, you assign the set to each group under the Rules tab as described in Rules Tab for Managing Rules.

Group Prioritization

Groups are prioritized under the Rules tab for each type of rule. The priority controls which rule will be applied if a user is a member of more than one group. The lower the priority number (located at the top of the list), the higher the rule priority this group will have. If a user belongs to more than one group, the group with the lowest priority number (the one appearing closest to the top of the list) is chosen first to govern the access and options available.

The Priority column appears to the left of each group when editing rules under the Rules tab. See Rules Tab for Managing Rules for details.

Group Parameters

Group parameters define who the members of the group are. Only user accounts matching all of the defined criteria are included in the group.

Parameters can include the values of fields stored in a user’s profile. For example, you could define a group based on all users whose department name is equal to "Sales” or whose VIP indicator is checked in the profile. A group can also be defined by information not in the profile, such as membership in another group. For example, you could create a group for all employees in the VIP group whose location does not include a country code of "U.S.”

You can create a group based on multiple parameters – for example, you could define a group consisting of all users whose department name equals "Sales” and whose time zone equals "Pacific.” A member of this type of group must match all of the parameters specified.

Adding a New Group

 To add a new group, click the Add a New Group link. The Groups | Add Group page appears. Follow these steps:

1. Group Name: Enter a name that will be easily recognizable for the group. For example, you might use VIP if your organization is a large enterprise, or the client name if you manage a site with multiple client businesses.
   Note:  Do not include any special characters in the Group Name.
2. Description: (Optional) Enter a group description.
3. Group Use: Select the type of rules that can be assigned to this group. For example, if service rules should be assigned, click the checkbox for Service Rules. This means that when you assign service rules under the Rules tab (as described in Rules Tab for Managing Rules), this group will appear so that you can assign service rules to it. You can enable the following rules for this group:
   • Service Rules: The group will appear in the list of groups for Service Rules under the Rules tab.
   • Account Rules: The group will appear in the list of groups for Account Rules.
   • Groupware Rules: The group will appear in the list of groups for Groupware Rules.
   • Display Options Rules: The group will appear in the list of groups for Display Options Rules.
   • Web Services Rules: The group will appear in the list of groups for Web Services Rules.
   • Mobile Rules: The group will appear in the list of groups for Mobile Rules.
   • Dynamic Profile Attribute Assignment Rules: The group will appear in the list of groups for Dynamic Profile Attribute Assignment Rules.
4. Select the group parameters for defining the group:
   1. Select User or Group from the first dropdown menu under "And..." to add the first parameter.
      • If you select Group, choose an existing Group name from the second dropdown menu.
      • If you select User, choose a parameter from the second dropdown menu.
        • You can choose parameters to match users, such as User Name / Login, First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Email, Is Guest User, Is a Traveler, and so on. 
        • If you choose a parameter such as User Name / Login, you can also choose an operator (such as Starts with, Contains, Equals, and so on) from the second dropdown menu, and enter text in a field for the operator. For example, you can choose User, Department Name, Starts with, and Sales (for any department starting with the word "Sales").
        • Choose Dynamic Group Name to define a group that is used for meeting travel, and then enter a name that is an exact match for the meeting type in the meeting provider tool. See Managing Meetings on a Site for details. 
   2. Click the Add Parameter link if you need more than one parameter to define the group.
5. Click the View Active Users button to be sure the value used as the parameter is correct. A list of users who fit the criteria appears.
6. Make sure that the list includes the appropriate users. Click Back to return to the Add Group page. Adjust the parameters if necessary.
7. Click Save to save the group.

Tip: You can quickly define a group that includes only guest traveler profiles by using the following parameters in Step 4 above: User, Is Guest User, Is Not Null. 

Tip: To reduce the number of profiles that are sent out to global distribution systems (GDSs) to only those users who actually travel and have travel preferences, you can define a group using the Is a Traveler parameter User in Step 4 to include only those users who have travel preferences. 

Note: To commit all of your changes after saving them, click the changes not applied link at the top of the page. The Commit Changes page appears. Click the Commit button.

Editing a Group

To edit an existing group, click the group's name in the Name column. The Edit Group page appears. Follow the steps above to edit the group information.