Managed File Transfer Tech Tip:
Groups
Getting the Most Out of Groups
Groups are a great way to manage your recipients as well as the people who own and deliver packages. Although groups are simply an aggregation of users, they work differently based on the context in which they are used. Let’s look at the different ways groups can be used.
Create a Group
Simply go into your Contacts and click the Add Group link to create a new group. Enter a name for the group and select the users you want from your contacts list, or manually enter them in. They do not have to be an existing contact to be added to a group. You can also choose who else can see and use your groups – these are called Managers. No need to specify whether you want to use the group as a recipient group or an owner/sender group – this is all handled for you automatically based on the users’ roles and permissions.
Using Groups for Deliveries
When delivering a package to multiple recipients, you add their email addresses individually or select them from your contacts. Now you can also add an entire group to the delivery. One of the nice features about groups is that, unlike email distribution lists, groups are living, breathing entities – changes to a group are immediately reflected in all aspects of the application where the group is being used. For example, let’s say you sent a package to one of your groups – Coffee House – that has Tom, Jane, and Ralph as members. Over time, Coffee House has had some changes to its employees – Laura just joined, and Tom left to go to a competitor – Gourmet Roasters. You’ll want to update the Coffee House group to add Laura and remove Tom. Now, all the deliveries to this group still exist, but Tom no longer has access to the deliveries, but Laura does. This is done in one fell swoop – and you didn't have to search for all the deliveries sent to Tom that were also sent to Jane and Ralph. This is especially important because some of those files you sent to Tom should no longer have access since he is now working at a competing company. Also, although Laura is new, you don’t have to go back in to all the deliveries you’ve sent to Jane and Ralph, and re-deliver to her. She immediately sees all the deliveries sent to Jane and Ralph in her inbox.
Using Groups for Package Management
If you have packages which have multiple owners or senders, groups can help you manage ownership more easily by keeping those owners and senders as group members that are updated at the group level instead of each package. For example, say you have five packages that are owned by the same three people in organization. If you want to add a new owner to those packages, you would have to add the user to five separate packages. With groups, you can define a group that contains those three owners and assign it to be an owner of those five packages. When you want to add a fourth owner, you simply add the new user to the group, and that new user now has ownership of all five packages instantly.
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