Create and manage user groups

User groups are the heart of the permissions model: create a group, maintain its master data, set rights in the Permissions tab, assign members – and change rights across many groups at once with a bulk action.

Video-Vorschau: Permission groups — Video from the teamspace help library · auf YouTube ansehen ↗

Prerequisites

Access to configuration mode (administrator mode)
Configuration right for the "User & rights" category

In a user group you bundle rights and assign the employees who are to receive them. You create the group, set in the Permissions tab what members may see and do, and assign the people in the Members tab. Anyone who belongs to several groups collects the rights of all those groups.

Where user groups live

Tools icon (bottom right) → "Administrator mode" → "System configuration"
  → "User & rights" sidebar → "User groups" tab

For each group the list shows Name, Members, Rights, Remark, Selectable and Sorting. The column with the number of rights is helpful for seeing at a glance whether a group carries real rights or merely holds members together – standard users, for example, have 153 rights, while the All group typically has just a handful of basic rights. Using the two buttons on each row you can, among other things, display the members directly.

You create a new group via the blue + button on the right of the toolbar. Clicking a list row opens the group in a modal with three tabs: Master data, Permissions, Members.

User groups tab with the group list (Sales, Administrators, All, Management, Employees, HR, Finance) and the columns Name, Members, Rights, Selectable, Sorting — "User groups" tab with the group list – columns Name / Members / Rights / Selectable / Sorting

Master data tab

In the Master data tab you set the name, the inheritance and a few behaviour toggles:

Active – toggle for whether the group takes effect. Inactive means: existing members do not receive the rights.
Name – mandatory field. This is what the group is called in all selections.
Remark – free text for your own notes.
Parent group – drop-down, default - None -. Sets the inheritance (see Group hierarchies).
Selectable – toggle. Off means: the group does not appear in selection drop-downs (e.g. when assigning an assignee) – but still carries rights for its members.
New users are automatically members of this group – toggle. Ideal for the All group, off for specific roles.
Default project role for new projects – drop-down (e.g. Colleague). When a new project is created, members of this group automatically receive the project role set here.
Group and Group classification – two free-text fields for structuring when you have many groups. Purely for statistics – no effect on rights.
Minimum staffing – number field. If someone from the group takes leave and the number of people present drops below the value, the leave request flags this – both to the person requesting and to the approver.

Master data tab of the Employees user group with the fields Active, Name, Remark, Parent group, Selectable, New users automatically members, Default project role (Colleague) and Minimum staffing — "Master data" tab of a user group – fields Active / Name / Remark / Parent group / Selectable / New users automatically members / Default project role / Minimum staffing

ℹ Selectable off, still active. A group can be invisible in selections and still hand out rights – useful for internal bracket groups that you only need for the permissions model.

Permissions tab

In the Permissions tab you set what members may see and do. The content is organised into six top-level accordions – Main menu, Detail manager, Permissions, Group-specific permissions, Global search, Configuration rights. What each level does and how they interact is explained in detail in How permissions interact.

Using the search field at the top right you filter for individual rights; the back arrow next to it resets the filter.

ℹ Main menu and Detail manager are entry points, not a barrier. The actual data access is governed under the Permissions accordion. Anyone who sees the document overview as a tile but does not have View documents set will get an empty list.

Members tab

In the Members tab you assign the employees. The table shows Employee, Organisation and Assigned (checkbox). Using the checkbox you set a person as a member – on saving, they land in the group and inherit the rights. If you clear the tick, they no longer belong to it and lose this group’s rights.

On the left of the modal you see the membership figures with two counts: the number next to the person symbol is the number of direct members, the number next to the tick is the effectively entitled users (including members from child groups via inheritance). For Employees, for example, you see 5 direct and 153 effectively entitled.

Members tab of a user group with the table Employee, Organisation and Assigned, plus the membership counts in the left sidebar — "Members" tab – table Employee / Organisation / Assigned, on the left the counts of direct vs. effectively entitled users

Change rights in many groups at once

If you want to change the same right in many groups – e.g. switch off the News area in Knowledge for everyone – you do not have to open each group individually. In the user groups list you select the affected groups and use the Add and remove permission action from the actions sidebar:

Select the groups in the list, choose the Add and remove permission action and click Next. teamspace shows which groups are affected.
Expand and select the right (in the example, the News menu item).
Choose add or remove and save.

Add / remove permissions dialog with selected user groups (Management, Employees) and permissions (Project rights, Milestones) above the group list — "Add and remove permission" bulk action over the groups selected in the list

Menu still showing after removal? For speed reasons the menu is cached. Restart the session once – the menu then loads fresh and the removed entry is gone.

Further actions on the group detail are Add user role, Remove all permissions and Import permissions.

Common questions & needs

You want to …	How to
Create a new group	Blue `+` button in the toolbar of the User groups tab.
Define what a group may see/do	Permissions tab → the relevant accordions; for details see The six levels.
Add someone to a group	Members tab → set the `Assigned` checkbox, save.
A group just for assigning, without rights	Create a group without rights (e.g. `Team A`) and use it as an assignee assignment – grant rights via functional roles.
Hide a group from selection drop-downs	Master data → Selectable off (rights are retained).
Capture new employees automatically	Master data → New users are automatically members on (typical for `All`).
Warn against leave gaps in a department	Master data → set Minimum staffing.
Change a right in many groups at once	Select the groups → Add and remove permission action.
Map hierarchies/locations or hidden roles	See Group hierarchies, inheritance & user roles.
Avoid locking yourself out	At least one person as tenant admin – see Tenant admin.

How permissions interact – the six levels Permissions Concept
Group hierarchies, inheritance & user roles Permissions Configuration
Set up group-specific permissions (with video) Permissions Configuration
Tenant admin & not locking yourself out Permissions Configuration