Introduction
Unit Manager holds your organisational structure, and the rest of the platform reads it. Which templates a user can open in Produce, who approves what in Plan Approvals, which units appear in Plan Campaigns and how Prove groups its reporting all follow the structure you define here.
How it works
Unit types and units
The structure is built from two things.
- Unit types are the groups. You create them first, before any unit or user exists. Typical examples are Company, Country, City and Branch.
- Units are the actual entries inside a unit type. If the unit type is Country, the units are Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Unit types form a single tree. One unit type is the Root at the top, and every other unit type has exactly one parent. You decide how many unit types you need and what to call them, so the structure still matches your company. You can move a unit type or a unit to a different parent later, as long as it has nothing below it.
You will find both in the left menu, as Unit types and Units. Each is a table you can expand and collapse to follow the tree.
Unit types list
Admin setup: creating a unit type
Select New unit type and fill in the following.
- General settings. Name in singular and plural, a description, Availability to make the unit type usable across your organisation, and Allow User Assignment, which you switch off when the unit type is only a structural container and should never hold users.
- Attributes. The data every unit of this type carries, for example name, contact phone, website, photo, address. Pick a type for each one, such as Text, Number, Phone, URL, Location, Date or Graphic. Section title and Section intro are not data fields, they split the unit form into readable blocks.
- Hierarchy. Choose the superior unit type, or make this unit type the Root.
- User groups. Choose which of your user groups apply to units of this type, and how.
Unit type attributes settings
Each attribute has up to four switches:
| Switch | What it does |
|---|---|
| SSO Identifier | The attribute your SSO matches on when a user logs in. Only one per unit type, and only on Unique and Title attributes. |
| Product title | The value shown as the unit title in Produce, Plan Approvals and Plan Campaigns. Useful when your unit name is an internal code and you want users to see the readable name instead. |
| Required | The value has to be filled in before a unit can be saved. |
| Profile list | The attribute is shown next to the unit name in the user profile list. |
For user groups, each group is set to one of two options. Automatically assign means everyone added to any unit of this type gets the group, with no per unit choice. Make available means the group is offered on each unit, and you switch it on where it applies.
Adding units
Select New unit and choose the unit type first, since that decides which fields you get. The form is then built from that unit type's attributes, plus three things that are always there.
- Superior unit, chosen from the units of the direct parent unit type.
- Expiration, either Never expires, Expired, or a date you set.
- User groups, where the automatically assigned ones are already on and locked, and the available ones are yours to switch.
The second step lets you add users straight away. Photos and other graphic fields can be uploaded or picked from Place with Find in Place, which links to the asset rather than copying it, so Place stays the source of truth.
Unit detail
Managing users on a unit
Open a unit and go to the Users tab. The columns follow the user attributes your organisation actually uses, and Table settings lets you choose and sort them.
A user can belong to more than one unit. When you add someone who is already assigned elsewhere, you are asked whether to keep their existing units or clear them so they sit only in this one. You can also remove a user from the unit row by row.
Unit users list
The default unit
If someone logs in through SSO with a unit that does not exist in Unit Manager, or with no unit at all, they are placed in the default unit so they are never lost.
One unit is the default, it can sit anywhere in the tree, and you set it from the row menu in the units list. It is labelled in the list, and its full path is always shown at the top of the Units page so you can reach it quickly. To move someone out, add them to the correct unit and then remove them from the default unit.
Expiration instead of deletion
When a location closes, set an expiration date on the unit rather than deleting it. Once the date passes, the unit is hidden from everyone outside Unit Manager, while its history and user assignments stay intact. Deleting a unit is permanent, and it is blocked entirely while the unit still has units below it.
Good to know
- Unit types are ordered automatically, grouped under their parent and then by when they were created. There is no manual reordering.
- Unit types and units can only be moved while they have nothing below them, so a whole branch cannot be re-parented in one action.
- Import and export of unit types, units and users is not available yet, so everything is created in the interface.
- All users with access to Unit Manager can see and edit the whole structure. Separate administrator, standard and read only levels are planned for a later release.
- Attribute labels are shown in one language only.
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