Working in a group of companies and contacts

A busy CRM can hold thousands of contacts, and most of them have nothing to do with the accounts you are working on today. A group lets you set aside the companies and contacts that belong together, such as a sales territory, a set of key accounts or one rep's patch, and then look at the CRM through that group alone.

Groups belong to a tribe, which is one location, branch or business unit inside your organisation. Each tribe has its own groups, and a group only ever contains that tribe's companies and contacts.

Creating a group

1. Open the tribe's CRM and select Groups in the menu on the left, under Contacts and Companies.
2. Select New group.
3. Enter a Name your team will recognise, for example "North Shore territory". Each name can be used only once in a tribe.
4. Optionally add a Description explaining what belongs in the group, and choose a Colour. The colour appears as a dot beside the group's name.
5. Optionally choose a Rep to hand the group to one person, as described below. Leave it empty for a group the whole team shares.
6. Select Create group.

Handing a group to a rep

A manager can use a group as a focus list for one rep: pick the companies the rep should be working on, add them to a group, and set the group's Rep. Only team members who have a login to Gorilla Dash appear in the list, because the rep needs to sign in to see the group.

• In the Working in bar, the rep's own groups are listed first and marked Mine. Other groups show the name of their rep.
• On the Groups page, the Rep column shows who each group belongs to, and the box at the top narrows the page to one rep's groups, to Mine, or to the Shared groups that have no rep.
• To hand a group to someone else, or to make it shared again, select the pencil icon beside the group and change or clear the Rep.

Setting a rep does not hide the group from anyone else, and it does not change who the companies in it are assigned to. Each company keeps its own Assigned To. Everyone in the tribe can still see and work in the group.

Adding companies

1. Open Companies and tick the companies you want to add. To add a single company, you can instead open its profile and choose Actions, then Add to group.
2. Select Add to group in the bar that appears above the list.
3. Choose the group, or select New group to create one on the spot.
4. Choose which contacts should be in the group, as described below, and select Add to group.

Adding contacts

Tick contacts on the Contacts list and select Add to group, or open a contact's profile and choose Manage, then Add to group. Adding a contact adds only that person. Their company and their colleagues are not added.

If you also want the contact's company in the group, tick Also add their companies in the dialog. The company is then added with "Only contacts I choose", so the contact's colleagues still stay out of the group.

Other places to set groups

• The Groups column on the Contacts and Companies lists shows each record's groups. Select the cell to add or remove a group without leaving the list.
• The Classification card on a contact or company profile has a Groups field that works the same way.
• Bulk Edit on either list has a Group row. Tick it, choose Add to group or Remove from group, and pick the group to change every selected record at once. Before anything changes you are asked to confirm, with the group and the number of records named.

A company picked in its Groups field or column joins with all its contacts. On a contact, groups it is in only through its company appear under the field as "Also in … through their company"; change those on the company instead.

Filtering a list by group

The Contacts and Companies lists have a Groups filter beside their other filters. Choose one or more groups to see the records in any of them. The filter applies to that list only and can be saved in a view, while the Working in bar described below narrows the whole CRM.

Working in a group

Once a tribe has at least one group, a Working in bar appears at the top of every CRM page. Choose a group there and the CRM shows only that group's records until you clear it again:

• Contacts shows the contacts in the group, whether they were added one by one or came in with their company.
• Companies shows the companies in the group.
• Active Leads, Opportunities, Tasks and the Calendar show the records linked to a contact or company in the group.

Your choice is remembered in your browser, so the CRM opens in the same group next time. It does not change what anybody else sees. If you have the CRM open in more than one tab, changing the group in one tab leaves the others as they are until you reload them. To see everything again, clear the Working in box by selecting the small cross inside it.

Changing or removing members

Select Groups, then the group's name, to open its page. The Companies tab lists each company with a Contacts in the group setting, which you can switch between the two options above. The Contacts tab lists every contact in the group and shows whether they were Added individually or came in Through their company.

• Select Remove on a company to take it out of the group. Contacts you added one by one stay in.
• Select Remove on a contact who was added individually to take them out.
• A contact who is in only through their company cannot be removed on their own. Change the company to "Only contacts I choose" first, then add back the contacts you want to keep.

Removing a record from a group never deletes the company or contact itself, and you can add it back at any time.

Deleting a group

On the Groups page, select the bin icon beside the group and confirm. The group and its list of members are deleted, but the companies and contacts in it are not. Deleting a group cannot be undone.