Manage Project Groups

ProjectDox provides for creation Site Groups and Project Groups. The following table outlines the similarities and differences between the two group types.

To manage project groups, click the Groups tab within the Edit Project area.

Creating a Project Group

1. Click Edit   for the selected project.

2. Click the Groups tab.

3. Click the New Group button.

4. Assign a descriptive Group Name and optional Start Date and Finish Date. The start and finish date determines when the group will be active. For example, you can set up a group of bidders to be able to bid on a project for a specific length of time, by setting the Start and Finish dates. The users in this "bidders" group will be sent an invitation email on the date that is set in the Start Date field, and not when you set up the group.

You may set the group as private by selecting the Private Group check box. When this feature is turned on, the following conditions apply (see also Project Group Notes):

1. • Members in a private group can see the project information, but they cannot see other members in the group, or any information about them.

   • Site groups cannot be private and individual users cannot be private.

   • System and Project Administrators can see members of a private group and do not need to be added as members of a private group.

   • Non-administrative users can see the name of a private group, but not its members.

   • Users who are members of a non-private group will be seen as members of that group, regardless of their membership in other private groups.

5. Click Save. The new group name appears in the left pane of the Groups tab. You can delete the group by clicking the Delete button.

Adding Users to a Project Group

You can set up a project group with no members initially, assign permissions to that group, and later add members. Any members added to the group will inherit its permissions.

To add users to a group, select that group name from the left panel of the Groups tab. If no users have been added to the group, the Selected Members area is blank. You can choose users from any of the three available tabs in the bottom section of the page: Groups, All Users, and New User. In the prompt, confirm whether to add all selected users to the group.

Groups tab – Choose a site group from the dropdown list from which to select members. Select the individual ‘Add’ check box beside each member that you want to add to the project group and click Add Selected Users. The member is added above (in Selected Members) and the name is no longer in the select users list. You can also click the Add All Users button to the right of the Groups list to invite all the members of that group to your project group.

All Users – You can select from a list of all users in the site. Select the checkboxes for the users in this list and click Add Selected Users. The names are added to your project group list and the names are no longer available in the All Users tab. You can use the Search text field to filter the results list for a specific user name in both the Groups and All Users tabs. Enter a name or email into the provided field and select “Enter” on the keyboard. In addition, you can sort the lists on either tab by clicking on any of the column title names (Name, email, etc.). Clicking a second time reverses the order.  

New User – In this tab, you can create new users and invite them into the project group at the same time. Enter the first name, last name, email, and select a site group assignment. Click Invite. The user is added to the project group list and (unless Disable Invitation Email is selected for the group) an invitation email is sent with login information and a link to the site. If a start date has been set on the group, the email is not sent until the specified date. If the user (as defined by the email address) already exists in the system, a message appears: “The specified user already exists. The existing user has been added to the current group.”

You can view a member’s user information and group memberships by clicking the user’s name in the Selected Members area or the lists that appear using the Groups or All Users tabs. Additionally, if the user is a ProjectDox System Administrator they will have a designation of (SA) beside their name displayed on the Permissions tab.

You can delete users by selecting the Remove checkbox beside the name(s) in the Selected Members list and clicking Remove Selected Users.

Project Group Notes

• A project can have any number of project groups, but a group belongs to one project.

• The Permissions tab (in the Project Edit screen) is used to assign roles/permissions/folders to groups or individuals.

• Project groups can be marked as "private," which means:

• 1. • The private group itself can be seen by all project members.

     • Individual members can be seen only by Project or System Administrators, not by each other or any non-admin users.

• Users can be invited to a project group as individuals, with or without membership in groups.

• When a user begins to invite another user to a project (individual permissions), only users from the first user's site groups and project groups will be exposed for selection.

• Project groups can have an optional start date. Users can be added to the group at any time, but they will not receive email invitations (if enabled) or be able to access the project until the start date.

• Project groups can have an optional finish date. Once the specified date is reached, all access and permissions for that project group are suspended. If the end date is extended to or past the current date, the group’s access and permissions will be resumed.

• Any number of project groups can be created per project. Keep in mind that some function depends on querying the groups, if there is greater than 30 groups for instance, the query may take longer to complete. Much depends on the quality of the SQL server and the web server.

• A user’s permissions in a project are always the sum of their individual and group permissions. For example, Group1 has permission to delete files in Folder A; Group2 has only View permissions in Folder A. User X has individual permissions to upload files into Folder A. If User X is a member of both groups, he will be able to view, upload and delete files in Folder A.

• When adding users to a project group, the dropdown under the Groups tab lists only the individual’s own site groups and their members as available options. Likewise, under the tab for All Users, they will see only a combined list of users from those same site group(s). This differs from the process of inviting individual users, where the display includes other members of the user’s project groups.