Admins and Sys Admins can create Groups in FloQast to provide additional flexibility when assigning Checklist and Reconciliation items. A Group is a collection of users and can be assigned as either a preparer or reviewer to any Checklist or Reconciliation item.
To create a Group, navigate to Admin Settings > Groups, and select ‘Create Group’.
- Group Name - One of two required fields. This is the name that will be given to your Group and appear across the application.
- Group Description - This is an optional field that you can populate with details about the Group. This will not appear elsewhere in the application.
- Group Owner - The second required field. This will represent the individual user who is ultimately responsible for the Group. It’s important to note that this distinction is only visual in nature and will not provide the Group Owner with any additional permissions beyond other Group Members or permissions greater than their Account Role. Further, as Groups are only supported with Checklist and Reconciliation items, any other areas of the app where those items might appear will show as assigned to the Group Owner rather than the Group.
- Ex 1: If a Checklist item is assigned to a Group, it will appear to be assigned to the Group Owner on the Analytics tab.
- Ex 2: If a Checklist item is assigned to a Group and is a dependency, when viewed through those modals, it will appear as assigned to the Group Owner.
- Group Members - The users that will be added to the Group. The Group Owner will be added to this list automatically and cannot be removed unless a different user is named Group Owner first.
- Entity Access - In order for a Group to appear as a selectable assignee on the Checklist and Reconciliation pages, it needs to be given access to the respective entities.
A few important things to note:
- Any entities assigned to a Group will automatically be added to every individual user within the group.
- This is a great way to add users to entities in bulk.
- Any Group Members added to an existing Group will automatically be granted access to all entities assigned to the Group.
- Entities cannot be removed from an individual user who is part of a group that has access to those same entities unless either (A) the individual user is removed from the Group or (B) the entity is removed from the Group.
- Auditors cannot be added to Groups.
The Groups table itself is pretty self-explanatory. It includes the Group Name, Group Description (if provided), Group Owner, count of Group Members, count of entities, along with the date the Group was created and last updated. You can click on any row to edit the Group’s attributes or click on the kebab menu and select ‘Edit’ from there. The kebab menu also contains the Activity Log to easily see who made what changes to the Group and when. Finally, we also have the ability to export the entire Groups table down to Excel, should that be required.
Once a Group has been created, it can be assigned to a Checklist or Reconciliation item in two ways. The first is by navigating to the item and using in-line editing. When opening the preparer/reviewer dropdown, Groups will appear above individual Team Members. Alternatively, a group can also be assigned using a template. When editing the Excel template, in the Preparer / Reviewer Assignee column, simply indicate the group assignment as follows Group: [Group Name] (without the brackets). This will only work if an existing Group is listed. You cannot create new Groups through the template upload.
When it comes to sign-offs, Groups respect Strict Signoff Mode. If you are assigned to an item directly as an individual user and the item also has a Group assignee which you are a part of, and strict signoff mode is enabled, you will be unable to sign-off on behalf of the Group and yourself as an individual. However, if another Group Member signs off on behalf of the Group, you will still be able to sign-off as an individual. This also applies to items where you are in multiple Groups that are assigned as both the preparer and reviewer.
A few final notes:
- Clicking on the Group avatar on the Checklist / Recs page for an item that has not yet been signed off on will display the current Group Members, with a callout for the Group Owner. However, if an item has been signed off on, users will be directed to Admin Settings > Groups > Activity Log to see historical Group information.
- Filtering for items assigned to an individual user will not automatically show items assigned to Groups that the individual is a part of. There is a quick filter to show this or the Groups can be manually selected from the filter dropdown as well.
- Items assigned to a group will result in the following notifications being sent to all group members:
- Close Progress
- Ready for Review
- Past Due
- Items Due Soon
- Rec Out of Balance