Staff Management Groups

In BigTime, we control system rights with security groups, and we control manager rights with management groups. Manager rights determine simply what staff members a manager can review/edit on screen. Of course, you can hide certain parts of the system (e.g. - the HR/Accounting pane in your staff information screens) from your users by restricting their security, but you will still need to decide which employees each manager in your firm is allowed to see. We allow you to do that with management groups.

In order to take advantage of the management group feature, you'll need to create a set of management groups that work for your firm. Then, you'll need to assign staff/managers to those groups as required. Once you do, you'll be able to take advantage of the features that rely on a proper set of staff groups to operate:

• Managers see only their staff in screens and reports. You have to grant a special system permission to over-ride this behavior in BigTime. By default, managers will only see information on the staff members they manage.
• Automatic "filtered" reports/screens. Since your managers have access to only the staff they manage, you don't have to create special "filtered" reports for them.
• Time/Expense Review. If you are going to have your staff managers review/approve timesheets or expense reports, the system uses the staff management settings to figure out which managers are supposed to approve that data. When a manager goes to the Management...Review Timesheet screen, they see only the staff members they manage and nobody else (note that you can also review timesheets/expenses by project, in which case managers see the projects they manage instead of a staff list).

Simplified Staff Management for Flat Organizations

Creating management groups may be a best-practice, but it's not a requirement. Smaller firms can, for example, create a single "general" staff group and put all employees into that group. Then, you can just grant managers authority over that single group. This simple "one group" approach for security may be appropriate for smaller firms, but as your management team grows, your need to segment the staff list will grow as well.

Creating Management Groups

You can create as manage staff management groups as you'd like. Just goto the Tools...System Settings...Field (Lookup) Values page and choose the "Staff, Management Group" list from the pick list at the top of that page. There, you'll see a list of every staff group within your organization. If your firm has a flat hierarchy, then you may have only a few groups. More complex firms will have a more detailed set of management groups.

Think of management groups just like you'd think of the "nodes" in your organizational chart. Each "node" represents a group of employees (even if that group is made up of a single person). Each line represents "management authority" over that group, and you may have a line "reporting" relationship between a group and one manager or several managers.

Every firm is different. Some firms create a group for each "division" of the company, and some groups create a group for each "partner" or for each geographic region. In general, it's best to use your firm's org chart as a guide. Your management groups will follow your managers, so if you aren't clear about how you want to setup staff groups, then start by creating one for each manager in the firm.

As you start to break out staff into these various groups, you'll start to see a natural breakout for your staff, and your management groups aren't set in stone, you can always shift staff around or create new groups as the need arises.

Keep in mind, however, that staff groups are not the same thing as project teams. A team that comes together for a short period of time to service a specific client is not the same thing as a management team. We talk about project/client teams elsewhere in the System Guide (or in online help), so take a look at those sections of the manual in order to get a more complete understanding of how those teams work.

Assigning Staff/Managers

For a complete review of how to assign staff/managers to the groups you create, refer to the Staff Management section of the System Guide. There, you'll see how to assign staff members to the groups you create and then how to assign managers "authority" over each group. Once again, the system will mimic your firm's organizational chart (with each "node" being a group of staff member assignments and each "line" being a manager's authority).