Data segmentation
The second set of objectives for implementing Line of Business could be described as data segmentation or multi-tenancy. Many organizations are interested in keeping certain groups of users away from certain tickets or projects.
EXAMPLE A large organization has a Home Appliances and a Turbines division. They have two completely separate support teams and would like to avoid the co-mingling of tickets. They set up two lines of business, and each team only has access to the tickets in the line of business they are assigned to.
With Line of Business, you can configure your resource accounts to grant or prevent access to Autotask items based on their line of business. Users can see items in lines of business they are associated with, items directly assigned to them, and items that are not associated with any line of business. This tagging of resources is completely independent of a user's security level. A more thorough explanation can be found in Lines of business and resource data access.
This lets you set up contractors and even customers with an Autotask license, without worrying about security. You can effectively create data silos, or fenced-off areas, or run multiple businesses out of one instance of Autotask. You can also set up Autotask to better serve customers in more than one language.
Use cases
The following use cases illustrate how and why the feature might be used.
Use case : Running an organization with multiple divisions or multiple organizations from one instance of Autotask
Line of Business enables customers to have their single instance of Autotask run multiple businesses or divisions that must be kept entirely separate.
The advantages of multi-tenancy are:
- Protection of sensitive data (HR tickets and projects, "Security" Practice, data subject to the new European Data Protection rules)
- A single log in for users
- Avoidance of distractions for users who are not associated with a business unit
- The ability to track and manage multiple lines of business separately, but then report on the aggregated business details from all divisions
- Visibility into how each business unit is contributing to the health of the organization
Use case: Contractors
Contractors could also be assigned a line of business. For some customers, this could replace the outsourcing of tickets.
Use case: Better support for multiple languages
If you do business in multiple languages, Line of Business can be used to assign tickets to the right support staff. You could set up a UDF called "Customer Language", and use it as a condition to assign tickets to the "French Support" line of business. Additionally, you could assign a ticket category that presents only French language form templates, and select a notification template in French.
You would assign your resources only to lines of business they actually speak.
Best practice recommendations
Give managers the same or better access than their direct reports
To be effective supervisors, they need to be able to view everything their direct reports can view.
When you set up a new resource, copy the Resource Management page from a user with a similar position
Line of Business settings are copied when the resource is copied.
