Smart Groups are a great tool to organize and structure your company and easily distribute the relevant content to the relevant people, which is key when running a business. Groups can be created for different departments such as locations, skills, or any other differentiation that will fit your company’s needs. All you have to do is set a group’s filter or tag. and the system will do the work for you - automatically!
Before diving deep into the Smart Groups feature, let's go over what this article will discuss. This article will go over:
Now let's Begin!
What are Segments and What are Smart Groups?
Segments are comprised of smart groups. You can have as many segments and smart groups as you want. In a nutshell, smart groups are groups based on rules. All the users who meet the rule will automatically be added to the group and those who dont will not be added. It's as simple as that.
In the example below you can see the segment is labeled Positions and the Groups are labeled Sales, Hr, and Customer Success.
When is it Useful to Use Smart Groups?
Smart Groups are always a good idea! Especially if you have multiple departments in your organization such as Sales, Customer Support, or HR. By Creating smart groups you will be able to divide users into the relevant groups.
Setting up smart groups will enable you to:
Assign managers to a certain group
Automatically add and delete people from Team Chats, Job Schedules, Time-clock, Forms, or any other feature assigned to a Smart Group.
Automatically send content to users that fall under the rules of a smart group
Automatically block content from users that do not fall under the rules of the group.
How are Smart Groups Created?
Smart groups are created by creating a group and setting a rule by which the group will be filtered. All users who meet the criteria are automatically filtered into the smart group.
Before we start creating groups let's go over the basic terminology
User Profile Fields are fields in the User Profile. These are completely customizable and can be edited to be any field your company might need. Examples of these are Branch, Department, Position, T-Shirt Size, etc.
How to reach the User Profile Field Menu from inside the user profile:
The User Profile Field Menu:
Below you can see how User Profile Fields look inside the user profile:
Filters are the options you have set within the User Profile Fields. For example, if the User Profile Field is Position then the options might be Sales, Customer Success, HR, or Sales Manager.
Pro tip: These options can be created in the Manage Field section of the User’s profile by creating a Drop Down User Profile Field.
Now That We Know What the Terminology Means, Let's Go Over the Steps to Create Smart Groups
Step 1: Navigate to the smart group's category on the left sidebar
Step 2: First, add a Segment
Step 3: Use the + Add a group button from inside the Segment to create a group and then name the group
In the example below you can see I create a Segment named Job with the Group named Sales Reps in it.
Step 4: Set the Filter. First, choose the User Profile field, and then finally select the criteria that the group will be defined by. This is done by choosing the option which filters the group.
In the example below you can see that we set the Filter to be Position is Sales. Notice how the list of participants includes only those whose Position is set as Sales in their User Profile.
Below you can see the complete process we went through, as we created the Sales Smart Group that was described above.
Now That We Understand How to Create a Smart Group, Let's Go Over a Few Examples of Setting Filters and the Types of Groups They Will Create.
Example 1: Position (User Profile Field) is Intern (Filter). This will create a smart group with all the users whose position is HR
Example 2: Department (User Profile Field) is Midtown (Filter). This will create a smart group with all the users whose Branch is set to Midtown.
Creating Smart Groups with Multiple Filters
Now that you have the basics down, let's keep in mind that we can create more dynamic and complicated groups.
Building off our examples above say I have a Sales representative who works in Midtown, but I also have one who works in Brooklyn. I may not want all those Users to be in the same group. Why not? Well, some of the information for the Sales representative who works in the Midtown Branch might not be relevant for those who work at the Brooklyn Branch and vice versa. Now that you get the idea, let's see how to solve this by creating a group based on more than one filter.
Step 1: As done above start creating the smart group and creating the filter as shown above. In this case, we will have 2 filters. Name the Group Midtown Sales Reps.
Step 2: Like the above filter one would be Position (User Profile Field) is Sales (Filter). This will gather all our Sales representatives.
Step 3:Then we will press the + button on the left side and we will add our second filter. This will be Branch (User Profile Field) is Midtown (Filter). Now notice that all the group members are those whose User profile contains BOTH the Position of Sales AND the branch Midtown. Viola, you have created a Smart Group containing only your Sales representatives who work in Midtown.
Let's take a look at how this filter criterion looks below:
Pro tip: Smart group filters are case-sensitive! For this reason, we recommend using Drop Down User Profile Fields. It is very important that if you do not use a dropdown User Profile Filed you make sure the information you are typing into the User profile exactly matches the filter you have set for the smart group, otherwise the users won't be added to the correct group.
How are Smart Groups Filtered Automatically?
At this point, you may be saying I understand how to create a smart group, and it's great, but you might be asking how do these stay updated automatically. Let's explain this using a few Use Case examples, which you may also experience in your company.
Example 1: Removing a User From One Group and Adding Them to Another.
I have a User named Sue. Sue is a Sales Representative and she is in our Smart Group Sales which is filtered by Position is Sales. Sue was recently promoted to be a Sales Manager.
In her user profile, I have changed her User Profile Field from Sales to Sales Manager. Since she no longer meets the criteria Position is Sales, she will automatically be removed from Smart Group Sales. She will also be automatically removed from any feature assigned to Smart Group Sales.
Take a look at how this looks in Sue’s user profile Below
Now take a look at the Sales smart group before and after Sue’s Position was changed from Sales to Sales Manager. Notice she is no longer on the Groups participant's list after her Position was changed. This is because she no longer meets the group’s criteria Position is Sales. Her removal from the group took place automatically.
Now, that we know Sue was automatically removed from the Sales Groups let’s talk about how she can be automatically added to another.
Let's say I had another smart group called Sales Managers that is filtered by the Criteria Position is Sales Manager. Since Sue’s User Profile Field Position now contains the option Sales Manager (see above) she is also automatically assigned to the Sales Manager Smart Group and added to any features assigned to the Smart Group Sales Manager.
Take a look below and notice that before Sue's Position was changed to Sales Manager she was not included in the Sales Manager Smart group. After changing her position to Sales Manager notice how she does appear on the participant's list inside the group. This happened automatically and is because she now meets the group’s criteria Position is Sales Manager.
Example 2: I have a User John. He worked in our Brooklyn Office and now he is switching to the Midtown office. How can I make sure he is moved to the correct Group?
Ok, remember we created our complicated Smart Group above called Midtown Sales Reps, which was filtered by the criteria Position is Sales AND Branch is Midtown. To make sure John gets into this smart group, we will go to his User Profile and switch ONLY his User Profile Field Branch from the option Brooklyn to the option Midtown. Now he meets the criteria of the Midtown Sales Reps group and he is automatically added to it.
Example 3: I hired a new employee named Mary, and she needs to be added to the Smart Group Sales.
Great! When creating Mary’s user profile you will make sure that her User Profile Field named Position contains the option Sales. By doing this Mary will be automatically added to the Sales Smart Group which is filtered by the criteria Position is Sales. Mary will also be automatically added to any features, such as the schedule, that are assigned to the Sales smart group.
Pro tip: Notice that you can see which Groups a user is currently part of in their user profile.
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