How to manage Requests by Companies

Targetprocess system has integrated Service Desk. External users log in to the portal and access their requests as Requesters. Only single instance of Service Desk can be connected to your Targetprocess site. You may have clients from multiple companies and in this case you may would like to split visibility areas in the shared Service Desk so that clients from different companies would not see each other requests, comments, products, and backlog items. Company entity in Targetprocess helps to align Requesters and Projects.

Let's learn how it works. Requesters assigned to "Company 123" have access to requests in "Product X" that belongs to the same company. Also they have access to requests in "Product Z" which is not assigned to any company. In the same time they don't have access to "Product Y" and all its requests because the corresponding project belongs to other company "Company 456".

Requesters who are not assigned to any company have access only to products not assigned to any company as well.

A requester can be assigned to one company only. Multiple products can be assigned to the same company.

Companies in Public mode vs No Companies in Private mode

The Service Desk supports Public and Private modes. In Public mode Requesters assigned to a Company have access to public requests submitted by other requesters of the same company, and to public requests submitted to products that do not belong to any company. In Private mode Requesters have access to their own requests only and Companies do not affect visibility of requests.

As a result when you prefer Private mode of Service Desk you may simplify your setup. Do not create companies as entities and keep all requests within single project (Service Desk product) common for all requesters.

Companies as Entities vs Companies as Custom Field values, Tags, or related work items

It is still possible to group your requesters and their requests per company if you do not use Companies as entities. This grouping does not affect visibility of requests in Service Desk. However it helps to organize your work and track activities in Targetprocess. For instance you may require to build views and reports that would show your work items, progress summary, or total budget distributed per company.

Multiple alternate parts of Targetprocess data model can represent companies and clients:

• Custom Fields. Use fields of Drop Down List, Multiple Selection List or Text type. Add the fields to your Requesters, Requests, and backlog items and fill the values further.
• Tags. Assign a tag related to a company to your Requests and backlog items when needed.
• Related work items. Create a work item (such as Epic) representing each company you work with, and add Relations between these "companies" and your Requests and backlog items in order to connect them together.

List of Companies

List of existing Companies are displayed in the special page in the System Settings.

Configuration

This step by step guide describes how to align your Requesters and Projects (Service Desk Products) per company using Company entity.

Create companies

So, first you need to create a Company. This can be done in Settings → Companies.

Map companies and projects

Then open Project Details to set the Company your just created.

Map companies and requesters

Requesters can be assigned to Companies manually and automatically. To assign a Requester to a Company manually, open the details view of the personal account in Targetprocess. Change the selection and save updated settings.

The easiest way to see a list of requesters is to open or to create a List view that shows requesters as cards. Scroll down or filter out the requesters you look for, then double click on each row to edit the personal details.

Batch assign requesters to companies

To update multiple existing requesters and assign them to companies, we recommend to use Import Requesters from CSV file method.

Automatic assignment of new requesters to companies

Targetprocess can also match Requesters to a Company automatically. Recognition and mapping is done by domain part of requesters' email addresses. Newly added Requesters are assigned to one of the known Companies if a domain part of their email addresses matches domain part of a hostname in the Company website address (URL).

Sounds complex? Find explanation and more details here: Automatic assignment of new Requesters to Companies

Access of internal users to company-specific projects

In the new Service Desk, you can log in as internal Targetprocess user (as opposite to external Requester). Internal users have access to Public Requests from the Projects available as Products in the Service Desk (if Service Desk is running in Global mode), including those assigned to Companies.