Groups

Owned by BAS-IP (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Aug 19, 2024 by yuri.shatnii (Unlicensed)
7 min read

A Group is a structure of your project for its easy management and one of the basic data that must be entered. A group can stand for a whole residential complex consisting of many houses, units, and apartments with thousands of users, or it can be a separate house or apartment, including one user.     

For example, you can create a root group for a residential complex, and assign an administrator to this group who will install, configure, and monitor the whole system of this complex. Then, you can create subgroups for each house, and assign a manager for each of them (security guard or concierge) to register new users (tenants), be responsible for issuing access identifiers, and monitor the system.

By creating groups and adding users you give them access to devices, restrictions, and all other possibilities of the group, e.g. in one house (group) there is an elevator controller and users can use its features, but in another, there is no such option as an elevator controller is not installed.    

In the tab, you can create groups and manage them: add new subgroups, devices (previously added in the corresponding tab), and users (previously added in the corresponding tab) to the group/subgroup, etc.  


There are 2 options for creating a group: Add root group and Generate root groups. If the building is not very big and has few units, it is better to add a root group. Generating root groups is better for quickly creating a large number of groups and subgroups for complex projects (a lot of buildings, units, etc.).

If you are going to host several independent projects on one server, you must create a root group for each project (as the main group) and then subgroups for houses, units, etc. It is important to provide correct permissions for user roles. More about this mechanism is here. 

How to add root group

  1. Go to the Groups tab in the User management section.

  2. Click Add group and select Add root group.

  3. Enter a group name.

  4. Select its type: if the group is for building, unit, floor, apartment, or custom (for parking or service rooms). We recommend using a custom group type for root groups.   

  5. Enter a logical address: depending on the group type it can be Building No., Unit No., Floor No., or Apartment No. 

  6. Select SIP trunk (from the previously created) will work for the group for calls to mobile numbers (if the Link version with SIP and the corresponding license is used). Users of this group will use the assigned trunk when calling mobile numbers. 

Only one trunk can be assigned to one group. Different trunks can be used for root group and its subgroups.

  1. Add a description, if necessary.

  2. Select users (must be previously added in the Users tab).

Users must be added to the group first, then devices must be added.

If you skip this step and add devices before adding a user to a group, a feature of automatic creation of forward rules will not work correctly. This is especially important for apartment groups and monitors. If you add a device to a group without a user, device virtual number applies to an administrator, but not to the group user. So, the created forwarding queue will include the administrator instead of the user.

  1. If you need to set the number of virtual numbers and mobile app licenses available for the group users, tick the Enable restrictions box in the Licences section. Then set the number of available licenses in the corresponding fields.

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  1. Select devices (must be previously added in the Devices tab) installed in the place for what you are creating the group. 

  2. Create access restrictions or select from already created. After clicking you will be redirected to the corresponding tab where it is possible to create restrictions. 

  1. Enable and configure forward settings if necessary to redirect calls from devices/users added to the group to other devices.    

  1. If required, limit maximum values for guest passes created by this group of users. You can set the maximum number of days and passes allowed for the users to set when giving access to guests. To set a general guest access limit for the whole server and get more details, see Guest access limits by default.

  2. Click the Save button in the low left corner when all required data is entered.

 

How to generate root groups

  1. Go to the Groups tab in the User management section.

  2. Click Add group and select Generate root groups.

  3. Click Add group in the opened window.

  4. Select group type: if the group is for building, unit, floor, apartment, or custom.

  5. Enter the group name.

  6. Indicate the number of buildings for which you need to create groups.

  7. Set the number from which the numbering of buildings starts.

  8. Click the plus icon to add subgroups (e.g. Unit) and enter the same information for this section: type names, amount of units in one building, and the number from which the numbering starts.

  9. Add and set the same settings for floors and apartment subgroups.

  1. If there are any specific subgroups (parking or service rooms), you need to create and select a custom group type.

  1. When all data is entered click Generate and all groups will be created according to the entered data. 

  2. Check the correctness. Open the Settings tab to edit the entered data. 

  3. Save generated groups and then add previously registered users, devices, or access restrictions.

You can edit a root group and add a new subgroup/user/device by clicking 3 dots near the necessary group name. After selecting the option, the corresponding menu will open.  



If you click 3 dots near the user name, you can edit/delete their profile or add a new identifier or virtual number. 

Group forward rules 

In the SIP settings, you can enable the feature of automatic creation of forward rules for apartment group user/s. When adding a user that has a virtual number/s to a group, forwarding that includes all user numbers is automatically created. These rules will be sent to panel/s available for the group. 

The group will have its virtual number and logical address. When calling from the added to the group panel to a device (entering group logical address), the call will be redirected to all user virtual numbers.   

If some data (logical address, virtual numbers, devices) is added/changed/deleted, then the old forward rule will be deleted and the new one (with updated data) will be created and sent to device/s. 

You or a user can configure forward settings when editing the group with the device, or in the Link app. By default, the forward rule includes immediate call redirection to all user numbers (by default they are indicated in the 1st queue), but you can add/delete numbers to/from the queue or create new queue/s. 

Also, when the user gets a new virtual number, it will be added to the call queue #1, if there is only 1 queue. If there are 2 or more call queues, the new virtual number will be added to a new call queue. 

In addition, you can edit forward settings for the group virtual number in the Virtual number settings.