Organizations in SmartSimple are records representing companies. They are classified as internal or external and form the foundation of the system's organizational structure, connecting all contacts, activities, and data within a SmartSimple instance.
Who: Organizations is for any user with access to view or edit organization records.
When to Use Organizations
Use Organizations to:
- Capture information about specific organizations or companies.
- Serve as a container for contacts or users.
What Is an Organization
An organization is a record in SmartSimple that represents a company. Organizations and contacts are the foundational objects in the system. All contacts, activities, and application data are associated with an organization.
Internal Organizations
Internal organizations consist of companies and contacts that are part of the organization licensed to use SmartSimple. An internal user works for the root organization.
Common roles for internal users include: Global User Administrator, Employee, Executive Staff, and Program Manager.
In the organization hierarchy, internal companies and contacts are listed under the first tab.
External Organizations
External organizations consist of companies and contacts affiliated with the SmartSimple-licensed organization but not part of it. An external user receives something from the root organization. For example, a grant applicant receives funds.
Contacts are always associated externally and do not have user access until a Global Administrator activates them.
Common roles for external users include: Donor, Organization Contact, and External Individual.
In the organization hierarchy, external companies and contacts are listed under the second tab.
Organization Hierarchy
Organizations are structured hierarchically. Each organization is linked to a single parent organization. The hierarchy consists of two parallel structures: an internal hierarchy (commonly referred to as branches, for internal staff and affiliates) and an external hierarchy (for external contacts and organizations). The root organization appears in both.
- All contacts, regardless of login access, are associated with a specific level in either the internal or external hierarchy.
- An unlimited number of levels can be established within both the internal and external hierarchies.
Inter-Organization Collaboration
SmartSimple is designed to facilitate collaboration among multiple organizations toward a common objective. The system is used in sectors that require high levels of inter-organization collaboration, including:
| Vertical Market | Collaboration |
|---|---|
| Grants Management and Philanthropy | Collaboration among grant makers, grant seekers, and external reviewers |
| Research Management | Collaboration among individual researchers, research institutes, universities, and funding agencies and partners |
| Medical Claims Management | Collaboration among insurance companies, service providers, and medical specialists |
The organization hierarchy is an effective way to categorize and display the participants involved in inter-organization collaboration. SmartSimple supports inter-organization collaboration in two ways:
- Organizations share a single instance of SmartSimple.
- Organizations share information from individual, organization-specific instances of SmartSimple.
The Root Organization
The root organization is established when a SmartSimple instance is first activated, and the first System Administrator is associated with it. Because it represents the instance as a whole, it is not classified as internal or external. It occupies the apex of both the internal and external organization hierarchies.
It is recommended that the root organization not have signup pages created for it. Instead, sub-internal and sub-external entities tailored to your requirements should be created beneath it.
Internal Hierarchy Example
A root organization may contain a System Administrators branch and a Staff branch. Grouping System Administrators into their own organization provides a clear visual representation of users with elevated access.
External Hierarchy Example
An external hierarchy may include External Reviewers and External Individuals organizations. Defining sub-branches of the root organization makes it easier to categorize and manage external users.
Organizations can also represent physical or administrative entities. For example, a hierarchy might be structured as: Research Institutions > University > Department > Office Location, with individual contacts positioned at the most specific applicable level.
Security Implications
Organization-based security grants access to resources at the organization level. All members of an organization inherit access to any resource associated with that organization.
- When access to a resource is granted to an organization, all individuals within that organization can access it.
- When new users are added to an organization, they automatically receive access to all resources associated with that organization.
This approach simplifies access management: when a user is added to an organization, no additional steps are required to configure their individual resource access.
NOTE Organization-based security has the following limitations:
- It does not allow granting access to individual users from different organizations.
- Each organization must be associated with a resource separately.
- If a user is moved to another organization, they automatically lose access to resources associated with their previous organization.
System Administrators can configure and use the security matrix. The security matrix can also be enabled for individual users.