Sharing Department Resources

In a multi-department deployment, you can share a department's resources with other departments. A department's own users are its home department users. When you add a home department to another department (the shared department), the home department's users can work in the shared department as foreign users. For each home department you add, you can independently control what its foreign users can see and do when they work in the shared department.

About sharing options for foreign users

When you add a home department to a shared department, you can turn on the following options for that home department's foreign users:

Activities: Lets foreign users see the activities of the shared department.
View Routing Queues: Lets foreign users view the shared department's routing queues and transfer activities directly into them. To complete a transfer, a foreign user must also be added with explicit transfer permissions in the shared department.
View Chat Transcript: Lets foreign users view the transcripts of chats that are transferred from the shared department to their home department.
Knowledge Action Scope: Controls which Knowledge actions from the foreign user's home department, such as actions on articles and folders, can be used in the shared department. For details, see Knowledge Action Scope for foreign users.

You can enable or disable each option for each home department separately, depending on what its foreign users need in the shared department.

Behavior when sharing options are not enabled

By default, none of these options are enabled for a newly added home department. Knowledge Action Scope is the exception for sharing relationships that existed before Knowledge Action Scope was introduced. For details, see Knowledge Action Scope defaults for existing shared departments.

When none of the options are enabled for a home department, its foreign users:

Do not see the shared department's activities.
Cannot view the shared department's routing queues or transfer activities into them.
Cannot view transcripts of chats transferred to other departments.
Do not bring any Knowledge actions from their home department into the shared department (Knowledge Action Scope set to No home department actions).

Foreign users can still work in the shared department based on what is granted directly there. For example, a foreign user can still access a Knowledge folder or article in the shared department if object-level permissions on that resource grant them access, and can still perform any action available through a role or group membership in the shared department itself. The sharing options and Knowledge Action Scope control only the visibility and actions a foreign user brings from their home department. They do not grant or remove access that is configured directly in the shared department.

To share resources with other departments:

From the Partition and Departments dropdown menu, go to the partition space.
In the Navigation menu, browse to Departments > Departments.
On the List page, select the department that you want to configure as the shared department. This is the department whose foreign users you want to control.
On the Properties page, on the Sharing tab, do the following:
1. In the Departments section, select the Add button, and then select the home department whose users you want to allow in as foreign users.
2. In the list of departments, in the Activities column, select the Toggle button to share activities with the home department. By default, activities are not shared between departments. When you share activities, all users of the home department are able to see the activities from your department. Users do not need to be foreign users in your department to view the activities.
3. In the list of departments, in the View Routing Queues column, select the Toggle button to let foreign users of the home department view your department's routing queues and transfer activities directly into them. To complete a transfer, a foreign user must also be added with explicit transfer permissions in your department. By default, routing queue visibility is not shared between departments.
4. In the list of departments, in the View Chat Transcript column, select the Toggle button to share chat transcripts with the agents of the home department. When chats from this department are transferred to the home department, its agents can view the transcripts of the conversation between the customer and the transferring agent. By default, chat transcripts are not shared between departments.
5. In the list of departments, in the Knowledge Action Scope column, select which Knowledge actions from the home department its foreign users can use in your department: No home department actions, All home department actions, or Actions from selected groups. For details about each option, see Knowledge Action Scope for foreign users.
Click the Save button.

Knowledge Action Scope for foreign users

Users of a home department can act on Knowledge content, such as articles and folders, through actions they receive from their roles, explicit assignments, or group memberships. Knowledge Action Scope controls which of these Knowledge actions a foreign user brings from their home department into a shared department.

Knowledge Action Scope has three settings:

No home department actions: Foreign users cannot use Knowledge actions granted through their home department when working in the shared department. This setting affects only group-granted Knowledge actions from the home department. Other actions and object-level permissions in the shared department are not affected.
All home department actions: Foreign users can use all Knowledge actions granted through their home department when working in the shared department. This setting maintains the behavior that existed before Knowledge Action Scope was introduced.
Actions from selected groups: Foreign users can use only the Knowledge actions granted through selected groups in their home department when working in the shared department. Selecting this option opens the Map User Groups dialog, which lists groups from the home department. Select one or more groups whose Knowledge actions should apply to their members in the shared department, and then select Done.

Selecting groups for Actions from selected groups

When you set Knowledge Action Scope to Actions from selected groups for a home department, do the following:

In the Knowledge Action Scope column, select Actions from selected groups from the list. The Map User Groups from [Home Department] dialog opens automatically. To change the selection later, select the Manage groups link that appears below the Knowledge Action Scope value for that department.
In the dialog, use the Search groups field to find a group by name, if needed.
Select the checkbox next to each group from the home department whose Knowledge actions should apply to their members when they work in the shared department. You can select more than one group.
Click Done to save the selection, or Cancel to close the dialog without changing it.

Once you save a group selection, the Knowledge Action Scope column shows Actions from N groups for that department, with a Manage groups link underneath it that reopens the dialog so you can review or update the selected groups at any time.

Group mapping behavior

A foreign user who belongs to a selected group can use the Knowledge actions granted by that group.
A foreign user who does not belong to any selected group does not receive Knowledge actions through the group mapping.
Selecting a group does not change group membership. Group membership continues to be managed in the home department.
If no groups are selected, foreign users have no Knowledge actions in the shared department, the same as with No home department actions.
Access to business resources, such as folders and articles, continues to be governed by the object-level permissions configured on those objects in the shared department, regardless of which groups are selected.

How Knowledge Action Scope works with queue and folder permissions

Two types of permissions determine what a foreign user can do in a shared department:

Knowledge Action Scope: Determines which Knowledge actions from the foreign user's home department, such as create, edit, or publish actions on articles, can be used in the shared department.
Object-level permissions: Determine whether the foreign user can access specific resources, such as folders or articles, in the shared department. These permissions are configured on the resource itself in the shared department, separately from the Sharing tab.

Knowledge Action Scope does not change object-level permissions configured on resources in the shared department, and it does not affect queue visibility. A foreign user must have the required Knowledge action from Knowledge Action Scope, and the required object-level permission on the resource, to perform an action on a Knowledge folder or article in the shared department.

Knowledge Action Scope defaults for existing shared departments

For sharing relationships that existed before Knowledge Action Scope was enabled, the setting defaults to All home department actions. This preserves the existing behavior for foreign users until you change the setting. New sharing relationships default to No home department actions.