Business units allow you to divide your company into several independent parts. Dispatchers from one business unit cannot see the jobs of other business units. However, an employee can be added to multiple business units. In this case, the employee can switch between business units in the web application. If a field employee belongs to several business units, jobs from different business units can be assigned to them.
Business units may be useful for companies:
With branches in different cities. In this case, create a business unit for each city, dispatchers and field employees from different cities are granted access only to their business unit, and management at the main office has access to all business units.
Franchises. Individual franchisees are added as business units and operate independently from each other. The parent company can still oversee their work.
Companies working in different niches. If a company operates in different, unrelated industries, a separate business unit can be used for each industry. Employees in each industry will work within their business unit, with their own templates and staff.
The business unit function is enabled on our side. If you need this feature, contact us at sales@planado.app.
After the business unit function is enabled, you will see a menu to configure it. Go to Settings → Business Units.
List of Business Units
The list of your business units is displayed here. After enabling the feature, all employees, jobs, and clients in your Planado settings are applied to the first business unit. To begin, create another business unit by clicking “Add business unit”. The new business unit’s settings will open.
Adding a New Business Unit
In the “Name” field, enter the name of the new business unit. In the “Dispatcher office phone” field, you can specify the phone number of the business unit’s dispatcher, which the worker can call from the Planado mobile app. Choose the time zone in the “Time zone” field.
Name, phone, and time zone of a new business unit
In the “Available seats” field, you can set a limit on the number of seats for the business unit. For example, if you know that no more than 10 employees with seats will be in the business unit, you can specify this limit. If you don’t set a limit, the business unit will be limited only by the total number of seats in your Planado.
Limiting the number of seats
You can restrict clients available in a business unit: either all clients, or only clients of this business unit. In the first case, all clients added to your Planado will be available, and in the second, only those added through this business unit. Client filtering is useful if business units work in different cities and do not share clients.
Clients Available in the Business Unit
You can set available templates for the business unit. It can be useful if different business units perform different types of tasks, and only need access to their own types of jobs. After adding business units, when creating a new template, you can specify which business units it’s available to.
Templates Available in the Business Unit
Like templates, you can restrict which products and services are available to the business unit. This is convenient if different business units have different specializations. Products and services are assigned by category; to make them available, group them into a category.
Adding products and services to a business unit
Territories are available within the business unit. If business units work in different locations, they will have access to different territories. If they operate in the same location, territories may overlap.
Territories available in a business unit
Once you’ve filled in all this information, you can create the business unit.
When the business unit is created, you can add workers to it, within its seat limit. You can either create new employees or select from those already in your Planado.
When creating a new user, you can specify which business units are available to them.
Adding a new user to a business unit
Adding existing users to a business unit
If a worker uses the web app and has access to multiple business units, they can switch between them via the menu in the top right corner.
Switching between business units
If a field employee works in several business units, they can be assigned jobs from each business unit.
Let’s consider an example. Suppose the company “Best Air Conditioners” operates in two cities: New York and New Jersey. Employees in both cities work independently, but management needs to see work from both units.
The manager creates two business units: “New York” and “New Jersey”, and limits the number of seats for each unit.
Added Business Units
Each unit will have its own clients, so the manager chooses “From unit” as the option for clients.
Clients available in the business unit
Templates are created in advance. Since both business units do the same job, all templates are available to both units.
The same applies to products and services. Since the same products and services are offered in both business units, all are made available in both.
Available templates, products, and services
Cities are divided into territories, so each business unit is assigned its own territories.
Territories available in the business unit
Once the units are created, users are assigned to them.
Workers assigned to a business unit
The manager adds themselves to both business units. Now they can switch between units in the menu.
Switching between business units
Dispatchers from one business unit can only see jobs, clients, templates, employees, and sites belonging to their own business unit.
Business unit dispatcher’s view
Field staff only see jobs assigned to them or their crew in the mobile app. The dispatcher can only assign jobs to employees from their own unit.
To manage employees in business units, the manager assigns staff with edit rights in each business unit, so that they can add and update performers in their own unit, but will not have access to others.
Edit rights for users
If you have questions about business units or any other Planado feature, contact us at support@planado.app or the support portal.