Best-Practice Group Structure for Asset Visibility

Purpose:
This guide helps ToolSense admins roll out the platform cleanly across regions, subsidiaries, and teams. By designing the right group structure, you ensure correct user access, asset visibility, and long-term scalability.

Key Principle:
Only groups control visibility of assets, tickets, and sites.
Do not confuse this with the Teams feature, which is used only for ticket assignments and notifications.

Step 1: Understand the Basics

Groups are the only mechanism for segmenting visibility in ToolSense.
Sites and assets must be assigned correctly within the group tree for users to see them.

Not every group needs a user.
You can create intermediate groups purely for organizing related groups (e.g. “North Regional Managers”).

Step 2: Plan Your Group Structure

Start by sketching your company's real-world structure and map it into groups:

Best Practice: Facility Management (FM)

• Sites = Cleaning contracts (e.g., “City Hospital – Standard Cleaning”, “City Hospital – Window Cleaning”)

• Don’t create one group per site

• Sites with same physical name are fine if they reflect different contracts or access scopes

Assets and sites should be assigned to Site Manager level
If assigned to higher-level groups (e.g., Workshop), users below (e.g., Site Managers) won't see anything

Best Practice: Construction

• Sites = Construction projects (e.g., “Project X – Earthworks”)

• Groups represent subsidiaries, tech units, and foremen

Assign sites/assets to the Foreman level
Intermediate groups (like “Region South”) are useful even without users, as they help organize and scale

Step 3: Create Groups in ToolSense

1. Go to Admin Panel → Groups

2. Click + Add Group

3. Build the hierarchy top-down

4. Use intermediate groups (e.g., “North Region”) even without users if needed to structure large accounts

Step 4: Create Sites

1. Go to the Sites menu

2. Use “+ Add Site” or Excel import

3. Assign each site to the lowest group level responsible for it

Same physical site can exist multiple times for different contracts
Sites can be created directly during asset import — they do not need to exist beforehand
Sites cannot belong to more than one group

Step 5: Assign Assets

• Prefer assigning assets to sites

  • Site → inherits group

• Or assign assets directly to a group if no site is needed

Rules:

• Assets should live in the lowest group level (e.g. Site Manager or Polier group)

• No asset can be assigned to Site A (in Group A) and also appear in Group B

• Avoid assigning everything to high-level groups (users below won’t see anything)

Assets/Sites should not be left floating in high-level groups without reason

Step 6: Assign Users

1. Go to Users

2. Assign each user to one group

   • They get access to everything in that group and below

3. You cannot:

   • Assign users to multiple groups

   • Assign users to specific sites or assets

If access to multiple areas is needed, assign the user to a common parent group (you can add groups along the way as well)

Best Practices Summary – Group Structure in ToolSense

• Use groups to structure visibility and access – this is the only way to control what users can see.

• Assign sites and assets to the lowest-level group where the responsible users sit to ensure proper access.

• Create intermediate group levels (e.g., “North Region”) to organize sub-groups, even without assigning users there.

• Only create a user-specific group if a person is responsible for a defined set of assets and should only see those — otherwise, avoid naming groups after users to prevent confusion.

• Use groups to reflect roles, teams, or geographic units, not physical locations.

• Reuse site names with contract-specific distinctions (e.g., “School A – Standard Cleaning” vs. “School A – Window Cleaning”).

• Build the group hierarchy top-down and think ahead to support future scaling.

• Match your ToolSense structure to your real-world organization (e.g., subsidiaries, workshops, regional leads).

• Assign users to the group that reflects their visibility needs — they will see all data from that group downward.

• Keep the Teams feature separate — use it only for ticket assignments and notifications, not for visibility or group structuring.

Need Help?

Still unsure? Reach out to your ToolSense Customer Success Manager.