Groups

Introduction

Groups are used to determine which applications employees should have access to. Employees aren't limited to one Group — they can belong to several at once (for example, "All Employees" plus "Sales Team" plus "West Coast"). Their overall app access is simply the combination of every Group they're in.

Why Groups matter:

• Consistent onboarding: new hires get the right apps on day one, without anyone having to remember what a new Sales rep or Engineer needs.

• Cleaner offboarding: app access can be revoked quickly and accurately, so you don't have to reconstruct what an employee had access to.

• Conditional Access: Users only receive access to certain applications based on specific, pre-selected "if, then" rules. Conditional Access is a security best practice designed to prevent unnecessary access to applications.

• Flexible & reusable: Groups can be set up as subgroups of a parent Group, and automatically inherit the applications associated with that parent.

Static vs. Dynamic Groups

Every Group is either Static or Dynamic:

• Static: you add and remove employees to that Group, or if you have an HRIS integration, the employees are assigned to the group based on their HRIS Department

• Dynamic: you set rules (like "Job title contains Manager" or "State is CA"), and our system adds and removes employees to that group automatically as those rules apply

Setting Up a Group

Pro Tip: If you don't have an existing group structure, start with broad Groups (like "All Employees") for things like your email app or chat provider app that everyone needs access to. Then create specific Groups (like "Sales Team" or "Engineering") for role-specific tools.

1. Log in to Electric

2. Navigate to Groups under the People section

3. Click + Add group

4. Add a parent group (optional but helpful)

   • This lets your new group inherit applications automatically

   • Example: Your "Finance Team" group inherits essential apps from "All Employees" plus gets finance-specific tools

5. Enter your group name

6. Choose Static or Dynamic

   • Static: Add employees now, or later from the group's Employees tab

   • Dynamic: Build your membership rules (see below)

7. Click Add Group

Building Rules for a Dynamic Group

1. Pick a Field, an Operator, and a Value

2. Add AND rule for another condition that must also be true

3. Add OR rule group for an alternate set of conditions, an employee only needs to match one rule group

4. Watch the Live preview update with a match count and applicable employee names as you build

5. Click Add group to save. Please note, you'll need at least one complete condition in order to save your new Dynamic Group.

Fields you can build rules from, their operators, and where the data comes from:

Connecting Applications to a Group

This is the step that turns a Group from a label into something that actually does something while also working the same for Static and Dynamic Groups.

1. Click Edit in the Applications tab

2. Select the applications relevant to the group

3. Choose the access level in the modal that appears. You'll pick one of:

   • Needs accounts - these users need acceess to the application(s). Tasks will be created to grant the users access to those apps.

   • Has accounts - the users in the group already have access to the application(s), just update the profile. No tasks will be created to grant the users access to those apps.

   • Review applications individually - decide if tasks should be created on an app-by-app basis

Note that if you select to Needs accounts, emails will be sent and tasks will be generated in the Tasks panel of the product to ensure that the new employees are added or removed according to the group edits.

Managing Groups

• Rename a group: Click the group tile, then Edit Group, then update the name

• Change a group's parent or subgroups: Click the group tile, then Edit Group, then update the Parent group or Subgroups fields, then Save group. If the change affects a group with applications attached, Electric will ask whether you want to update applications for that group now (opens a task to review and apply the changes) or skip it for later.

• Edit a Dynamic Group's rules: Click the group tile, then Settings tab, adjust conditions, Preview membership changes, then Save

• Set Transfer behavior: Settings tab, choose Manual (a task is created for review) or Automated (access changes instantly) for members joining (Transfer In) and leaving (Transfer Out)

• Delete a group: Three dots on the tile, Delete group, confirm

A Few Things Worth Knowing

• Dynamic Groups membership updates automatically as employees are hired, offboarded, or have their profile edited

• Dynamic Group membership shows up automatically during onboarding and can't be edited. You can still add other groups manually alongside it.

  • The same applies during offboarding: you'll see which Dynamic Groups the employee belonged to and which applications need to be removed as a result.

• Because employees can belong to multiple Groups, an employee's full app access at any point is the combination of all their Groups.

Groups Synced from HR System

Why Synced Groups are Limited

• Groups that are synced from a third-party system (like HR software) cannot be adjusted in Electric. These are indicated by a “lock” icon.

• You cannot directly edit their employee membership, group name, or make subgroups within the Electric platform.

  • Only editing application assignment is allowed after the groups sync from the source system.

• When groups sync from the source system, Electric acts as a mirror of that data. If edits were allowed in both places, it would create conflicts that would create inconsistencies between systems.

⭐ To keep your data accurate and in sync, the HR source system remains the single source of truth for these groups when synced.