This document describes the options in place to structure their server for use with multiple teams in their organization and the benefits and drawbacks for each approach.
Summary
The WorkLink content in an on-premise server is housed with a company. Upon installation, a single company is automatically created within a server. The customer can then use that company to create all their content within.
Many on-premise customers will have multiple teams, divisions, or business units using the WorkLink platform. They have three different options to house the content for the various teams.
Deploy an on-premise WorkLink server for each team
Create a company for each team within their WorkLink server
Use a single company within their server and separate their teams using groups
Selecting the right option for your teams is dependent largely upon the amount of interaction and collaboration that is needed between the teams within the WorkLink platform. Let's explore each option in detail.
Option 1: Multiple servers
The first option is to deploy an on-premise server for each team. Let’s explore the benefits and drawbacks of doing that.
Benefits
1. Complete separation of content
This option provides the highest level of separation of content between the teams. The content for each team is hosted on completely different environments and in different database servers.
2. Separate server administration
These two different servers can be administered by different people. This may be a benefit if different business units have different IT teams and they want their server to be managed and maintained by their IT team.
Drawbacks
1. Duplication of server administration
While it may be desired for teams to have their IT people administer their server, this also is a duplication of services and cost for the organization. Setup, management, and administration of multiple servers will multiply the overhead costs of managing the WorkLink server(s). This will also multiply the hosting costs by paying for the hosting resources for multiple servers.
2. No coordination between teams
With different teams on different servers, there is little opportunity for individuals to share content between servers or make calls across servers. There are a couple of exceptions to this though:
Editor projects or scenarios can be exported from one server and then imported into the other server for team members on the other server to use. This is a copy of the content and further changes on the original server would need to be exported and imported again to get those changes on the other server.
Calls can be made to people who are not users on the same server, however, they can be invited as guests by email, SMS, or a PIN code. This will allow those people on different servers to join a call together. This requires that both users are able to access the server that the caller is calling from
Option 2: Multiple companies
The second option is to add a company for each team on a single on-premise server. Let’s explore the benefits and drawbacks of doing that.
Benefits
1. Separation of content
This option still provides a high level of separation of content. The WorkLink platform puts a company ID on all records in the server database and the platform also enforces that only content with a company ID that matches the company that the user is authenticated with can be retrieved from the database. This is built into the lowest level of the platform code. There are only two ways that content from multiple companies can be seen by a single user. They are:
the initial default user created during deployment is a System Admin user. This is the user that can create new companies. That user also has the ability to be able to see content in all companies on the server.
the server administrators with access to the database and server file storage may be able to retrieve and view the raw content from any company on the server.
Drawbacks
1. No coordination between teams
With different teams on different companies, there is little opportunity for individuals to share content between servers or make calls across companies. There are a couple of exceptions to this though:
Editor projects or scenarios can be exported from one company and then imported into the other company for team members on the other server to use. This is a copy of the content and further changes on the original company would need to be exported and imported again to get those changes on the other company.
Calls can be made to people who are not users on the same server, however, they can be invited as guests by email, SMS, or a PIN code. This will allow those people on different servers to join a call together.