Your organisation may involve multiple groups of people who require shared access to specific cases. For example, your organisation may have a “Patents team” that handles all patent cases, and a “Trade Marks team” that handles all trade mark cases.

If this is the situation for your organisation, you can set up your IPONZ user accounts under similar “Teams”. This will allow your organisation to delegate certain cases to a single team, and make these cases accessible to all of that team’s users.

How teams work

Each team is composed of a single team contact and any number of members.

To assign a case to a team, that case should be delegated to the team contact. Whenever this occurs:

• The team contact becomes the user in charge for that case, and will receive all email notifications related to it.
• The team contact and all of their team members will be able to access any current tasks and discussions for that case via their respective inboxes.

Certain restrictions apply to user accounts in relation to teams:

• Cases cannot be delegated directly to a team member who is not the team contact.
• Whenever a user account is added to a team, any cases delegated to that user account will automatically be delegated to the team contact. These cases will therefore become available to all team members.
• Removing a user account from a team will restore the ability to delegate cases to that specific user account.
• Each user account may only be added to a single team at most. User accounts that are not part of a team may access the case management facility and can be delegated cases as normal.
• Superusers and administrators may not be added to a team, whether as a team contact or a team member.
• Team contacts or team members may not be designated as administrators, nor may they be ‘switched’ into a superuser role.

Create a team within your organisation

Only superusers and administrators can create new teams within your organisation. A team will remain inactive until a team contact has been designated for it.

1. In your Inbox, open the My Account section of your left hand menu, then select My Profile.
2. In the Teams tab:

• Click the Add button. This will cause a Team Edition section to appear.
• Complete the information under the Team Edition section. This will require you to indicate a name for the new team, but you may add team contacts and members at a future time.
• If you wish to add a team contact, click the Select Team Contact link. This will provide you with a list of available user accounts under your organisation. Select the user account you would like to use, then click the Select button to add that account as your team contact.
• If you have designated a team contact and wish to add team members, click the Add Member link. This will provide you with a list of available user accounts under your organisation. Select the user accounts you would like to use, then click the Select button to add those account as team members.
• Click the Save button to save the new team.

Once you have saved the new team, this will be added to the list in your Teams tab.

If a team contact has been designated for a team, that team contact may not be added to any other teams.

If you are adding a team member that is currently under a different team, that user will be removed from their current team and added to the new team.

Add or remove members from a team

Any user, including an existing team member, may add or remove members from a team. Team contacts cannot be directly removed from a team – please see Change a team contact for more information.

1. In your Inbox, open the My Account section of your left hand menu, then select My Profile.
2. In the Teams tab:

• Click the Edit link next to the team whose members you would like to change. This will cause a Team Edition section to appear.
• If you wish to add a new team member, click the Add Member link. This will provide you with a list of available user accounts under your organisation. Select the user accounts you would like to use, then click the Select button to add those account as team members.
• If you wish to remove an existing team member, click the Remove link next to that team member’s entry.
• Click the Save button to save your changes to the team.

If you are adding a team member that is currently under a different team, that user will be removed from their current team and added to the new team.

Whenever a member is removed from a team, their user account will remain active (and can be delegated cases as normal). This member can be added to other teams under the same organisation.

Change a team contact

Each active team must have a designated team contact at any given time. This designation can be changed so that a different member within the same team can act as the new team contact.

If a team contact is changed, the old team contact will remain as a member under the new team. The old team contact can be removed as normal, if needed.

Whenever a team contact changes, all cases that are delegated to the old team contact will be delegated to the new team contact. The new team contact will become the user in charge for that case, and will receive all future email notifications related to it.

1. In your Inbox, open the My Account section of your left hand menu, then select My Profile.
2. In the Teams tab:

• Click the Edit link next to the team whose members you would like to change. This will cause a Team Edition section to appear.
• Click the Make Team Contact link next to the relevant team member’s entry. This will cause a warning message to appear, advising that all cases assigned to the previous team contact will now be assigned to the new team contact.
• In the warning box, click Yes to confirm the new team contact.
• Click the Save button to save your changes to the team.

Delegate a case to a team

Users under an organisation can delegate their organisation’s cases to a team contact. This will cause that case to be accessible to all members under the corresponding team.

Whenever a case is delegated to a team contact, that team contact is considered to be the user in charge for that case. However, any current tasks for that case will appear in the inboxes of their team’s members.

1. In your Inbox, open the My Account section of your left hand menu, then select My Profile.
2. In the Delegate Cases tab:

• Search for the cases that you wish to delegate. This will cause those cases to appear in your search results.
• Select the cases that you would like to delegate, then click the Delegate case(s) This will cause a Select user window to appear.
• In the Select user window, select the team contact to whom you would like to delegate the cases you have chosen. Click the Select button to close this window and delegate these cases.

Once a case has been delegated, the contact details for that case will be updated with the delegated user’s name.

Remove a team from your organisation

Only superusers and administrators can remove teams from your organisation.

A team cannot be removed unless all of its members have been removed from the team. Please see Add or remove members from a team for more information.

1. In your Inbox, open the My Account section of your left hand menu, then select My Profile.
2. In the Teams tab, click the Delete link next to the team you would like to remove. This will remove that team from your organisation.

The user account of a team contact will remain active (and can be delegated cases as normal) even if its team has been removed. Any cases which are currently delegated to these team contacts will remain delegated to them.