Creating and managing Group records

This article covers what groups are, how to create them, and how to add records to / remove records from them after they've been created.

What's a Group?

In Landscape, a Group is a way of managing multiple portfolio records (usually Properties) in a single place. It's important to note that Property records don't become a Group record - instead they are linked with the Group record, and then that Group is where you go to manage those multiple Property records. The Property records still exist on their own to hold the information about the individual acquisitions.

The most common scenario for this is when an organization acquires multiple interests in fee over time that all make up a single 'preserve'. Each acquisition is tracked in a Property record, then added to the Group for management purposes. Staff can then enter their Site Visit records, Issue records, communications, etc, in that Group record.

Check out the examples in this article for more on how to use Properties, Parcels, and Groups.

There are two ways to create a Group:

1. Using the 'Create' button in the top toolbar, or
2. Using the 'Relationships' panel from within a record.

Once a Group is created, you can add additional records to it via the Relationships button.

You can read this article for information on how to delete a Group record.

Creating a Group with the 'Create' button:

First, click on the 'Create' button in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Choose New Group, then click 'OK'

Give your Group a name. Use a unique name so that it can be easily distinguished from the other records in your account.

Next, choose the records to link to that Group. Click on the Search records bar and enter the name of the first record you'd like to add to the new Group. Select the Property by clicking it. You can then repeat the process of searching for and selecting records as many times as needed. If you add the wrong property by accident, you can click on the trash can icon to remove it from the list:

When you're done, click 'Finish'. You'll be taken to the new Group record. The Group record will display summary information and work from the component Property records, and also allows you to see and navigate to those related records via the 'Relationships' tab on the left.

Depending on the scenario, you may wish to designate the new Group as a Stewardship Site and remove that designation from the related records. You can do so from the 'Edit Details' page under 'Stewardship Details'.

Creating a new Group with the Relationships button

From within a record that you want to link to the new Group, click Relationships in the left panel, then click Add Relationship.

In the menu that opens, select 'Create a new record', and 'It is a parent-record above XYZ Property'. Enter the name of the new Group in 'Name the new record'. Finally, specify 'Group' as the type of record to be created.

The Group is created and shown in the Relationships panel. Click on the record to navigate to it.

From there, you can change the Stewardship Site status of the Group and add other details.

Adding a record to a Group

You can add as many records to a Group as needed.

From within the Group, click on the Relationships button on the left panel. Choose Select existing record, and It is a sub-record under Group XYZ, then search for and choose the record that you want to add. Click 'OK' when you're done.

The added record will now appear in the Relationships pane.

Repeat this process from the Group to add additional records to the same Group.

Removing a record from a Group

From the Group, click on Relationships, then hover over the record that you'd like to remove. Click on the trash can that appears on the right. Click 'Yes' when asked to confirm that you want to remove the relationship.

This does not delete the record that you chose to remove. If you need to re-add the record again, you can do so by following the steps outlined above for adding a record to a Group.