Teams
Teams (also called groups) are named sets of people, organizations or both, such as a project team, a RACI group, a department-style functional team or a vendor bid list. Use them to assign work, control who sees confidential files, invite people in bulk and link people to projects.
A team is a named set of members that you reuse across Cooper. Members can be humans, organizations, or a mix of both. Office admins, project managers and estimators use teams to keep project crews, departments, RACI groups and vendor lists in one place, so they can assign them, link them to projects and share confidential files with them without picking people one by one.
On the page itself Cooper calls teams groups: the list is titled All Groups and the button says Add New Group. This page uses "team" and "group" for the same thing.
Key concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Team (group) | A named set of members with a team type, an optional description, tags and a color. |
| Team type | What the team is for. The type decides which fields the form shows. See Team types. |
| Audience | Who can be a member: People, Organizations or Mixed. |
| RACI | A team where each person has a role on the work: Responsible (does the work), Accountable (owns the outcome, one person), Consulted (gives input) or Informed (kept up to date). |
| Functional team | A department-style team, such as Operations, that has an Org Unit: a unique code, a manager, a cost center, a cost code prefix and accounting defaults. Functional teams can own projects and budgets. |
| Team role | A Cooper role (permission set) attached to a Team Members or Functional Team team. Members invited to Cooper from the team get this role. |
| Linked project | A project the team takes part in. |
| Owned project | A project that a functional team owns. |
Team types
| Team type | Audience | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Project Team | People | The crew working on a project. |
| Functional Team | People | A department or business unit, such as Operations or Estimating. Adds the Org Unit section. |
| Committee | People | A standing group, such as a safety committee. |
| RACI | People | Responsibility assignments, with a RACI role per person. |
| Team Members | People | A set of colleagues you want to invite to Cooper together, with one role. |
| Vendor List | Organizations | Vendors you buy from. |
| Subcontractor Pool | Organizations | Subcontractors you can call on. |
| Supplier Tier | Organizations | Suppliers grouped by tier. |
| Preferred Vendors | Organizations | Vendors you prefer. |
| Bid List | Organizations | Companies you invite to bid. |
| Distribution List | Mixed | People and companies who receive the same documents. |
| Partner Network | Organizations | Partner companies. |
| Custom | People | Anything else. |
The audience in this table is the default. For every type except RACI, Team Members and Functional Team you can change it under Who's in this Team?.
Open Teams
- In the sidebar, open Connect.
- Click Teams.
The list opens at /connect/groups and shows every team type.
Talent → Teams (/talent/teams) shows only functional teams. There the page is titled All Teams, the button says Add New Team, and the form has no team type selector because every team you add there is a functional team.
You need the Teams permission in the Connect module to see either page. See Permissions.
Read the Teams list
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Name | The team's color bar, name and description. |
| Team Type | A colored pill with the type. An Orgs or Mixed chip shows when the members are organizations or a mix. |
| Code | The org unit code, for functional teams. |
| Linked projects | Up to three linked projects, each a link to the project. More shows as "... more — open team to view all". Otherwise "No linked projects". |
| Members | Member avatars and a count, such as "4 members". Click it to see All Team Members with phone numbers and a Copy button. |
| Tags | The first three tags. Hover +N to see the rest. |
To search, type in Search groups…. To group the list by team type, drag the Team Type column header onto the bar that says Drag a column header here to group rows.
Add a team
Open the form
Click Add New Group. The Add Group panel opens.
Name the team and choose its type
Under Basic Info, enter the Group Name and choose the Team Type. Both are required.
Choose who can be a member
Under Who's in this Team?, choose People, Organizations or Mixed. Cooper preselects the audience that fits the type. This choice is not shown for RACI, Team Members and Functional Team types, which hold people only.
Add members
Under Members, search with Search people by name... or Search organizations by name... and click each result to add it. Click a selected card's remove button to take it out. For a RACI team, see Set up a RACI team.
Add optional details
Click More Details to add Tags, a Description and a color. Type a tag and press Enter. Tags can contain letters only. Pick one of the six preset colors or use the color picker for any color.
Save
Click Save. Cooper confirms and the team appears in the list.
Set up a RACI team
Choose the RACI type
In the Add Group panel, set Team Type to RACI.
Add a role
Under Members, choose a Role (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed).
Assign people to the role
For Accountable, pick one person in Assignee. For the other roles, pick one or more people in Assignees.
Add the other roles
Click Add RACI Role for each further role. Each role can appear only once, so a team has at most four role rows. Click Remove to delete a row.
Save
Click Save.
You can load a saved RACI team into a task, a project or an equipment record with Load from Existing Group (or Load from a RACI group) instead of picking the four roles again.
Set up a functional team
Choose the Functional Team type
Set Team Type to Functional Team, or add the team from Talent → Teams.
Fill in the org unit
Under Org Unit, enter a Code, for example OPS. The code is required and must be unique in your workspace. Optionally choose a Manager and enter a Cost Code Prefix, Cost Center, Default Email, Secondary Email and Default Phone. The cost code prefix must also be unique.
Set accounting defaults (optional)
Under Accounting Defaults, choose a Legal Entity, Default Expense Account, Internal Charge Clearing Account and Prepaid Rent Account.
Choose a team role (optional)
In Team Role (or Group Role), pick the Cooper role members get when you invite them to the app.
Add people and save
Add members under Members and click Save.
View a team's details
Click the row's ... menu and choose View. The Group Details panel (Team Details on Talent → Teams) shows:
- The team name, type, org unit code and audience (People, Organizations or Mixed).
- Counts of Members, People, Organizations and Tags.
- Description, Org Unit (Code, Manager, Cost Center) and Tags.
- Members. RACI teams list members under their role. Other teams list People and Organizations separately.
- Linked projects, and for functional teams, Owned projects.
- Who created the team and when it was last updated.
Click Edit in the panel to change the team.
Edit a team
- Click the row's ... menu and choose Edit. The Update Group panel opens.
- Change the fields. Changing the type to or from RACI clears the members, because RACI members carry roles.
- Click Update.
If you change the Team Role of a Team Members or Functional Team team, Cooper also gives the new role to every member who has a Cooper login in your workspace.
Link a team to a project
Open the team
Open the team's details with View.
Link the project
Under Linked projects, click Link project. In the Link project to ... panel, search for the project, select it and click Link project. Cooper shows "Project linked to team".
To unlink, click Unlink next to the project, then Unlink team. The team and its members stay. Cooper shows "Team unlinked from project".
You can also do this from a project: its Teams area has Create Group, which creates a project team already linked to the project with you as a member, and Link Existing Team.
Assign project ownership to a functional team
- Open the functional team's details.
- Under Owned projects, click Assign ownership.
- In the Assign Projects panel, search with Search projects... and tick the projects. Each project shows whether it is Already owned by this team, Owned by another team, or has No owning team.
- Click Assign. Cooper shows how many projects it assigned.
Assigning a project to a team updates the project's cost center to the team's prefix.
Invite a team to Cooper
You can invite all the people in a Team Members or Functional Team team to your workspace at once.
Open the invite panel
Click the row's ... menu and choose Invite to App.
Check the members and role
The panel lists the people who will be invited and the team role they will get. If the team has no role, Cooper shows "This group has no role assigned. Edit the group and select a role before inviting members to the app."
Set access
Under Access Settings, optionally choose Assigned Projects (Search and select projects...). Tick Scope feed to member permissions if the invited people should only see activity they have permission for.
Send
Click Invite N to App. Cooper shows "Invitations sent successfully."
Inviting needs the same access as adding a user in Settings → Users (Users Write), or being the workspace owner.
Delete teams
- Click the row's ... menu and choose Delete. To delete several, tick their checkboxes and click Delete in the footer.
- In the Are You Sure? window, click Delete.
Cooper archives deleted teams. A deleted functional team frees its org unit code and cost code prefix, so you can reuse them.
Where teams are used in Cooper
- Projects: link teams to projects, and assign functional teams as project owners.
- Tasks, projects and equipment: load a RACI team's roles with Load from Existing Group or Load from a RACI group.
- Confidential files: organization documents and Library folders can be limited to selected teams. See Organizations.
- Chat: the people picker has a Teams view, so you can add a whole team to a chat. Only members with a Cooper login join. See Chat.
- Finance: functional teams appear in team pickers and Team filters, for example for team budgets and credit card accounts.
- Budget requests: you pick the requesting team.
- Inviting people: Invite to App invites a whole team with one role.
Fields reference
| Field | Required | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Group Name (Team Name) | Yes | The team's name. |
| Team Type | Yes | The kind of team. Hidden on Talent → Teams, where it is always Functional Team. |
| Group Role (Team Role) | No | Team Members and Functional Team only. The Cooper role members get when invited. |
| Who's in this Team? | No | People, Organizations or Mixed. Not shown for RACI, Team Members and Functional Team. |
| Members | No | The people and organizations in the team. |
| Role (RACI) | Yes, per row | Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed. Each role once. |
| Assignee / Assignees (RACI) | Yes, per row | One person for Accountable; one or more for the other roles. |
| Code (Org Unit) | Yes, for functional teams | A short unique code, such as OPS. |
| Manager | No | The person who manages the functional team. |
| Cost Code Prefix | No | A unique prefix, such as 01-. |
| Cost Center | No | The team's cost center, such as CC-100. |
| Default Email, Secondary Email, Default Phone | No | Contact details for the team. |
| Legal Entity, Default Expense Account, Internal Charge Clearing Account, Prepaid Rent Account | No | Accounting defaults for the functional team. |
| Tags | No | Labels, letters only. |
| Description | No | What the team is for. |
| Color | No | The color bar shown next to the team. |
Permissions
Access is controlled by the Teams permission in the Connect module of a role. An admin sets it in Settings → Roles.
| Action | Permission needed |
|---|---|
| See teams | Teams Read (or Write) |
| Add and edit teams, assign project ownership | Teams Write |
| Delete teams | Teams Delete |
| Link or unlink a team and a project | Teams Write, or Write on Deliver projects or Plan projects |
| Invite to App | Users Write in Settings, or workspace owner |
Without Write, Add New Group and Edit are hidden. Workspace owners can do everything.
Tips and best practices
- Use Functional Team for real departments and give each a short, stable code. Finance features rely on the code and cost code prefix.
- Save common RACI assignments as RACI teams and load them into tasks instead of rebuilding them.
- Keep vendor and subcontractor lists as organization teams (Vendor List, Bid List, Subcontractor Pool) so estimators can reuse them.
- Before you use Invite to App, set the team role and check that every person has an email address.
- Use tags and colors to make related teams easy to spot in the list.
Troubleshooting
Your role does not have the Teams permission in the Connect module. Ask an admin to grant it in Settings → Roles.
Every functional team needs a Code under Org Unit. Enter one, such as OPS.
Org unit codes and cost code prefixes must be unique in your workspace. Choose another code, or delete the old team that uses it.
Each RACI role can appear once in a team. Add more people to the existing role row instead.
Tags can contain letters only. Remove numbers, spaces and symbols, then press Enter.
Invite to App appears only for Team Members and Functional Team teams. The invite button stays disabled until the team has a role and at least one person. If Cooper says you don't have permission, ask an admin for Users Write.
RACI, Team Members and Functional Team types hold people only, so the choice is hidden.
For AI agents
There is no dedicated MCP tool for teams. Agents read and change teams with the generic record tools on the Group model (db_find, db_create, db_update), gated by the Teams permission.
Key fields on a Group record:
name(required) andgroupType, one ofproject-team,functional-team,committee,raci,team-members,vendor-list,subcontractor-pool,supplier-tier,preferred-vendors,distribution-list,bid-list,partner-network,custom.memberKind:human,externalOrgormixed.members: each item hasmemberId,memberModel(HumanorExternalOrg) and, for RACI,memberType(responsible,accountable,consulted,informed). Accountable takes one person.orgUnit: only forfunctional-team.orgUnit.codeis required and unique per workspace.status:Active,DraftorArchived. Deleting a team setsArchived.
Common errors:
- "orgUnit.code is required for functional teams": add
orgUnit.code. - "orgUnit is only allowed for group types: functional-team": remove
orgUnitfor other types. - "Role not found for this organization" when inviting: set the team's
roleto a role that exists in the workspace. - Do not confuse teams with
account_group_browse/account_group_manage(chart-of-accounts groups) orchat_group_manage(chat groups). Those tools do not manage teams.
Related
- Humans: the people you add to teams.
- Organizations: companies you add to vendor lists and bid lists, and documents you restrict to teams.
- Chat: add a whole team to a conversation.
- Connect settings: the lookup lists used across Connect.
Organizations
Organizations is Cooper's list of external organizations and companies (clients, vendors, subcontractors, suppliers and partners). Use it to add, find, edit and remove companies, link their people, rate their work, store their documents and check their compliance.
Action items
Action items are the small things somebody still owes, such as a document to send, an approval to give or a payment to make. Cooper picks them up from your chats, email, texts, calls, meeting notes and records, and you can add them by hand.