Plan Availability | All plan types |
Permissions | Solution Managers and Workspace Administrators: Can create, modify, and manage Team fields. Workspace Administrators only: Can create or edit Teams and set Team Email. |
Related Reading |
What Is the Team Field?
The Team field type lets you assign work to entire teams the same way you assign to individuals with the Assigned To field. Use it where work needs to belong to a group rather than a specific person, for example a service desk routing tickets to a service team, a change-approval board routing to a review board, a compliance program assigning controls to ownership teams, or a PMO splitting initiatives across squads.
Team members inherit record-level access through SmartSuite's existing Contributor, Assignee, and Assignee+ permission model.
Adding a Team Field
From Grid View
Click the + menu icon after the last column header, or open the Column Menu by clicking on a column header's dropdown icon and selecting Add Field to the Right.
Select Team from the Project Essentials category. A configuration window opens.
From Record View
From an open Record View, click the + sign next to a current field to add a new field below.
Select Team from the Project Essentials category and configure the field.
Customizing the Field
Single or Multiple Selection
Choose whether the field accepts a single team or multiple teams. Multi-value Team fields display all selected teams together, similar to a multi-value Assigned To field.
Display Format
Pick a display style that matches your record layout. The available formats mirror Assigned To, including avatar group and name list options.
Display in My Work
When enabled and a Status field is linked, team-assigned records appear in My Work for every member of the assigned team. This gives each team member visibility into work assigned to their team without per-member assignment.
Disable Assignment Notifications
By default, assigning a team to a record sends notifications to team members. Enable this toggle to skip notifications when the field is set or changed.
Require an Entry
Mark the Team field as required for users creating new records. When enabled, records cannot be saved without selecting at least one team.
Setting a Value
When picking a team for a Team field:
The picker only shows teams that have explicit access to the table. Teams that are deleted, deactivated, or have no table access are excluded.
The Everyone team is never displayed as a value option.
If more than five teams are available, a search control appears for filtering.
Only Workspace Administrators can create new Teams. The picker does not support creating a team on the fly.
Deleted or inactive teams remain in records where they were already set, but cannot be selected for new assignments.
Filters and Views
Filter operators on a Team field match those available for Assigned To. The comparison-value list includes:
Teams with explicit access to the table.
Teams that are currently set as values somewhere in the table.
A My Team dynamic value that resolves to the current user's team memberships at view time.
My Team Filter
The My Team comparison value lets you build views like "Where Responsible Team is My Team" or "Where Reviewers has any of My Team" once, and have them work for every user without per-user duplication.
Examples:
A user belongs to Team A and Team B. The Responsible Team field on a record is set to Team A. The filter "Responsible Team is exactly My Team" returns true.
A user belongs to Team A and Team B. The Responsible Team field is multi-value and set to Team A and Team C. The filter "Responsible Team has any of My Team" returns true; "has all of My Team" returns false.
Team fields are also available in Group, Sort, and Spotlight controls. In Kanban boards, each unique team becomes a column.
Notifications and Team Email
Team Email
Workspace Administrators can set an optional Team Email when creating or editing a team. When set, all email notifications for assignments to that team go to the single team email address rather than to individual members. This is useful when teams maintain shared inboxes or distribution lists for incoming work.
Notification Behavior
When a team is assigned to a record (or removed from one), and assignment notifications are enabled in the Team field's settings:
In-app notifications go to every team member.
Email notifications go to the Team Email if set, or to all team members if no Team Email is configured.
When the same team is assigned to a record across multiple Team fields in one save, the team receives one notification per field.
When a person belongs to multiple teams that are all assigned to the same record, they receive one notification per team they belong to.
Note
Bulk record updates do not currently generate per-record notifications. A compound notification model for bulk team assignments is planned for a future release.
Permissions and Team-Mediated Access
When a Team is assigned to a record via a Team field, members of that team inherit record-level access based on the Team's permission grant on the table. This mirrors how individual Assigned To fields work today.
Contributor
When a record is assigned to a Team via the Team field, and that Team has Contributor permission on the table, all members of that Team can edit the record. Members of a Contributor team who simply create a new record do not give access to teammates; the record must be explicitly assigned to a Team for team-mediated access to apply.
Assignee
When a record is assigned to a Team via the Team field, and that Team has Assignee permission on the table, all members of that Team can view and edit the record.
Assignee+
A Team field can be configured as the associated field for Assignee+ permission grants. When a member of a team with Assignee+ permission creates a new record, the system auto-populates the Team field with their qualifying team membership:
If the Team field is multi-value, all of the creator's qualifying teams are added.
If the Team field is single-value, the creator's oldest qualifying team (by team creation date) is added.
A team is "qualifying" if it has Assignee+ permission on the table associated with that Team field.
Important
Direct user-level Assignee+ grants cannot be associated with a Team field. To grant Assignee+ that auto-assigns to a Team field, the permission must be granted to a Team. Mixing direct-user Assignee+ with a Team-associated field is blocked at setup with a validation message.
Field-Level Permissions
Team-mediated record access does not depend on the user's field permission for the Team field itself. If a user has no view permission for the Team field but is a member of a team set as its value, and that team has Contributor or Assignee permission on the table, the user still gains record-level access. The Team field's value remains hidden from that user in the UI per field permission rules. This mirrors the existing Assigned To logic.
Resolving Conflicts
When the same person is assigned to a record through multiple paths (multiple Team fields, or a combination of Team fields and Assigned To), they receive the highest permission across all assignments.
Deleted and Inactive Teams
When a Team is deleted or deactivated:
The Team remains visible as a value in any Team field where it was previously set.
However, the Team no longer confers any record-level access to its former members.
Any other access those users had via direct grants or other Teams remains intact.
Linking an Assigned To Field to a Team Field
An Assigned To field can be configured with a Parent Team Field, which narrows the Assigned To picker to only members of the team currently selected in the parent Team field. Use this when you need to assign a specific person within an already-determined team.
Pick a Team in the parent Team field on the record.
The linked Assigned To picker now shows only members of that Team.
If the Team field is empty, the Assigned To picker shows all members with table access.
Changing the Team field's value updates the Assigned To options in real time before the record is saved, but does not change existing Assigned To values that were already set.
If the linked team loses access to the table or is removed, the Assigned To unlinks automatically.
Several Assigned To fields can be associated with the same Team field, and the parent Team field can be single-value or multi-value.
Note
API, automation, and import operations do not enforce the parent Team relationship when setting an Assigned To value. The narrowing logic is UI-only.
Team Field in Automations
The Team field is fully supported across SmartSuite automations. Triggers, actions, and loops all treat Team as a first-class assignment source. See the SmartSuite Automation Actions article for full details.
Setting a Team value: Map any text source (team name, lookup, formula, static value) into a Team field. Validation respects table permissions; teams without table access are skipped at runtime and the skip is recorded in run history.
Setting an Assigned To from a Team: All team members are written to the Assigned To field. For single-value Assigned To, the first team member is used.
Send Email action: Sends to the Team Email when set, or falls back to individual member emails. When multiple teams are recipients and one has a Team Email, members of that team are removed from the individual-email list to avoid duplicates.
Send Notification action: Sends to all team members directly.
Loops: A Team field can be looped over to run per-member actions like creating tasks, sending personal updates, or generating reports.
Comments: Assigning a comment to a Team is not currently supported. Use Assigned To for comment assignments.
Bulk Update, Public API, and Import
Bulk Update: Set Team field values across many records in one action. The system validates team permissions and skips teams that have no access to the target table.
Public API: The Team field is fully supported in the public API, using the same structure as the Assigned To field. Permission validation outlined in the Automations section applies.
Import: When importing records, you can use Team names (not internal IDs) as values. The system validates each team's permissions during import and skips teams without access.
Copy and Paste: Team field values can be copied and pasted in Grid View, including for multi-value fields. The same permission validation applies.
Document Designer and Formulas
The Team field is supported in Document Designer for templated outputs and in Formula fields:
For single-value Team fields, the formula treats the value as plain text (the team's name).
For multi-value Team fields, the formula treats the value as a list of names.
Practical Scenarios and Use Cases
1. ITSM Service Desk
A service desk routing tickets to service teams (such as Network, Identity, or Endpoint) can use the Team field to assign each ticket to its service team. Combined with the Contributor permission on the team, every member of the service team can pick up and resolve the ticket without per-user grants. Email notifications go to a single service team email address (Team Email) for clean handoff to a shared inbox.
2. GRC Compliance Ownership
A compliance program tracking controls and evidence can use a multi-value Team field to indicate ownership across teams (for example, a SOX control owned by both Finance and IT). Linking the Team field with Assignee permission gives all team members read-write access to the control without needing the compliance team to manually grant per-user access.
3. PMO Squad Allocation
A PMO running a portfolio of initiatives can use the Team field to allocate work to delivery squads. The My Team filter lets each squad member see only their squad's records with one shared view definition. The Linked Assigned To pattern (Parent Team Field) lets PMO leads assign individual squad members from within the squad once the team has been chosen.
4. Change Approval Boards
A change-approval workflow can route a change request to an approval board team. Pair the Team field with a Status field for tracking, enable Display in My Work, and every board member sees pending changes in their personal queue. Email notifications to a Team Email address keep the change approval inbox structured for audit.