Use these organizational strategies to get the most out of your password manager.
Depending on the type and size of your business you will want to organize your password groups differently. The number of employees and their security-access levels will influence how you structure your TeamPassword account. Test out the strategies below to see which is the best match for your company.
Method 1: Group passwords by client
Every time you sign a new client, you’ll create a new group for that client in TeamPassword. You can add your whole client services team to that group or only add the people assigned to that client account — whatever works best for your agency. As with all of the methods covered in this post, you should also have groups for your internal passwords, just like any small business.
Works best for: Small-medium size agencies and businesses with 10-20 clients per account manager.
This approach also works well for clients who are particularly sensitive to who has access to their accounts. For example, if you have to create a “silo” to manage a client who competes with another client, structuring your passwords this way ensures that Pepsi’s Twitter manager can’t login and sabotage Coke’s account.
Keep in mind: If you’re signing many new clients, we suggest that you make this step part of your initial onboarding procedure. Add your new client to your TeamPassword account then ask them to add all of their login information. This way, you’re sure to have the access you need, and your client’s not wasting money on extra billable hours.
Method 2: Group your passwords by department
If you have teams of employees that work together in departments, and those employees don’t bounce around from team to team often, this method could be right for you. You can just set up your password groups once, and add new client information as it comes in.
Works best for: Your classic B2B or SAAS companies with a functional organizational structure where employees similar skills work in teams and departments.
This method is super helpful for companies where employees work on distinct parts of the business and the tools they use are different, such as GitHub for the Development Team, Quickbooks for the Accounting Team, and SalesForce for HR. Structuring internal teams such as HR, Accounting, and Development will ensure everyone has access to the passwords they need and won’t be bothered by the ones they don’t.
Other departments this could be useful for: Development, Accounting, Marketing, Sales, Product, Account Management, HR, Finance, Customer Success, Support, Administration, Interns.
Keep in mind: Employees can be added to more than one team so those cross functional members, like a Project Manager, can have access to the passwords of Development and Customer Success tools.
Method 3: Group passwords by function
Organize your passwords by their function to have quick access to the tools you need to accomplish different tasks. Groups like Social (Facebook, Twitter), Productivity (Trello, Asana), Research (AdWords, SEMrush), Travel (Delta, United), and Retail (Amazon, Jet) can be advantageous when certain members of your team always handle the same jobs, like ordering snacks for the office. Divvying up passwords using this method also makes it easy to find function specific passwords.
Works best for: This grouping method works nicely paired with either of the other two methods. Employees can be added and removed as needed from these functional groups if they are, for example, booking a flight. Members can also stay in the group if they are always designated to the same task. This flexible method can fit into any password management system.
Keep in mind: Filtering passwords by group is easy using the group filter! For instance, if you are like us and have seven different wifi networks, having a group called ‘Wifi’ makes signing into a new network effortless.
Why strategic password organization matters:
Taking the time to think through and set up a password management system will save you time and stress down the road. Once you establish a login management system that works for your business, you can let the password details fade into the background, and focus on providing excellent services to your clients.
Get started with our FREE 14-day trial to see how TeamPassword can help your company improve processes and get organized.
