Introduction to Parent and Subordinate Organizations

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What Are Parent and Subordinate Organizations

DingTalk parent and subordinate organizations give medium and large organizations powerful Organization Structure management capabilities. Contacts and apps are interconnected across organizations, so parent and subordinate organizations can communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Use this feature to easily connect a group headquarters with its subsidiaries, optimize the Organization Structure, and improve work efficiency.

• Unified management: Combine the Organization Structure of the group headquarters and its subsidiaries for unified management and collaboration. This avoids maintaining duplicate Organization Structure and user information across the group and its subsidiaries, reducing redundant work and errors.
• Fast communication and collaboration: Communication and collaboration between the group headquarters and its subsidiaries become easier. Users in the trunk organization can communicate and collaborate directly with users in branch organizations, without extra steps to add or search for them, saving time and effort.
• Cross-organization teamwork: Users in branch organizations can access the workbench of the trunk organization and use apps to work together. This enables cross-organization project management, task assignment, document sharing, and more, improving collaboration efficiency and results.
• Real-time sync of user changes: When user information changes in a subsidiary, the changes sync automatically with the group structure. This keeps the Organization Structure up to date and prevents inaccurate information and collaboration issues caused by user changes.
• Unified permission management: The group headquarters can manage permissions for its subsidiaries. The group headquarters defines the permission scope of each subsidiary to ensure security and confidentiality.

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YiDA Capabilities for Parent and Subordinate Organizations

Building on parent and subordinate organizations, YiDA supports apps for cross-organization collaboration, which enables the following scenarios:

• The parent organization builds a YiDA app.
• The parent organization distributes the app to the workbench of subordinate organizations.
• Associated users or industry contacts in the subordinate organization access the app to enter data and submit requests.
• The parent organization manages all submitted data and approval requests in one place.

Industry contacts refers to users outside the organization, such as residents in a village organization or students’ parents in an education organization.

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Activate Parent and Subordinate Organizations

Parent and subordinate organizations is a paid feature. Follow the steps below to activate it.

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Activate on Desktop

1. Sign in to the DingTalk Admin Console.
2. Select Partners and Customers > Parent and Subordinate Organizations.
3. Select the plan you need, then click Buy Now.

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Activate on Mobile

1. Open DingTalk on your mobile device and tap Contacts at the bottom of the page.
2. Select the organization that needs parent and subordinate organizations, then tap Manage.
3. Select Interconnection Platform > Parent and Subordinate Organizations.
4. Tap Start Trial.

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Pricing Policy

• Parent and subordinate organizations is a separate paid DingTalk feature. To use it in YiDA, purchase the feature first.
• In YiDA, parent and subordinate organization apps are free, but they are supported only in the Professional edition and Dedicated edition.
• The number of users and the resource quota available to parent and subordinate organization apps depend on the YiDA edition and resource quota of the parent organization.

During the launch period, users without the Professional edition or Dedicated edition could try the feature for free from June 3, 2021 to September 2, 2021. After September 2, 2021, parent and subordinate organizations are no longer available for apps that belong to users who have not purchased the Professional edition or Dedicated edition of YiDA.

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FAQ

Q: Can a subordinate organization access the contacts of the parent organization? For example, can users in a subordinate organization select users or departments from the parent organization in a YiDA form? No. Subordinate organizations cannot access the contacts of the parent organization. Q: When an App Management admin in the parent organization configures process rules, can they select any user in a subordinate organization as an approval participant? No. You can configure and select only the departments and users included in the association. Q: Can the parent organization control whether users in a subordinate organization submit forms or query data? Yes, you can control this. Q: Is there a limit on the number of apps that can be distributed to subordinate organizations? No. There is currently no limit. Q: How do accounts in a subordinate organization get licensed? Do they need to purchase YiDA separately? If the subordinate organization does not need to build apps and only uses the apps distributed by the parent organization, it does not need to purchase a paid edition of YiDA. To access YiDA in the parent organization, users in the subordinate organization must be licensed by the parent organization, and they consume the parent organization’s licenses. Industry contacts (resident contacts and school-parent contacts) cannot be associated with the parent organization. To access apps in the parent organization, they must be licensed by the subordinate organization. Q: If a user in a subordinate organization keeps another way to open the app, such as a link, can they still access the app after it is uninstalled? Install and uninstall only control whether the app is visible on the workbench of the corresponding organization. They do not close the entry to the app. If other access methods are kept, users can still access the app in the parent organization after uninstalling. To control this, go to App settings >> Allow industry contacts to access this page >> Permission settings. Q: Can I select users from the school-parent contacts of a subordinate organization? No. Selecting users from the school-parent contacts of a subordinate organization is not supported. Q: Which capabilities are not supported yet?

• Open API

Admins cannot use the Open API provided by YiDA to operate user variables that involve industry contacts, such as the user ID of a resident.

• Data editing and deletion by subordinate organizations

Subordinate organizations can be granted view permission for data, but editing and deleting data is not supported yet.

• Logic flow and integration & automation

If you use YiDA logic flow to operate rules related to industry contacts, the trigger logic does not take effect.

• Reports

The parent organization can view reports. Report viewing is not supported for subordinate organizations yet.

• DingTalk To-Do

For data submitted by industry contacts, DingTalk To-Do items cannot be generated. Approvers can handle the approval form through DingTalk message notifications and the YiDA task center.

• Editing submitted data by users in subordinate organizations

Admins in the parent organization can manage data. Submitters in subordinate organizations cannot edit data after it is submitted.

• Processes

Subordinate organizations cannot start processes in bulk. Q: Why does the department ID obtained from the parent organization differ from the original department ID in the subordinate organization? In a parent and subordinate organization relationship, the parent organization cannot obtain the original department IDs of subordinate organizations yet. Q: What should I do if users in a subordinate organization do not have bulk import permission when using an app from the parent organization? To use bulk import, the app page in the parent organization must allow all users to submit. Otherwise, users in the subordinate organization see a message that they do not have permission.