Managing Lines of Business and Service Categories

ScopeStack gives you two “levels” of content organization to group together similar services.

• Lines of Business: These are the top-level organizational groupings of services in the platform. Notably, service approval is managed at this level.
• Service Categories: This gives you an additional layer below the Line of Business to align services.

Viewing Lines of Business

You can manage Lines of Business and Service Categories in Settings > Content > Lines of Business in Settings.

On this screen: A table listing all Lines of Business in your account, with two columns, Line of Business and Code. There are Active and Archived tabs above it, and a + Add A Line of Business button in the page header. Rows on the Active tab can be dragged to reorder them. Rows carry checkboxes; selecting one or more reveals bulk Export CSV, Delete and, on the Archived view, Restore. Each row is clickable to open the edit view, which has a Line of Business tab and an Approvers tab.

The Service Approval column is no longer on this list. Service approvers are set per Line of Business on the Approvers tab of the edit view.

Adding Lines of Business

You can add a new Line of Business by clicking + Add A Line of Business.

On this screen: A form card titled Add a Line of Business. The card header has a Cancel button on the left beside the title, and Save and Add Another and Save buttons on the right. Below the header, two text fields sit side by side: Name (required) and Code.

Here, you can define:

• The name of the Line of Business
• Optionally, you can define a code that can be used in a few select applications.

To create your Line of Business, press Save. To create several in a row, press Save and Add Another instead. ScopeStack saves the Line of Business, shows a confirmation message, and clears the form for the next one.

On this screen: After you save, ScopeStack opens the Line of Business edit view. A card titled Edit Line of Business has a Cancel button beside the title and a Save button on the right. Two tabs sit inside the card under the header: Line of Business (selected) and Approvers. The Line of Business tab shows the Name and Code fields, filled in. Below them, a Service Categories section shows a table with Name and Code columns, where each category’s name and code are editable fields, and a + Add Service Category link under the table. If there are no categories, the section reads “No service categories yet.” The Save button appears only on the Line of Business tab.

Click the Approvers tab to define users required to approve new or modified service offerings for this Line of Business.

On this screen: The Approvers tab for a Line of Business. A list with an Approver column shows the users already assigned, each with a checkbox. If no approvers have been set, the list reads “No approvers yet.” A green Add Approver button sits at the top right. Selecting one or more approvers reveals a Delete action. Clicking Add Approver opens a slide-out panel on the right titled Add Approver, with Cancel and Save buttons at the top. The panel has one Add an approver select, with the placeholder “Select a user…”, that lists your users who are not already approvers. Save stays unavailable until you pick a user.

If you don’t define any service approvers, new services are created as active, and changes to active services do not require a separate approval. With service approvers assigned, services created or edited by users who are not approvers are marked pending for approval. An approver’s own changes to a new or active service do not require a separate review. If a service is already pending, saving edits does not approve it: use the separate Approve action. By default, pending services are unavailable in project pickers. With the Approved Services Management beta switched on for the account under Settings > Account > Account Preferences, project pickers keep offering the last approved version while changes await approval; services that have never been approved are unavailable.

To add an approver, click Add Approver, choose a user, and click Save. You can add as many service approvers as you would like. Adding or removing an approver takes effect right away. You don’t need to save the Line of Business.

Managing Existing Lines of Business

Once you’ve created a Line of Business, you can add or modify Service Categories, change the Line of Business’s name, or change the new service approval user.

Service Categories

Service Categories give you an additional layer of content organization for services. You must define at least one service category to align services with that line of business.

On this screen: The Service Categories section on the Line of Business tab of the edit view. A table shows Name and Code columns, with an editable text field in each cell. Each row has a checkbox, and when there is more than one category, rows can be dragged to reorder them. Selecting one or more rows reveals a Delete action. A + Add Service Category link sits under the table.

Changes to categories, including new rows, edits, reordering and deletions, are applied when you click Save in the card header. Cancel discards them.

NOTE: DELETING A SERVICE CATEGORY DELETES ALL OF THE SERVICES WITHIN THAT CATEGORY. PLEASE CONSIDER YOUR ACTION BEFORE PROCEEDING.

You can add a new Service Category by clicking + Add Service Category.

A new row appears in the table. Give the Service Category a name, and optionally a code, then click Save.

Reorganizing: moving a service category to a different line of business

The Settings screen has no option to move a Service Category to a different Line of Business. Editing a category lets you change its Name and Code only.

The v2 API can move it in place, which is much safer than rebuilding it:

PATCH /v2/service-categories/{id}
{ "data": { "type": "service-categories", "id": "{id}",
            "attributes": { "lob-id": "{new_line_of_business_id}" } } }

The category keeps its services, its history and its ID. Nothing is recreated and nothing is deleted.

If you instead rebuild by hand — creating a new category under the new Line of Business and reassigning services — watch for two things:

• Category names only have to be unique within one Line of Business. Two categories can share a name if they sit under different Lines of Business, and nothing warns you. Anywhere a category appears without its Line of Business — pick lists, reports, merge data — the two are indistinguishable.
• The old category is left behind. Deleting a Service Category deletes every service still inside it, so confirm it is empty before removing it, or rename it to something clearly retired.

Either way, moving services into a different Line of Business can put them through that Line of Business’s own service-approval workflow, described below. Plan the new structure before you start moving services.

Approval of Services and Technical Approval of Projects

There are a few key approval mechanisms tied to the Line of Business level of content organization.

New Service and Custom Service Approval

Approval of new services created in settings or saved due to a Custom service in a project is completed by a user specified on the Line of Business.

You can view services that need approval under the Pending tab.

On this screen: The Professional Services list page with the Pending tab selected. The tab bar shows three tabs: Active, Pending (currently active, with a count of services awaiting approval in parentheses), and Archived. The services table displays columns for Name, Status (showing a yellow dot indicator labeled “Pending,” with an additional green dot for custom services), Phase, LOB / Category, Used In (an eye icon for a preview slideout), Created, and Updated. Checkboxes appear on the left side of each row for bulk selection. When rows are selected, action icons appear in the toolbar: Approve (checkmark), Archive (trash can), and Download (arrow down).

Approval of Projects

Lines of Business are used as the trigger for the Technical Approval of a Project. You can learn more about the Project approval flow here.

Document Template Implications of Lines of Business and Service Categories

Line of Business and Service Category information is available for use in several ways in the merge data used to create documents.