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Teams is your organization directory in Backline. It holds your teams, the people in them, and the manager of each team. Once a team exists here, you can make it the owner of an application, so it is clear who is accountable for the work. You can find this page under: Settings → Teams

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Overview

The Teams page helps you:
  • Keep one directory of teams, their managers, and their members
  • Record which applications each team owns
  • Give a team aliases, so resource owner tags and CODEOWNERS entries that spell it differently still name it
  • Build the directory from CSV instead of adding teams one by one
  • Assign owner teams across many applications in a single upload
A person in the directory does not need a Backline login. People are identified by their email address, and first and last names are optional.

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Adding a Team Manually

1

Open the Add Team Menu

Click Add team at the top right of the page and choose Add manually.
2

Name the Team

Enter the team name. This is how the team is identified, so keep it unique.
3

Add Aliases (Optional)

Type each other name the team goes by in Aliases and press Enter. Write a CODEOWNERS team as @org/team. See Aliases.
4

Choose a Manager

Select one person as the team’s manager.
5

Add Members

Select the people you want from the Members list. If someone is not in the directory yet, add them with Add member.
6

Save

Click Save to create the team.
To edit an existing team, use the actions menu at the end of its row and choose Edit. Saving replaces the team’s aliases with the ones in the field, so removing them all clears them.

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Aliases

Backline names the owners of cloud misconfiguration remediations from resource owner tags and from CODEOWNERS files (see Cloud Misconfiguration Owners). These often spell a team differently from its name here, so a team can have aliases:
  • A tag value, such as payments-squad, for a resource tagged OwningTeam=payments-squad.
  • A CODEOWNERS team, written @org/team, such as @acme/payments. Backline then knows the team’s CODEOWNERS entry is this team, and can request it as a reviewer on GitHub pull requests.
Names and aliases match in any case. An alias can’t be another team’s name, and two teams can’t share an alias. Adding one that is already in use shows an error in the dialog.
A tag value or CODEOWNERS team that matches no team name or alias leaves the owner unknown. Add it as an alias of the right team, and remediations created after that will name the team.

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Deleting a Team

Use the actions menu at the end of a team’s row and choose Delete. Deleting a team removes it from every application that named it as an owner. You’ll need to confirm this action, as it can’t be reversed.

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Loading the Directory from CSV

You can also upload the whole directory as CSV.
1

Open the Upload Dialog

Click Add team and choose Upload CSV.
2

Add the Teams File

Drag and drop the Teams file, or click Browse to select it. It is required, and the maximum size is 32MB.
3

Add the People File

The People file is optional. Add it to give people first and last names, or to include people who are not on any team.
4

Upload

Click Upload. Backline validates both files before it changes anything.
Each file has its own Download template button, so you don’t have to build one from scratch.

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The Teams File

Each row is one team, and the file has six columns:
  • team name — The team’s name, which identifies it. Required.
  • manager — Exactly one email address. Required only for a team that does not already have a manager.
  • members — Email addresses, separated by commas.
  • application names — The applications this team owns, using the names Backline displays, separated by commas.
  • repository urls — The applications this team owns, using their repository URLs, separated by commas.
  • aliases — The team’s aliases, separated by semicolons, so a tag value may contain commas. Write a CODEOWNERS team as @org/team.
Filling in an application column replaces that team’s ownership, and filling in aliases replaces all of the team’s aliases. To add one application or alias to a team that already has others, list all of them in the row.

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The People File

Each row is one person, and the file has three columns:
  • email — The person’s email address, which identifies them. Required.
  • first name — Optional.
  • last name — Optional.

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How an Upload Is Applied

An upload merges into the directory you already have: only the people and teams named in the files are touched, a blank cell leaves the existing value alone, and an uploaded value replaces one entered by hand. A manager or member email that matches nobody creates that person in the directory.

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When an Application Can’t Be Matched

Backline matches each application you name to one it has already discovered, by displayed name or by repository URL. A value that matches nothing, matches only archived applications, or matches more than one is reported after the upload. That team’s applications are left exactly as they were while the team’s name, manager and members still apply.
When two applications share a displayed name, add the repository URL of the one this team owns. When a repository holds several applications, name the ones this team owns in application names.

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When an Alias Can’t Be Applied

An alias that appears on two rows, or that is another team’s name, is reported after the upload, and that team’s aliases are left exactly as they were. An alias another team already holds, and that this file does not give to anyone else, moves to the team in this row. Unlike the dialog, the file doesn’t stop you.

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When an Upload Is Rejected

If any row in either file has a problem — a missing or invalid email address, a missing team name, more than one manager, no manager for a team that has none, or the same person or team defined twice — Backline imports nothing at all and reports every row that needs fixing, so you can correct the file and upload it again.

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Assigning Ownership from an Application

You can also assign a team from the directory as an owner directly on an application, along with that application’s business owners and technical contacts. See Applications.