Multi-tenant operations

Multi-Tenant Mailroom Software with One Superadmin Above It

Run many separate organisations on one platform. Each tenant sees only their own mail, and a superadmin creates and configures every one of them.

Keeping two tenants apart is straightforward. The harder part is setting up the fortieth tenant as quickly and as accurately as the fourth, and that is what this page is about.

  • Tenants never see each other
  • One superadmin above all
  • Settings per tenant
The Traizr users screen, listing user accounts with the role each one holds and the tenant they belong to
The users screen. Every account belongs to a tenant and carries a role, and together those decide what the person can see and do.

What one system per tenant costs you

The first two are easy to manage. The problems begin once nobody can say how many there are without checking.

Setting up a fresh system for each new client solves the separation problem in the most direct way possible. Nothing leaks between tenants because nothing connects them. That is a sensible decision, and it works well for about as long as it takes to reach a dozen clients.

After that, the cost is not in any single system. It is in the repetition. Every change has to be made once per tenant, and every question about the business as a whole has to be answered by hand.

  • Setting up is a manual checklistEach new tenant is configured from memory, or from a document that was last accurate two clients ago.
  • Settings drift apartReminder timing was changed for one tenant in March. Nobody now knows which others were meant to match it.
  • No view of the whole operationTo find the total volume across all tenants, someone has to open every system and add the numbers up.
  • Staff who cover several tenantsOne person holds several logins and switches between them all day. Mistakes follow.
  • Integrations rebuilt every timeThe same connector is configured again for each tenant, with a fresh chance to get it slightly wrong.
  • Old systems never get switched offA tenant leaves, but deleting their system feels risky, so it keeps running and keeps costing money.
  • Reporting means merging spreadsheetsBoard questions get answered by exporting from each tenant in turn and combining the results by hand.
  • Onboarding slows as you growTaking on a new client gets harder the more clients you have, until it becomes a reason to turn work away.

If your tenants are your own buildings rather than separate organisations, you want multi-site mailroom software. It is the same platform solving a different problem.

The superadmin

Setting up a tenant from start to finish

The superadmin is not just a reporting view sitting above the tenants. It is what creates them, and everything inside them.

  1. Create the tenant

    A new organisation is added as a tenant of its own. From that point it has its own space, and nothing inside it is visible to anyone outside it.

  2. Create their virtual offices

    If the tenant runs virtual office addresses, those are created underneath them. The address, its client list and its mail all sit inside the right tenant rather than beside it.

  3. Create the users

    Administrators and operational staff for the tenant and its virtual offices, each with a role that decides what they can do. Nobody has to be invited into a second system to get started.

  4. Set the preferences

    Notification channels, reminder timing, collection method and language, all configured for that tenant. A residence and a law firm at the same address need different behaviour, and each gets it.

  5. Connect the integrations

    The connectors that keep the recipient list current are set up from the same place. This is often the difference between a tenant that runs itself and one that generates support calls every September.

  6. Hand it over

    The tenant's own administrator takes over from there, with full control of their tenant and no sight of any other. You keep the superadmin and the view across all of them.

The Traizr reporting screen showing total items scanned, items pending, average turnaround time and a scan timeline by hour
Reporting from above the tenants. Volume, pending counts and turnaround show an operator which tenants are growing and which are struggling.

Separation

Who can see what

Multi-tenant only means something if the boundary is exact. Here is where it sits, in the order people reviewing the platform tend to ask about it.

  1. A recipient

    Sees their own items and nothing else. They cannot see other recipients within their own tenant, let alone anyone in another one.

    ScopeTheir own mail, their own notifications and their own collection history.
  2. A tenant's operational staff

    Handle the post for their tenant, scanning items in, moving them and releasing them at collection. Their view is that tenant's mailroom, complete and bounded.

    ScopeItems, recipients and locations belonging to that tenant, limited further by the role they hold.
  3. A tenant administrator

    Has full control of their own tenant. They manage their users, their settings and their reporting, and they can do all of it without asking you.

    ScopeEverything inside their tenant, and nothing outside it. They cannot see that other tenants exist.
  4. A virtual office client

    Sees the items addressed to them at that address and chooses what happens to each one. They sit inside a tenant without being able to see the tenant around them.

    ScopeTheir own items and their own instruction history. See virtual office software for what they do with them.
  5. The superadmin

    The only role that crosses tenants, and it belongs to the operator. It creates tenants, virtual offices and users, and sets preferences and integrations anywhere on the platform.

    ScopeAll tenants. This role provisions the platform, which is why you hold it and never issue it to a client.

Access control is the part a security review will test hardest, so it is worth reading alongside the rest. The Trust Centre holds the documentation, and security and compliance covers how the data is handled.

What the model gives you

One platform, many organisations, without the overhead of running a copy for each.

  • Tenant separation

    Each organisation has its own recipients, items, staff and history, visible to nobody else on the platform.

  • Superadmin setup

    Create tenants, virtual offices and users from one console, without a separate system for each client.

  • Preferences per tenant

    Notification channels, reminder timing, collection method and language, each set on that tenant's own terms.

  • Integrations per tenant

    Connect each tenant to the system that holds their people, configured centrally instead of rebuilt every time.

  • Role-based access

    Roles inside a tenant decide what each person can do, so an administrator does not have to give everyone full access.

  • Virtual offices underneath

    An address with its own client list sits inside the tenant that runs it, rather than floating beside it.

  • Reporting across tenants

    Volume, pending items and turnaround for the whole operation, without exporting from each tenant and merging by hand.

  • Onboarding that stays fast

    The fortieth tenant takes the same effort as the fourth, so growth never becomes a reason to say no.

  • Offboarding without loss

    Close a tenant and keep the history. Disputes tend to arrive after the relationship has ended.

  • Language per tenant

    Thirteen languages, chosen per tenant, so an international client list does not force one shared compromise.

  • One version everywhere

    Everybody is on the same release at the same time. There is no fleet of tenant systems at different versions.

  • No hardware per tenant

    Phones and tablets your tenants already own. Nothing to buy, install or maintain at each one.

One system per tenant against one multi-tenant platform

Both keep tenants apart. They differ in what it costs you to run them.

A system per tenantWith Traizr
A new tenant means a new setupCreated by the superadmin in one place
Settings drift between tenantsSet per tenant and visible from above
Integrations rebuilt each timeConfigured centrally, per tenant
Staff hold several loginsOne account, scoped by role and tenant
Whole-business reporting done by handCross-tenant reporting for the operator
Versions diverge across the estateEveryone on the same release
Departing tenants leave systems behindClosed cleanly, with the history retained
Onboarding slows as you growThe fortieth tenant costs what the fourth did

Keeping every tenant's people list right

Multi-tenant working makes one problem considerably worse before it makes it better. An out-of-date recipient list is a nuisance with one organisation. With forty, your team spends its mornings working out who each item belongs to, and every one of those lists is maintained by someone who does not work for you.

The way out is to stop maintaining the lists at all. Traizr reads people and their locations from the system each tenant already keeps current, on a schedule, so nobody holds a second copy by hand. Where a tenant has no such system, lists can be imported by CSV or spreadsheet, brought in over SFTP, or pushed through the API. Connectors are set up from the superadmin, per tenant, so the same integration behaves the same way everywhere it is used.

All connectors are read-only. Traizr reads the records it needs and never writes back into a tenant's student, property or HR system. That is usually the first question their IT team asks. See the full list of integrations for what is available today.

Frequently asked questions

What is multi-tenant mailroom software?

It is mailroom software where several separate organisations share one platform without sharing any data. Each tenant has its own recipients, its own items and its own staff, and sees only those. Above them sits a superadmin who created the tenants and can configure any of them. The alternative is to run a separate system for each tenant, which works until you have four of them and four sets of logins, settings and upgrade dates to keep track of.

Can one tenant see another tenant's mail?

No. Separation is built into the model rather than being a setting inside it. A tenant administrator has full control of their own tenant and no visibility of any other. They cannot see that other tenants exist. The only role that spans tenants is the superadmin, and that belongs to you rather than to any client.

What can the superadmin actually do?

It creates tenants, creates virtual offices under them, creates the users for both, and sets all preferences and integrations. In practice that means you can set up a new client from start to finish in one place, without logging into a separate system or sending anyone a configuration file.

How long does it take to add a new tenant?

Creating the tenant is a form, so that part takes minutes. The recipient list is what takes real time, and how long depends on where it comes from. A CSV import is quick. A connector to a system the tenant already maintains needs a conversation up front, but after that it keeps itself current and costs you nothing.

Can each tenant have different settings?

Yes. Notification channels, reminder timing, collection method and language are all set per tenant. A student residence and a law firm at the same address genuinely need different behaviour. They share the platform, not the configuration.

Can tenants have their own staff logins?

Yes. A tenant can have its own administrators and its own operational users, with role-based access inside the tenant. This is what makes the model work for an operator who does not want to act as the help desk for every client.

Do we still get a view across everything?

Yes, through the superadmin. It answers the questions an operator actually has: which tenants are growing, where the volume is, and which sites are holding items that nobody has collected. Individual tenants never get this view.

What happens when a tenant leaves?

The tenant is closed rather than deleted, so their history stays available to you. This matters because disputes usually arrive after a relationship has ended, and deleting a tenant would take the evidence with it.

Is this the same as multi-site?

No, and the difference is worth being precise about. Multi-site means one organisation with several buildings, where a head office wants the whole portfolio on one screen. Multi-tenant means several organisations that must not see each other. Many operators need both at once. See multi-site mailroom software for the other half.

Does each tenant need its own hardware?

No. Traizr runs on any iOS or Android phone or tablet and in any web browser, so a tenant needs nothing beyond the devices their staff already carry. If the platform itself has to sit inside your own network rather than in the cloud, see on-premise mailroom software.

Still comparing this against separate systems? How to choose mailroom software covers what to ask a vendor, and multi-site mailroom software covers the case where the sites are all your own.

Ready to Simplify Secure Speed Up Optimise Your Building?

Bring the tenant list you run today and we will set one up from scratch on the call, so you can see how long it takes. About 20 minutes.