Multi-Branch Management in Shape Software

Centralized Oversight With Branch-Level Flexibility

As organizations grow, their operational needs often become more complex.

One branch may specialize in a different product or market than another. An insurance agency may have separate offices dedicated to different lines of business. A mortgage company may have branches with their own branding, lead sources, marketing strategies, phone numbers, or sales processes.

Trying to force every office into exactly the same CRM configuration can create just as many problems as allowing every branch to build everything independently.

Shape’s Branching architecture is designed to support both.

Organizations can maintain centralized administration and shared standards while still giving individual branches their own users, records, workflows, communication tools, branding, and configuration.

What Is Branching?

Think of your organization like a family tree.

At the top is the Corporate (Master) Branch, which provides centralized administration.

Individual branches then operate as separate Shape environments within the larger organization.

Each branch can have its own:

• Database
• Users
• Phone numbers
• Email and SMS configuration
• Automation
• Reports
• Workflows
• Marketing resources
• Branding
• Integrations

At the same time, authorized Corporate administrators can oversee and manage branches from the Corporate environment.

Why Use Branching?

Branching is useful for organizations that need some level of company-wide consistency without requiring every office or business unit to operate identically.

Common examples include:

• Mortgage companies with multiple branch offices
• Insurance agencies with regional offices
• Franchises
• Multi-brand organizations
• Enterprise sales organizations
• Businesses operating in multiple states or regions
• Organizations acquiring or onboarding existing teams with established workflows

Each branch can maintain the configuration it needs while Corporate retains centralized oversight.

Independent When You Need It, Shared When You Want It

One of the most important things to understand about Branching is that individual branches are not simply different views of the same CRM.

Each branch is its own environment.

A branch can maintain its own:

• Users
• Phone numbers
• Email sending
• SMS texting
• Drip Campaigns
• Triggers
• Prioritized Views
• Shark Tanks
• AI Agents
• Dashboards
• Reports
• Landing Pages
• Websites
• Forms
• Branding
• LOS integrations
• API integrations

This gives individual teams significant flexibility.

At the same time, Corporate can centrally distribute many resources that should remain consistent throughout the organization.

How New Branches Work

When adding a new branch, you have several options for determining its starting configuration.

Option 1: Start From the Corporate Configuration

New branches can inherit the current configuration of the Corporate (Master) branch.

This works well when Corporate represents the organization’s standard operating model and you want each new branch to begin with the same general configuration.

Once the branch is created, administrators can customize it as needed.

Option 2: Use an Existing Branch as the Starting Configuration

Sometimes Corporate is not the best example of how a new branch should operate.

For example, you may have an existing branch that your team has spent significant time refining. It may have the automation, templates, Prioritized Views, workflows, settings, or other configuration that you now want new branches to use.

When Shape creates a new branch for you, you can request that we use the configuration from another existing CRM branch as the starting point instead of Corporate.

This can be especially useful when:

• One branch has become your organization’s preferred configuration
• Your operating model has evolved since Corporate was originally configured
• A successful branch has workflows you want to standardize elsewhere
• You’re rolling out a new group of branches using a newer configuration
• You want to reduce the amount of setup required after each new branch is created

Contact Shape when requesting the new branch and let us know which existing branch you’d like us to use as the configuration reference.

Option 3: Start With Shape’s Recommended Configuration

If you don’t have an existing branch configuration you want to replicate, you can also ask Shape about starting with our recommended best-practice configuration.

This can be helpful for organizations that want a clean starting point rather than copying years of branch-specific customization into a new environment.

Your team can then customize the new branch based on its users, workflows, branding, integrations, and business requirements.

Choosing the Right Starting Point

Before creating a new branch, ask: which existing environment most closely represents how we want this new branch to operate?

That may be Corporate, but it doesn’t have to be.

For organizations with many branches, choosing a strong baseline can significantly reduce configuration differences over time.

What Can Be Customized After a Branch Is Created?

Regardless of which configuration is used as the starting point, the new branch can be customized after creation.

Depending on your setup, this may include:

• Branding
• Automation
• Templates
• Prioritized Views
• Forms
• Websites
• Marketing campaigns
• User permissions
• Phone configuration
• Lead distribution
• Integrations
• Other branch-specific settings

This gives you a standardized starting point without locking every branch into the same long-term configuration.

Syncing Resources Across Branches

Some resources are better managed centrally.

Corporate administrators can create supported resources and distribute them across branches using Sync to All Branches.

Common examples include:

• Email Templates
• Text Templates
• Drip Campaigns
• Prioritized Views
• Other supported configuration resources

This can eliminate the need to manually recreate the same resource in every branch.

How to Sync to All Branches

For supported resources:

1. Navigate to the settings page for the resource you want to manage.
2. Create a new item or edit an existing one.
3. Select Sync to All Branches.
4. Save your changes.

If the resource has not previously been synced, Shape will create it in the applicable branches.

If it has already been synced, Shape will update the previously synced version with your latest changes.

Branch Data Is Isolated

While Shape provides tools for centralized administration, each branch maintains its own database.

Records are not automatically shared between branches.

This means:

• Records exist within a specific branch.
• Each record has its own Record ID.
• Standard branch users only see records available within their branch.
• Separate branches can contain records representing the same person or organization.

This separation allows organizations to maintain independent branch operations while still providing Corporate with tools to locate and manage information across the organization.

Cross-Branch Search

Corporate administrators do not need to manually log into every branch just to locate a record.

From the Corporate (Master) branch, use Master Search and select the applicable Branch option.

You can search:

• Corporate
• A specific branch
• Across all branches

Cross-branch search is particularly useful when you aren’t sure which branch owns a record or when Corporate teams support multiple offices.

Corporate Oversight

Although individual branches operate independently, Shape includes several tools specifically designed for organization-wide administration.

Depending on permissions and configuration, Corporate administrators can:

• Search across branches
• Access cross-branch reports
• Review organization-wide user information
• Log directly into individual branches
• Manage branch configurations
• Distribute shared resources
• Run email campaigns across multiple branches
• Manage organization-wide opt-out information

The goal is to keep branch databases independent without forcing Corporate teams to manage the organization one branch at a time.

Logging Into a Branch

Corporate administrators with the appropriate permissions can access individual branches from Manage Branches.

Navigate to Settings › Manage Branches.

Locate the branch you want to access, open the applicable menu, and select Log Into Branch.

Once inside the branch, you’ll have administrative access based on your permissions.

When finished, use Switch to Master Login from your profile menu to return to Corporate.

Choosing Between Branches, Teams, and Departments

Not every organizational group needs its own branch.

A branch generally makes sense when the group needs its own operational environment.

Teams and Departments organize users within a branch.

Branches provide separate operational environments.

Cross-Branch Email Campaigns

Corporate administrators can send email campaigns across multiple branches without logging into each branch individually.

The Cross-Branch Email Campaign tool allows Corporate users to centrally manage campaigns that need to reach contacts throughout the organization.

This is useful for:

• Company-wide communications
• Marketing campaigns
• Seasonal campaigns
• Customer announcements
• Compliance communications
• Other organization-wide messaging

Rather than building and sending the same campaign separately from every branch, Corporate can manage the campaign from one location.

Cross-Branch Email Campaign Reporting

Corporate users also have access to the Cross-Branch Email Campaign Report.

This provides centralized visibility into email campaigns throughout the organization.

Administrators can review:

• Campaigns across multiple branches
• Campaigns currently sending
• Completed campaigns
• Scheduled campaigns
• Organization-wide email activity

This allows Corporate teams to manage both campaign execution and reporting without repeatedly switching branches.

Cross-Branch Opt-Out Management

Communication preferences are one area where branch isolation can create problems if information is not shared appropriately.

For example, a contact may opt out of communication while working with one branch and later appear in another branch.

Shape supports cross-branch opt-out management so applicable opt-out information can be synchronized across the organization’s branches.

This helps Corporate and branch teams maintain consistent communication preferences even though the underlying CRM records remain branch-specific.

Depending on the communication preference, Shape can track opt-outs such as:

• Do Not Contact
• Do Not Call
• Text Opt Out
• Email Opt Out
• Other supported communication preference fields

This is an important distinction within Shape’s branching architecture: CRM records are branch-specific, but applicable opt-out information can be synchronized across branches.

That allows branches to maintain independent databases without treating communication preferences as completely isolated information.

Centralized vs. Branch-Specific Management

A helpful way to think about Shape Branching is that there are three different levels of management.

Branch-Specific

Some information belongs entirely to the individual branch.

Examples include branch records, users, phone numbers, and branch-specific workflows.

Corporate-Synchronized

Some resources are created centrally and pushed to individual branches.

Examples can include templates, Drip Campaigns, Prioritized Views, and other resources supporting Sync to All Branches.

Cross-Branch

Other tools operate across branch boundaries from Corporate.

Examples include:

• Cross-Branch Search
• Cross-Branch Reports
• Cross-Branch Email Campaigns
• Cross-Branch Email Campaign Reporting
• Cross-Branch Opt-Out Management

Understanding the difference helps administrators decide where something should be configured and how broadly a change will apply.

Best Practices for Managing Multiple Branches

Choose Your Branch Baseline Intentionally

Before spinning up a new branch, decide whether Corporate, an existing branch, or Shape’s recommended configuration is the best starting point.

Don’t automatically copy Corporate if another environment better represents how your organization operates today.

Build a Strong Standard Configuration

If you regularly add branches, consider maintaining a branch that represents your preferred configuration.

When a new branch is needed, Shape can use that configuration as the starting point.

Standardize What Actually Needs to Be Standardized

Shared templates, compliance messaging, marketing resources, and common workflows are often good candidates for centralized management.

Branch-specific processes do not necessarily need to be forced into the same configuration.

Use Cross-Branch Tools Before Creating Manual Workarounds

Corporate users have access to tools specifically designed for multi-branch organizations.

Before logging into ten different branches to perform the same task, check whether the workflow can be handled through Cross-Branch Search, reporting, email campaigns, synchronization, or another Corporate tool.

Be Careful With Local Customization

Branch flexibility is valuable, but excessive customization can make enterprise administration difficult.

If a branch changes a shared process, make sure there is a business reason for the difference.

Review Your Standard Configuration Periodically

The branch you considered your “ideal” configuration two years ago may not be your ideal configuration today.

As your organization changes, periodically review which environment should serve as the starting point for new branches.

Frequently Asked Questions