Setting Up Departments for Your Team

Departments help you organise larger teams into smaller, manageable groups. They make it easier to view relevant leave information and manage approvals.

Why Use Departments?

Departments are useful when:

• You have a large team – More than 10-15 people can be hard to track on one calendar
• Different teams need different visibility – Sales doesn't need to see Engineering's leave
• You have multiple managers – Each manager can focus on their department
• Teams work independently – Coverage concerns are typically within teams, not across the whole organisation

For small teams (under 10 people), you may not need departments at all.

Accessing Department Management

To manage departments:

1. Click Departments from the Admin section of the navigation menu
2. You'll see a list of existing departments
3. Click on a department to view or edit it

Creating a New Department

To create a department:

1. Go to Departments
2. Click Create Department or Add New
3. Enter a name for the department (e.g., "Marketing", "Development", "Customer Support")
4. Optionally assign a department manager
5. Save the department

Naming Your Departments

Choose names that are:

• Clear and recognisable – Use names your team already uses
• Consistent – Follow a naming pattern (e.g., all based on function or location)
• Future-proof – Avoid names that might become outdated quickly

Common Department Structures

• By function: Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Operations, Finance
• By location: London Office, Manchester Office, Remote
• By project: Project Alpha Team, Project Beta Team
• By role type: Management, Individual Contributors, Support Staff

Assigning Team Members to Departments

To add someone to a department:

1. Go to Team
2. Click on the team member
3. Find the department field
4. Select the appropriate department
5. Save the changes

You can also set the department when sending invitations to new team members.

Department Managers

Each department can have a designated manager. The department manager:

• Receives leave request notifications for their department
• Can approve requests from department members
• Has visibility into department analytics

To set a department manager, edit the department and select a manager from the team list.

How Departments Affect the Calendar

With departments set up, users can filter the calendar:

• View only their department's leave
• See the whole organisation at once
• Toggle between different departments

This makes the calendar much more useful in larger organisations where seeing everyone's leave would be overwhelming.

Visibility Settings and Departments

Departments can be combined with visibility settings:

• All visibility – Everyone can see leave across all departments
• Department only – Users only see their own department's leave
• Limited – Users only see their own leave

These settings are configured at the organisation level and affect what team members can see on the calendar.

Editing Departments

To modify an existing department:

1. Go to Departments
2. Click on the department
3. Make your changes (name, manager, etc.)
4. Save

Deleting a Department

Before deleting a department:

1. Reassign any team members to other departments
2. Check there are no pending requests associated with it
3. Then delete the department

When One Department Isn't Enough

If your organisation has complex structures:

• You might need multiple departments per function
• Consider using descriptive names (e.g., "Engineering - Backend", "Engineering - Frontend")
• Keep the structure as flat as possible – too many layers add complexity

Departments Best Practices

• Start simple – You can always add more departments later
• Align with reporting – Match departments to your actual team structure
• Review regularly – Update departments as your organisation grows or changes
• Communicate changes – Let team members know when they're moved

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