Manage departments
Create a department and add the staff who belong to it.
A department is a group of staff who work together — Science, Admissions, Finance. You create one, choose whether it covers the whole school or a single campus, then add the members who belong to it. This guide walks you through it from start to finish.
Before you start
You need school admin access. Departments live in the Organisation section of the sidebar — if you don't see it, ask another admin to grant you access. The staff you want to add must already exist, since you pick them from your staff list.
Step 1: Open Departments
In the left sidebar, find the Organisation group and click Departments. You'll land on a page headed Departments that lists every department your school already has, each shown as a card with its member count and a tag showing School wide or the campus it belongs to.
Step 2: Start a new department
Click New Department (top right). If you have no departments yet, the same button appears in the middle of the empty page as Create Department. A Create Department dialog opens.
Step 3: Fill in the details
In the dialog, enter:
- Name — what the department is called, e.g. Science Department.
- Description — a sentence on what it does (optional).
- Campus — pick a single campus to scope it there, or choose All campuses to make it school-wide.
Scope is set once
The campus you choose here decides the department's scope, and it can't be changed afterward. If you pick the wrong one, you'll need to delete the department and create it again.
Click Create Department. You're taken straight to the new department's page.
Step 4: Find your way around the department page
The department page is headed with its name and has four tabs:
- Overview — a snapshot: member count, number of heads, when it was created, and its scope.
- Members — the full list of staff in the department.
- Permissions — what the department can access (set this separately as needed).
- Settings — edit the name and description, or delete the department.
Step 5: Add members
Open the Members tab and click Add Members (top right). A panel headed Add Members slides in.
- Use the Search staff... box to find people by name.
- Click a person to select them — they get a Pending tag. Anyone already in the department shows a Member tag and can't be picked again.
- Select as many as you like, then click Add N member(s) at the bottom.
The panel closes and your new members appear in the list.
Step 6: Assign a department head
In the Members tab, click the ... menu at the end of someone's row and choose Promote to Head. They'll be marked with a Head tag and counted on the Overview tab. To undo it, open the same menu and choose Demote to Member.
Tip
The same ... menu also has View Profile to open a staff member's details without leaving the page.
Step 7: Remove a member
To remove one person, open the ... menu on their row and choose Remove, then confirm. To remove several at once, tick the checkbox on each row, click the Selected button that appears, and choose Remove Selected.
Step 8: Edit or delete the department
Click Update (top right of the department page) — or open the Settings tab directly.
- Under Department details, change the Name or Description and click Save Changes. The Scope is shown here but can't be edited.
- To delete, scroll to the Danger zone and click Delete Department. You'll be asked to type the department's name to confirm.
Empty it first
A department can only be deleted once it has no members. Remove everyone in the Members tab first, then delete.
What happens next
- New departments appear as cards on the Departments page, tagged with their scope.
- Members you add show up on the Members tab and in the Overview count straight away.
- Heads you promote appear on the Overview tab under Department Heads.
- Deleting a department removes it and all its member associations for good — it can't be undone.