How to Organize Multiple Teams with Departments and Subdepartments

Larger organizations need hierarchy without losing clarity. DeptOps departments are the operating units for people, responsibilities, and work. Subdepartments nest under parents when your plan includes department hierarchy.

Build the department structure

1. As an organization admin, open Departments. Only organization admins create, edit, and archive departments.
2. Create top-level departments first with Parent department set to None (top level).
3. Add subdepartments by choosing a Parent department when hierarchy is enabled (Business plans and above).
4. Watch the capacity badge. Subdepartments count toward your plan's department limit.
5. Use Overview on each node to inspect people, due and overdue work, and responsibility health.

Locations are separate from the department tree. Use departments for operating structure, not as a substitute for every physical site label unless that matches how you run the work.

Assign people and managers

1. In People, set each person's Primary department.
2. Set a Direct Manager so the Org Chart reflects management relationships.
3. As an organization admin, set Role to User, Department manager, or Organization admin when you add someone.
4. Invite people when they should sign in. Directory membership and sign-in access are separate steps.

Use hierarchy for larger organizations

• Keep top-level departments stable and use subdepartments for specialized teams.
• Put responsibilities and work in the department that actually owns the outcome.
• Avoid deep trees that nobody can explain. Prefer a structure managers can navigate in one glance.
• When someone moves teams, use Role Change / Transfer and optionally update their department so directory and ownership stay aligned.

A good hierarchy makes ownership obvious. If people cannot tell which department owns a responsibility, simplify the tree before adding more nodes.