Departments

SECURITY  Security level with Admin permission to configure Your Organization. Refer to Admin security settings.

SECURITY  Security level with Admin permission to configure Resources/Users (HR). Refer to Admin security settings.

NAVIGATION   > Admin > Organization Settings & Users > Your Organization > Departments

About departments

All Resources must be associated with at least one department in one role.

Your Autotask instance contains one system department called Administration. If you are using an older Autotask instance, your default system department may be named Human Resources. You can edit the default department, but you cannot transfer the default designation or delete this department. Your Autotask instance may contain additional, non-system departments that you can use, modify, or delete, and you can add additional departments as needed.

Departments have the following functions:

  • Departments, along with Service Desk queues, associate resources with billing roles. Users are not simply associated with a department, they are associated with a department in a specific billing role. Resources can be associated with multiple departments in more than one role.

EXAMPLE  An engineer is associated with the Engineering department as Team Lead, Engineering, and with the Administration department in his role as manager.

  • A Department Lead has visibility of all projects department members are associated with.

  • When creating or editing a task, users can filter primary and secondary resources by department.

  • Optionally, you can associate departments with specific work types. This would allow you to use a task category setting that would limit the work types on tasks associated with the department to just the associated work types. Refer to Work type limiting.

  • Finally, you can report on resources and labor using the Department field as a filter or grouping field.

How to...

  1. To open the page, use the path(s) in the Security and navigation section above.
  2. To add a new department, click New to open the New Department page.  To edit an existing department, select Edit from the context menu . The Edit Department page will open.
  3. On the general tab, populate or update the following fields.
    4. Field Name Description
      General Tab
    Department Name* (Required) The name your company uses for the department, for example, Product Development.
    Primary Internal Location* (Required) The internal location the department is associated with. When adding or editing a department, this field is a drop-down menu that displays all of the internal locations previously configured. Refer to Internal locations.

    In the Edit Department Detail page, this field is equipped with a New link. Click to add a new internal location.
    Department Number The number assigned to the department if your company uses numeric identifiers for departments.
    Description A brief description of the department.
  1. Click Save & Close.

Resources can be associated with departments from the Resources tab of the Edit Department page or from the Associations tab of the Resource Management page. For more information on managing departments for resources from the Resource Management page, refer to Adding, editing, or copying a resource.

To manage resource associations from the Edit Department page, complete the following steps:

  1. Open the Resources tab. All resources assigned to the department are listed.

NOTE  The word "inactive" is displayed in parentheses next to the resources that are no longer active.

  1. To associate a new resource and role combination with this department, click New.

NOTE  If a resource performs several roles for a department, you must add the resource separately for each role.

  1. Select the resource name and role name. If appropriate, check the Default Department and Role check box. Resources can be assigned to multiple departments, but must have one default department.
  2. If appropriate, select the Department Lead check box.

NOTE  Managers who are department leads can view the projects their resources are working on without being a project team member.

  1. Click Save.
  2. To edit, inactivate or remove the resource and role combination, right-click on the line item and make the appropriate selection.
  3. Click Save when you are done.

Optionally, you can associate departments with specific work types. This would allow you to use a task category setting that would limit the work types on tasks associated with the department to just the associated work types. Refer to Work type limiting.

IMPORTANT  To associate an existing work type with this department, you must edit the work type and select the department there. Refer to Work types for detailed information.

NOTE  On the Work Types tab, you are able to manage the actual work types themselves, not just an association. The New, Edit, and Delete functions will create new work types, edit existing ones, or delete them.

To manage work types from the department, do the following:

  1. Open the Work Types tab. All active and inactive work types associated with the department are listed.
  2. To add a new work type, click the New button. This action will create a new work type with a default association to the current department you are working on.
  3. To instead associate an existing work type to this department, go to > Admin > Features & Settings > Finance, Accounting & Invoicing > Billing Codes > Work Types. Refer to Work types.
  4. To remove the association of the work type to the department, right-click the line item and select Edit Work Type. This will open the Edit Work Type page. Clear the Department field to remove the association then click Save.
  5. To delete a work type, right-click on the line item and select Delete Work Type. This will delete the actual work type, not just the association between the work type and the department.

To delete a department, complete the following steps:

  1. To open the page, use the path(s) in the Security and navigation section above.
  2. Click the context menu and select Delete. If the department has existing associations, the Delete option will not be available.

  3. Click Yes on the confirmation message.

You cannot delete the system department (default name "Administration"), or departments that are associated with resources or work types. Deletions cannot be undone.