Department Management

Departments represent your company's hierarchical org structure — recording which units report to whom and who leads each unit.

When do you need departments?

Only when your workflows use manager-level approval nodes.

If all your workflows assign tasks to specific groups, you don't need departments at all.

Not sure? See 📌 Departments vs. Groups

Creating a department

1. Go to "Organization" → "Departments"
2. Click "Add Department"
3. Enter the department name and select a parent department (leave blank for the top level)
4. Assign a department manager (optional)
5. Confirm the level number (1 = highest, higher numbers = lower levels)

Department hierarchy

Level 1: Company (CEO)
  Level 2: Finance (CFO)
    Level 3: Accounting (Accounting Manager)
    Level 3: Audit (Audit Manager)
  Level 2: Sales (Sales Director)
    Level 3: North Region (North Manager)
    Level 3: South Region (South Manager)

When a workflow has a "manager-level approval" node, the system walks up the department tree from the submitter's department to find the manager at the right level.

Important notes

• After building the department structure, make sure each member's department assignment is correct — otherwise the system can't find the right manager
• When a department manager changes, update the department's manager in "Organization" → "Departments" — otherwise approvals will be routed to the wrong person

How manager approval nodes work

There are two edge cases to be aware of when using manager approval nodes in workflows.

Previous node's handler is already a qualifying manager

A manager approval node only looks at who approves that node itself — it does not consider who handled earlier nodes.

Example: Node A is a regular approval node, and Node B is set to "approve up to level 2 manager." If the person who handled Node A happens to be a level 2 manager, the system will not skip Node B. Instead, it will assign Node B to their superior (the level 1 manager) for at least one sign-off.

The approving manager is already the top-level manager

If the manager assigned to sign off is already the highest level in the organization (no parent department), the system will assign the node back to that same manager for one more approval before the workflow continues.