---
title: "Departments"
slug: admin/departments
url: https://projectri.com/docs/admin/departments
section: admin
audience: admin
app_route: "/[slug]/admin/departments"
permissions: [team.view, team.manage]
mobile: false
updated: 2026-09-08
source: Projectri documentation
---

# Departments

Company-level master data — the departments teams and members are filed under, shared across every branch.

![Departments](https://projectri.com/docs-shots/admin-departments.png)

## What it is

Departments are the top level of the org chart. They belong to the **company**,
not to a branch — the same Engineering department is shared by every office —
and a team must belong to one before it can exist.

## How to get there

**Admin → Organization → Departments**. The console needs the ADMIN role.
Reading the list is `team.view`; creating, editing and deleting are
`team.manage` *and* the ADMIN role.

## How to use it

### Create a department

1. Press **New department**.
2. **Name** is required, e.g. *Engineering*.
3. **Code** is an optional short label shown as a chip beside the name, e.g.
   *ENG*.
4. **Description** and **Head count** are both optional. Head count is a planned
   figure you type, not a count of the people filed under it.
5. Save. A duplicate name in the same company is refused.

### Edit or delete

1. Hover a row to reveal the pencil and the bin.
2. The edit form is the same four fields.
3. Deleting asks first — *"Its people stay in the workspace and can be filed
   elsewhere."* — and then offers an **Undo** on the toast.

### Switch company

If your account belongs to more than one company, the picker beside the header
chooses which company's departments you are looking at. It only ever lists
companies you are actually a member of.

## What it affects

- **Teams.** A team is scoped to a company *through* its department, so
  departments are the prerequisite for [Teams](/docs/admin/teams). A team whose
  department is deleted disappears from the Teams list.
- **Members.** A member's department is set on their row and shows as a chip on
  the members list. It also feeds Workload, where people are grouped and
  searched by department name.
- **Workload search.** Typing a department name in the Workload search box
  filters to its people.
- **Branches are unaffected.** Departments are not per-branch, so creating a new
  branch does not require re-creating them.

## On mobile

This screen is web only. Editing an org chart with head counts on it is desk
work, and the phone's Teams screen says so when a workspace has no departments
yet.

## Limits and gotchas

- The two counters on a row are **Members** and **Teams** — how many of each is
  currently filed under it. Head count is separate and is whatever you typed.
- Deleting is a soft delete with an undo offer on the toast. Take the undo
  promptly; once the toast is gone the department is out of every picker.
- Deleting a department does not delete its people. They keep their workspace
  access and can be re-filed from [Members](/docs/admin/members).
- Names must be unique within a company. The refusal names the clash.
- The company picker is scoped by membership. Being an admin of one company is
  not a permission over another, so a company you do not belong to is not
  reachable even by id.

## Related

- [Teams](/docs/admin/teams) — the groups that hang off a department.
- [Branches](/docs/admin/branch) — offices, which departments are *not* scoped to.
- [Members](/docs/admin/members) — where a person is filed under a department.
- [Workload](/docs/admin/workload) — where the filing is read.

## Related

- [Teams](https://projectri.com/docs/admin/teams.md): Groups of people inside a department, with their own name, colour and roster.
- [Branches](https://projectri.com/docs/admin/branch.md): The offices a company operates from — name, code, address, contact details, headquarters flag and an optional per-branch mark.
- [Members](https://projectri.com/docs/admin/members.md): The workspace roster and the pending invite list — invite people, change roles, suspend, remove, and do any of those to many people at once.
- [Workload](https://projectri.com/docs/admin/workload.md): Who is carrying what and who has room — open tasks, overdue work and logged hours against each person's weekly capacity, with the capacity and skills editable in place.