ANTE User Manual

Departments

Departments group your organization's roles so that access and reporting can be organized by team or division. In ANTE, a department is a container for roles — each role is assigned to a department, and every employee inherits their department from the role they hold.

Right-click a row to open it, edit it, or delete it (shared departments are read-only).

Tip

New to how departments, user levels, roles, the Reports To line and employee records fit together? Start with the tutorial Understand Users, Roles and Employees.

Overview

The Departments screen lists every department in your organization. From here you can create new departments, view the roles and people that belong to each one, and open an organizational chart of your role structure.

A department can be one of two types:

  • Company — created by your organization and fully editable.
  • Global (Shared) — a built-in, shared department. Global departments are read-only and cannot be edited or deleted.

Wherever you pick a department in ANTE (forms, filters, reports), the list shows the departments as a hierarchy: sub-departments are indented under their parent. Searching keeps the parents of every match visible, and typing a parent's name also finds its sub-departments.

Finding This Page

  1. Open Settings from the sidebar.
  2. Go to Users & Access.
  3. Select Departments.

Page Layout

  • AI Assistant button (robot icon) — opens a chat sidebar that can list, create, rename, and delete departments for you conversationally. See AI Assistant.
  • View switch (two icons next to Actions) — Hierarchy (the default) or List. The page always opens in Hierarchy; the List view is kept in the address (?view=list) so a link to it stays on the list.
  • Actions dropdown — opens a menu with:
    • Add Role Group — create a new department.
    • Organizational Chart — opens a chart of your departments and the roles inside them.

Hierarchy View (default)

Every department on one screen, with no pages to click through. Each sub-department sits under its parent with connector lines. Every row shows the department's name (its code as a small tag beside it) with its description underneath; a parent also says how many sub-departments it has.

  • Count line (top right) — how many departments you have and how many employees they hold in total.
  • Expand all / Collapse all (the two icons beside the count) — open or fold every parent at once. Click the arrow beside a parent to fold just that branch.
  • Search — matches the name, code or description as you type. A matching sub-department keeps its parents visible so you can see where it sits.
  • Columns — Roles (roles in that department), Employees (people in that department only) and Incl. sub-departments (everyone in it plus every sub-department below it — the same as Employees for a department with no sub-departments, so it's greyed out there).
  • Hover a row for View, Edit and Delete; clicking the row opens the department.

List View Columns

The List view is the paged table. Search it by Name or Description, and sort by Name or Description.

ColumnDescription
NameDepartment name
ParentThe department this one is nested under (blank = top level)
TypeGlobal (shared, read-only) or Company (yours)
DescriptionShort description of the department
RolesNumber of roles assigned to the department
UsersNumber of users belonging to the department

Click any row to open that department's detail page.

Common Tasks

Creating a Department

  1. Open the Actions menu and click Add Role Group.
  2. Under Basic Information, fill in the fields:
    • Name (required) — for example, Engineering, Human Resources, or Sales.
    • Description (optional) — describe the department's purpose.
    • Parent department (optional) — nest it under another department; leave empty for a top-level department.
    • Code (optional) — a short code of up to 10 letters, numbers, dots, dashes or underscores, unique in your company. When the company is connected to multibook, a multibook department with the same code (or the same name) is linked to this department; multibook departments with no match are created here automatically and show a From multibook badge in the list.
    • multibook code (optional) — up to 10 characters: the department's code in multibook. Journal entries made from workflow steps carry it as their department (the order starter's department for Requester's department, the step completer's for Step's department). Each code can belong to one department in your company; a code already used is refused with a message naming that department. Without a code, the Settings → multibook team mapping or company default applies. Entries not yet sent keep their code until regenerated.
  3. Click Create Department.

After saving, you are taken to the new department's detail page.

Viewing a Department

  1. Click a department row (in the Hierarchy or List view).
  2. The detail page shows:
    • Basic Information — Name, Description, multibook code (— when none), and Type (Global (Shared) or Company-specific).
    • Roles in Department — a table of every role assigned to this department. Click a role to open it.

Editing a Department

  1. Open the department from the list.
  2. Click Edit.
  3. Update the Name, Description and/or multibook code.
  4. Save your changes.

Default Role (administrators or Manage department cover): the role whose permissions someone who also covers this department gets. It must be one of the department's roles and can't be full access. Without one, nobody can cover the department. See Also Covers on the Users page.

Departments with nobody (administrators or Manage department cover): the top of the Departments page lists departments that nobody belongs to or covers — their tasks go to administrators. Click Choose Who Covers It to pick a person and give a reason, or Set Default Role when the department has none yet.

Note: Global (shared) departments are read-only. They show a Global Department (Read Only) label instead of Edit and Delete buttons.

Deleting a Department

  1. Open the department from the list.
  2. Click Delete.
  3. Confirm in the dialog that appears.

Important: When you delete a department, the roles in it are moved to a default department. This action cannot be undone. Global (shared) departments cannot be deleted.

Viewing the Organizational Chart

  1. On the Departments list, open the Actions menu and click Organizational Chart.
  2. A chart opens showing your departments and the roles within them.
  3. Close the chart when finished.

Nesting Departments (Hierarchy)

Departments can sit under other departments, to any depth, so the tree matches how your company is organized — for example Manufacturing > CNC > Line 1, with Accounting standing alone. Departments with no parent stay at the top level, so existing flat setups keep working unchanged.

  1. When creating or editing a department, pick a Parent department. The list never offers the department itself or anything beneath it, so a department can never become its own ancestor.
  2. Assign each employee (through their role) to the lowest unit they belong to — for example Line 1.
  3. Open the Departments page — it shows the whole hierarchy with employee counts. A parent's total includes everyone in its sub-departments.

What the hierarchy changes:

  • Employee lists, filters, exports and payroll reports — choosing a department includes the employees of all its sub-departments (choosing Manufacturing lists CNC and Line 1 too).
  • Filing approvals — a filing uses the approval chain of the employee's own department, or of the nearest parent that has one, and finally the company default. A chain defined once on CNC therefore serves every line under it. A stage set to Restrict to filer's department looks for its approver in the filer's own unit first, then in each parent in turn.
  • Filing rules — a rule limited to a parent department also covers its sub-departments.

Note: A department that still has sub-departments, or employees assigned to it directly (see Choosing an Employee's Department), cannot be deleted — move or delete them first. Shared (global) departments cannot be nested. The Multibook department code stays on the department that carries it.

How Departments Are Used

  • Role organization — every role belongs to a department; the department groups related roles together.
  • User grouping — employees inherit a department through their assigned role, so the Users count reflects everyone in the department's roles.
  • Reporting — an employee's department (shown across HR and employee screens) comes from their role's department.

Tips

  • Match reality — name departments after your actual teams or divisions.
  • Clear names — use names everyone recognizes, such as Human Resources or Sales.
  • Add a description — a short description helps others understand each department's purpose.
  • Assign roles — a department is most useful once roles are assigned to it.
  • Users — manage user accounts
  • Roles — assign each role to a department
  • AI Assistant — manage departments by chatting instead of using the forms

How It Connects

Feeds into

  • Roles — every role belongs to a department.
  • Users — users inherit their department through their role.
  • Employee Records — the department shown on employee screens comes from the role’s department.
  • Approval Configuration — an approval chain is chosen by the filer’s department, walking up to the nearest parent that has one; eligibility rules can be limited to departments.
  • Payroll Journal — cost centres can be mapped by department.
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