The Departments pages are accessed from the User Management section of the Manage page and allow departments to be added, edited, and deleted. Employees (users) are grouped into departments, and each employee can be a member of multiple departments. Departments can also be used for cross-functional teams or other collaborative workgroups. A key implication of department membership is that users within the same Department can share tasks and action items via the Department Tasks function. This allows for continuity when one member is (for example) on vacation.

• See Department Related Security Notes for details on how the current department can affect workflow related buttons and links.
  

In the department list, click on the Department or Name links to edit or delete an existing department. Use the Add button to add a new department. When adding or editing a Department, the following fields are available:

• Department - An alphanumeric designator for the Department, this value will appear in any selection lists where the user must choose a Department (30 characters max).
• Department Name - A descriptive name for the Department (30 characters max).
• Supervisor - The supervisor or team leader for the Department. This value should be set to a valid CATSWeb Employee Name if CATSWeb Rules related to supervisors will be used. If such rules will not be used, it can be an arbitrary value (or omitted).
• Default Action Goal Date (weeks) - When a new Action is created in the department, this value determines what the default goal date is set to. The user adding the Action can change the default if they wish. Entering a value of 3 will cause the goal date to be defaulted to 3 weeks after the date the Action is being entered.
• Group - Select the Group that the department is a member of.
• Default Issue Category - If a user in the Department starts to add an Issue without specifying the category, the category (and the corresponding field definitions) will be defaulted to this category. The user adding the issue can change the category if they wish.
• Default Action Category - If a user in the department starts to add an Action without specifying the category, the category (and the corresponding field definitions) will be defaulted to this category. Note that the default may be overridden if the Action is being added from the Issue view page via the Create New Action button. In these cases, the optional default Action category associated with the Issue category will take precedence.
• Default Subtask Category - If a user in the Department starts to add a subtask without specifying the category, the category (and the corresponding field definitions) will be defaulted to this category. Note that the default may be overridden if the parent Action category specifies a default Subtask category.

You can choose to limit who can modify the Department by specifying ownership.