Departments

Departments group the members of your organization for budgeting. Each member belongs to at most one department, so their spend counts toward exactly one department, and you can set a monthly budget on each department in Budgets.

Only organization administrators can create, rename, and archive departments and assign members to them. Other users who can open the members table see each member’s department but cannot change it.

Departments and User Groups

Departments and user groups both group the people in your organization, but they do different jobs and do not affect each other.

	Departments	User Groups
Used for	Budgeting: which department a member’s spend counts toward.	Access control: what members can use and do.
Membership	At most one department per member.	Any number of groups per member.
Controls	None. A department grants no permissions, model access, DLP settings, or tool access.	Integration access, model access, DLP, tool actions, and feature permissions.
Budgets	Each department can have a monthly budget.	Groups cannot have budgets.

Use user groups to decide what people can do, and departments to decide whose budget their spend counts toward. Changing a member’s department does not change their access, and changing their groups does not change their department.

Budgets are set on departments rather than user groups because a member can belong to several groups. A budget on each group would count that member’s spend several times, and group totals would not add up to your organization’s spend. With one department per member, each dollar counts toward at most one department, so department totals never double-count.

How Departments Work

A department is a name. Apart from its budget, which you set in the Budgeting tab, it has no settings.
A member belongs to one department or none. Assigning a member to a department moves them out of any department they were in.
Members without a department show as No Department. Their spend counts toward no department budget.
Spend counts toward the department the member belongs to when the spend is recorded. Changing a member’s department applies going forward: spend already recorded stays with the department it was recorded under.

The Departments Tab

In Kindo, open Settings (gear icon) > Departments.

The All Departments table lists your organization’s departments by name, with a HEADCOUNT of the members in each. Archived departments do not appear.

Create a Department

Select Create Department.
Enter a name and select Create department.

Department names must be unique among your organization’s departments. Names are case-sensitive, so Sales and sales are different names.

Rename a Department

Select the department’s name, or the pencil icon on its row, and edit the name. The new name saves when you press Enter or select outside the field. Clearing the name leaves it unchanged.

Archive a Department

Select the trash icon on the department’s row.
Select Archive department to confirm.

Archiving removes the department from the Departments tab and from department pickers, and its members move to No Department. Spend already recorded for the department stays with it. The name becomes available for a new department.

Archiving cannot be undone.

Assign Members to Departments

Assign members from the members table in your organization settings. A department must exist before you can assign members to it.

Open Settings (gear icon) > General.
Find the member in Organization Members.
In the member’s Department column, choose a department, or choose No Department to remove them from their department.

The change saves as soon as you choose. If the member was in another department, they move to the new one.

To filter the table by department, use Department above the table. Choose No Department to find members who still need one.

Assign Several Members at Once

Select the checkboxes next to the members you want to assign. Pending invitations cannot be selected.
In the bar above the table, choose a department in Set department.
Review the confirmation and select Assign.

The confirmation shows how many of the selected members will move from another department and how many are already in the one you chose. Members already in that department are left unchanged. To clear the selection without assigning, select Clear.

To remove members from their department, change each one to No Department in the Department column.

Department Budgets

In Command Center > Budgeting, select Departments to set a monthly warning amount for each department, or a default for every department without its own. The Budgeting tab is part of the Budgets beta, which is enabled for your organization separately. See Department Budgets for the panel and Department Spend for what counts toward a department.

Audit Log

Department activity appears in the audit log:

Event	Recorded when
Department Created	An administrator creates a department.
Department Renamed	An administrator changes a department’s name.
Department Archived	An administrator archives a department.
User Department Changed	A member is assigned to a department, moved to another, or left without one, including when their department is archived or they leave the organization. One event is recorded per member.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
The Departments tab does not appear	Departments are in beta and enabled per organization for Enterprise organizations, and the tab is visible only to organization administrators. Contact your Kindo account team to request access.
A department name is rejected	Another department already uses that name. Rename or archive that department first.
Set department is disabled	Your organization has no departments yet. Create one in the Departments tab first.
A department is missing from a picker	Archived departments do not appear in pickers or in the Departments tab.