Departments

The Departments settings page allows you to define the organizational units within your company. Departments are used throughout TransportechAI to group employees, filter reports, assign schedules, and structure approval workflows. Every employee is assigned to a department, making this one of the first settings you should configure when setting up the platform.

Navigation: Settings > General > Departments

Purpose

Departments serve as the primary organizational grouping across the platform. They are referenced in:

• Employee profiles -- Each employee belongs to one department
• Attendance reports -- Filter and view attendance by department
• Payroll processing -- Run payroll for specific departments
• Leave management -- View and approve leave requests by department
• Schedule assignment -- Assign work schedules to entire departments
• Financial reports -- Break down expenses and costs by department

Viewing Departments

The Departments page displays a list of all configured departments with the following information:

You can use the search bar to filter departments by name.

Creating a Department

To create a new department:

1. Navigate to Settings > General > Departments.
2. Click the "Add Department" button.
3. Fill in the required fields.
4. Click Save.

Fields

Naming Conventions

Use clear, standardized names that your entire organization will understand.

Editing a Department

To update an existing department:

1. Navigate to Settings > General > Departments.
2. Click on the department row to open its details.
3. Modify the name, description, department head, or parent department.
4. Click Save to apply the changes.

What Changes Affect

Deleting a Department

To remove a department:

1. Navigate to Settings > General > Departments.
2. Click on the department to open its details.
3. Click the Delete button.
4. Confirm the deletion in the prompt.

Deactivation vs. Deletion

If a department is no longer active but you need to preserve historical data (past reports, payroll records, etc.), consider deactivating it instead of deleting it.

Department Hierarchy

TransportechAI supports a simple parent-child hierarchy for departments. This is useful for organizations with layered structures.

Example Hierarchy

Company
  +-- Operations
  |     +-- Fleet Management
  |     +-- Dispatch
  |     +-- Maintenance
  +-- Corporate
  |     +-- Finance & Accounting
  |     +-- Human Resources
  |     +-- Legal
  +-- Driver Operations
        +-- Dubai Drivers
        +-- Abu Dhabi Drivers
        +-- Sharjah Drivers

Setting Up a Hierarchy

1. Create the parent department first (e.g., "Operations").
2. When creating a child department (e.g., "Fleet Management"), select "Operations" in the Parent Department field.
3. The hierarchy is displayed in the department list with indentation or a tree view.

Common Departments for Fleet Companies

Here are typical departments found in fleet management and transportation businesses:

Best Practices

• Create departments before adding employees -- Departments must exist before you can assign employees to them. Set up your department structure as part of initial platform configuration.
• Keep the structure flat when possible -- Deep hierarchies add complexity without proportional benefit. Most fleet companies work well with 5-15 departments at one or two levels.
• Assign department heads -- Having a designated head for each department streamlines approval workflows and gives the platform clear escalation paths.
• Review periodically -- As your company grows or restructures, update your department list to reflect the current organization. Remove or deactivate departments that no longer exist.
• Use consistent naming -- Establish a naming convention and apply it uniformly. Mixing formats (abbreviations in some, full names in others) creates confusion in reports and filters.

Troubleshooting