[Intum Help](https://intum.com/help.md) / [Organization](https://intum.com/help/organization.md)

# [Departments: Organize your team and gain full control over data visibility](https://intum.com/help/organization/departments-organize-your-team-and-gain-full-control-over-data-visibility.md)

A department in the system is a powerful organizational structure for your company. Instead of wasting time on chaotic responsibilities and manually distributing messages, departments allow you to combine users, mailboxes, templates, and permissions into one smoothly functioning unit.

### What do you gain by implementing departments?
- **Perfect email and task organization:** Mailboxes, folders, message templates, tasks, and projects can be permanently assigned to a specific team (e.g. Sales, Support).
- **Automatic email routing:** Customer messages are immediately directed to the appropriate department.
- **Professional image in signatures:** Department phone and email can automatically appear in message signatures. The customer sees direct contact information for the team handling them, not generic company details.
- **Data security (CRM):** You can precisely restrict CRM client visibility, protecting databases from unauthorized access.

### How to create a new department? (Step by step)
Configuration is quick and intuitive. Go to: **4 dots -> Account -> Departments** and click the **+ (New department)** icon.

![](6822af3bd008-Screenshot - 2026-06-02T162407.544.png)

Fill in the form:
- **Name** - a unique name within your account (e.g. "Sales", "Technical Support").
- **Description** - your optional description of the department's purpose.
- **Users** - select and assign employees to this department.
- **Mailboxes** - assign the appropriate mailboxes.
- **Department phone and email** - optional contact details that the system will use in email signatures.
Then click **Save**.

> **Important note:** If you delete a department in the future, the system will protect your data - assigned mailboxes and message templates will NOT be deleted, just safely unlinked.

## Smart data visibility restriction by departments
Departments allow precise narrowing of access to the CRM client database. When this mode is enabled, a regular user only sees clients belonging to their department. Clients without an assigned department become completely invisible to such users (both on the list and when trying to view details) - only administrators have access to them.

### Where and how does it work?
You control this feature in the section: **Account Settings -> "Data visibility by departments"**. You have two options:
1. **Disabled** - the mechanism is inactive; all employees see all clients in the system.
2. **Enabled** - full, secure restriction of record visibility outside the user's department.

> **Smart system automation:** To make your work easier, the system handles this automatically! **When a second department is created on the account, this mode automatically switches to "Enabled"**. The exception is when an administrator has previously set this value manually - then the system respects that choice. A single, first department does not activate this mechanism (because without a division there's nothing to separate).

### Creating clients as employees:
When the restriction mode is enabled, a non-administrator user must **assign a new client to a department** when creating one. To prevent mistakes, the "Department" field in the client form will show only those departments to which the user is assigned.

## "Sees data from all departments" permission (`departments_all`)
The system ensures that implementing departments doesn't suddenly paralyze your company's operations. Therefore, **by default every user** (owner, administrator, and regular employee) **has this permission**. This means that simply creating departments doesn't revoke anyone's access by default, and the team can continue working as before.

### How to actually restrict an employee's access to their department?
If you want, for example, a salesperson to see *only* clients from their department, follow these simple steps:
1. Go to **Settings -> Roles**.
2. Create a new role (e.g. *"Salesperson - own department only"*) and **uncheck (disable)** the **"Sees data from all departments"** permission.
3. Assign this newly created role to the user in their profile.
4. Make sure the employee is physically added to the appropriate department (**Settings -> Departments -> Edit department -> Assign users**).
Only removing the `departments_all` permission via a role actually narrows data visibility. Team leaders or people working across different departments can remain with the default role with the permission enabled, to maintain full visibility across the company.