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Departments: A Detailed Guide

What a Department is, how to create one, how to assign it to admins and scholarships, and how scoping interacts with permissions.

This article covers what a Department is, how to set one up, and how department scoping interacts with permissions. For the full permissions model, see User Permissions & Roles.

Overview

Departments are a way to sort and categorize scholarships. For example, you might create departments for areas like Education or Criminal Justice, then assign the related scholarships to the appropriate department.
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Departments can also be used to manage admin access. The connection works like this: first, you create a department; next, you assign scholarships to it; finally, you assign an admin to it.
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When an admin is assigned to a department, they become a Department Admin. A Department Admin’s access is limited to the scholarships assigned to their department.
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Department scope controls which scholarships an admin can access, but it does not control what access and actions they can take. Their available actions — such as access to Application, Reports, Emails, Tasks, and other areas — are still managed through the Permissions tab, just as they are for any other admin. See User Permissions & Roles for a full breakdown of permission categories and controls.
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Note: Department Admin access applies specifically to Scholarship Management.

Creating a Department

Go to Settings > Scholarships > Departments and click Create Department.

Enter the Department Name and click Save Changes.

The Create Department form with a department name entered and the Save Changes button highlighted.

Assigning a Department to an admin

Go to Users, open the Admins tab, and select the administrator account.

The Users page on the Admins tab, listing each administrator account with its email, roles and departments.

Click inside the Department field on the user profile to browse or search for the department. Selecting a department automatically saves it to the account.

The Profile tab for a limited-access administrator, showing the Controls section with Scholarship Management and Donor Management checkboxes, the name and contact fields, and the Department picker.

Adding scholarships to a Department

Open the scholarship's Details page and find the Department field in the Scholarship Details section just below Fund ID. Click inside it to browse or search for the department.

The Scholarships list also shows each scholarship's department in its own column.

The Scholarship Details section of a scholarship, with the Department picker highlighted below the Fund ID field.

Viewing a Department's admins and scholarships

Go to Settings > Scholarships > Departments and select the department. The page opens on Edit Department, with two tabs:

  • Department Admins — add or remove admins here.

  • Associated Scholarships — read-only. To add a scholarship to a department, use the scholarship's own page instead.

The Edit Department page for a single department, showing its name field and its lists of administrators and associated scholarships.

Remember the scoping rule: department scope narrows which scholarships and students an admin's granted permissions apply to — it doesn't grant permissions on its own.

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