Departments
Departments let you model your company structure inside Deckchair. They control who approves whom, who can see whom, and how many people can be off at once. Set them up under Settings → Departments.
Do you need departments?
Section titled “Do you need departments?”For teams under ~15 people, probably not. Members can have an approver assigned directly, and the wallchart already shows everyone.
Departments earn their keep when you have:
- Multiple teams with distinct managers — each department can have its own manager who handles approvals.
- Minimum-coverage rules — “no more than 2 engineers off at once,” for example.
- Privacy boundaries — sensitive teams (exec, HR) that shouldn’t appear on the shared wallchart.
- Enough people that a flat “team” list becomes unwieldy.
Fields on a department
Section titled “Fields on a department”| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Name | Shown on member profiles and the wallchart grouping. |
| Manager | A member with the manager role (or admin) who approves requests for this department. Optional — you can still use per-member approvers without a department manager. Picking an employee here auto-promotes them to manager (see auto-promotion). |
| Max absent | Optional. If set, Deckchair blocks submissions that would push the number of people absent over the limit on any day in the range. Admins can still approve over the limit on behalf of others; see max absent limits. |
Department manager vs per-member approver
Section titled “Department manager vs per-member approver”You can set approvers at two levels:
- Department manager — reviews requests from anyone in the department.
- Per-member approver — overrides the department manager for a specific member.
Use the department manager as the default, and per-member approvers for exceptions (e.g., a senior member who reports to the director instead of their direct manager).
Max absent limits
Section titled “Max absent limits”Setting Max absent: 2 on the Platform department means Deckchair blocks a member from submitting a request on a day when two colleagues in the department are already booked off (approved or pending). The submission is rejected with an error naming the limit.
Admins are exempt from the block — an admin submitting for themselves or on behalf of another member can still create the request, so you always have an override path for emergencies.
Use max absent to codify coverage rules without going overboard. Set realistic limits; setting it to 1 on a 3-person team means two out of three people can’t book leave whenever someone else already has.
Hiding other departments
Section titled “Hiding other departments”Under Settings → Organization, the Hide other departments toggle changes who sees whom on the wallchart:
- Off (default): everyone sees the full wallchart — all departments, all members.
- On: each member only sees colleagues in their own department on the wallchart.
Admins always see everyone regardless. This is useful for very large organizations, or for separating teams that don’t need visibility into each other’s leave.
Moving members between departments
Section titled “Moving members between departments”Change a member’s department under Settings → Team → Edit member. The change is immediate — they appear in the new department on the wallchart from that point on. Past requests stay as-is.
Deleting a department
Section titled “Deleting a department”You can only delete a department with no members assigned. Move everyone to a different department (or to no department) first, then delete. Requests that were approved while members were in the now-deleted department retain their records; the old department name is still visible in history.