Managing Departments in Matters.Cloud

Managing Departments in Matters.Cloud

Overview

Departments allow you to organise and categorise matters and users within Matters.Cloud. They help firms structure their teams, allocate matters effectively, and provide greater visibility into departmental performance.

This article explains how to create, configure, assign, manage, and report on departments within Matters.Cloud.

Pre-requisites

To manage departments and department-related settings, users must have the required permissions.
  1. Users must have System Administrator permission to:
    1. Create, edit, deactivate, and delete departments.
    2. Enable the Department field for Matter types.
    3. Assign departments to users.
  2. Users must also have the relevant dashboard permissions to view and edit dashboards and add available dashboard tiles for reporting purposes.
For further information, please refer to the following article: Understanding Role-Based Permissions and How to Manage Them in Matters.Cloud
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Note: Only administrators can enable these permissions. If you do not have administrator access, please contact your internal administrator to request access.

Creating a New Department

To create a new department:
  1. Navigate to Setup > Departments.
  2. Click New department.
  3. Enter the Department Name.
  4. Set Is active to Yes.
  5. Click Submit to save the department.

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Once created, the department can be assigned to users and enabled for relevant Matter types.

Enabling the Department Field for Matter Types

After creating a department, you will need to enable the Department field for the relevant Matter types before it can be assigned to matters.

To enable the Department field:
  1. Navigate to Setup > Matters > Matter types.
  2. Select the relevant Matter type.
  3. Enable the Department option.
  4. Click Submit.

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The Department field will now appear when creating or editing matters that use this Matter type, allowing users to select the appropriate department.

Assigning Departments to Users

Departments can be assigned to users to identify which team or practice area each user belongs to.

To assign a department to a user:
  1. Navigate to Setup > Users.
  2. Click the menu next to the user’s name and select Edit user profile.
  3. Locate the Department field.
  4. Select the appropriate department.
  5. Click Submit to save the changes.

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Assigning users to departments improves organisation, reporting accuracy, and visibility across teams.

Editing a Department

You can update an existing department’s name or active status.

To edit a department:
  1. Navigate to Setup > Departments.
  2. Select the department you would like to update.
  3. Update the required details.
  4. Click Submit to save the changes.

Deactivating a Department

If a department is no longer required but has existing records, you can deactivate it instead of deleting it.

To deactivate a department:
  1. Navigate to Setup > Departments.
  2. Select the relevant department.
  3. Set Is active to No.
  4. Click Submit.

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A deactivated department will no longer appear in the available department list for selection. However, the department and any historical records associated with it will remain in the system.

Deleting a Department

You can permanently remove a department if it is no longer required.

To delete a department:
  1. Navigate to Setup > Departments.
  2. Select the department you would like to remove.
  3. Click Delete.

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Deleting a department permanently removes it from the system and should only be used where the department is no longer required.

Department Reporting and Performance Insights

Once departments have been configured and assigned to users and matters, Matters.Cloud provides dashboard tiles that help heads of department and management teams monitor departmental performance and gain real-time visibility into key business areas.

These dashboard insights support monitoring of work in progress, billing performance, realisation, outstanding accounts receivable, and cash collections.

For further information on the available dashboard reports and tiles, please refer to: Dashboards: Tile List

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