Create an organizational unit

Create an Organizational Unit

Organizational units are the backbone of your compliance structure in DPMS. Before you can assign a processing activity to "Marketing," link a DPIA to "Finance," or track who is responsible for data protection in "IT Operations," those departments must exist as named units in the system. This screen is where you define them. It is most commonly used by Data Protection Officers, compliance managers, and IT administrators during the initial setup of DPMS — and whenever the company's structure changes and a new department or team needs to be reflected in the platform.

How to open it

• In the left-hand navigation, click General Settings.
• In the sidebar menu, select Organizational Units.
• On the Organizational Units list page, click the Create button.

You will land on the creation form at /compliance/settings/organizational/units/create.

Access note: This screen is only available to users who have the appropriate compliance settings permission. Users with read-only access can view the Organizational Units list but will not see a Create button and cannot reach this form. Users who have no access to organizational units at all will not see the Organizational Units menu item in the sidebar.

What you see

The page uses the standard DPMS compliance settings layout. A vertical sidebar on the left — headed General Settings — lists all configuration sections: General, Applicable Laws, Attributes, Status, Departments, Organizational Units, and others. The Organizational Units entry is highlighted to show where you are.

The main area takes up the remaining three-quarters of the screen. At the top, a clickable breadcrumb trail reads General Settings › Organizational Units › Create, so you always know your exact location and can navigate back with a single click.

Below the breadcrumb sits the creation form, presented as a single scrollable section (there are no tabs). A thin blue vertical bar runs along the left edge of the form — a visual cue consistent with all creation forms across DPMS. A Save button appears in the top-right corner of the form area. A back-arrow icon in the top-left corner lets you return to the list at any time without saving.

Working with this screen

Setting up your first organizational units

If you are configuring DPMS for the first time, the Organizational Units list will be empty. Your first task is to create the top-level units that represent the main departments or divisions of your company.

• Click into the Name field and type the unit's name — for example, Legal & Compliance. This is the name that will appear in every dropdown selector across DPMS wherever an organizational unit can be chosen, so use the name your colleagues will recognise.
• Optionally, click into the Description field and add context — for example, Responsible for all GDPR compliance activities and legal counsel. This is especially useful for large organizations where the name alone may not be enough for colleagues to understand the unit's scope.
• If you want to record who is accountable for this unit's data protection obligations, click the Responsible Person selector and search for the relevant person. You can assign more than one. This is optional, but strongly recommended — it gives anyone viewing the unit an immediate point of contact.
• Leave the Hierarchy / Parent Unit field empty. Since this is a top-level unit, it has no parent.
• Click Save. DPMS creates the unit and returns you to the Organizational Units list or the unit's detail view. A success notification confirms the record was created.

Repeat this process to create all your root-level units (for example, Human Resources, Finance, IT, Marketing). Once those exist, you can create sub-units using the Hierarchy field described below.

Creating a nested department structure

Most organizations have departments within departments. DPMS lets you model this as a hierarchy so that assignment and reporting can be done at the right level of granularity.

• Navigate to General Settings › Organizational Units › Create.
• In the Name field, enter the sub-unit's name — for example, Payroll.
• Click the Hierarchy / Parent Unit dropdown. It shows all existing organizational units. Select the parent — in this example, Finance.
• Optionally, add a Description and assign a Responsible Person.
• Click Save.

The unit Payroll is now stored as a child of Finance. You can continue building deeper levels — for example, creating Accounts Payable as a child of Finance — using the same approach each time. Once the hierarchy is saved, it appears as a tree throughout DPMS wherever organizational units are referenced.

Heads up: A unit's parent assignment is saved at creation and can only be changed by editing the unit afterwards. There is no drag-and-drop reordering on this screen. Plan your hierarchy before you start, especially for large organizations.

Linking organizational units to Active Directory groups

If your company has connected DPMS to your Microsoft Active Directory (or a compatible directory service), you can link a DPMS organizational unit to one or more AD groups. This means members of the AD group are automatically associated with the unit — no manual user-to-unit assignment needed.

• Open the creation form and enter the Name for the unit — for example, Engineering.
• Click the AD Groups selector. Search for and select the relevant AD group — for example, ENG-ALL.
• Complete any other fields as needed and click Save.

From this point forward, users in the ENG-ALL AD group in your company's directory are automatically linked to the Engineering organizational unit in DPMS. If membership in the AD group changes, the DPMS association updates accordingly.

Heads up: The AD Groups field only works if your company has already set up the Active Directory integration under IT Settings. If that connector is not configured, the field will be empty or hidden, and selecting it will have no effect.

Discarding a form you opened by mistake

If you arrived at the creation form accidentally, or you simply change your mind, click the back-arrow icon at the top left of the form. DPMS navigates you back to the Organizational Units list. No data is saved, and the database is not changed.

Heads up: DPMS does not show an "unsaved changes" warning if you navigate away after typing into a field. Any text you entered will be lost. If you have partially filled in the form and mean to complete it later, write down your entries — the form will appear blank the next time you open it.

Field reference

• Name — The display name of the organizational unit (for example, Marketing or IT Operations). This is the value that appears in every dropdown and assignment field across DPMS. Required. Attempting to save without a name will produce a validation error. The field may support multi-language input — if so, a small translation button appears next to the field, allowing you to provide the name in additional languages so colleagues working in other interface languages see it correctly.
• Description — A free-text explanation of what the unit does or is responsible for. Useful in large organizations where the name alone is not self-explanatory. Optional. Like the Name field, this may support multi-language input.
• Responsible Person — One or more DPMS users who are accountable for this unit within the data protection governance structure. When colleagues view or reference this unit elsewhere in DPMS, the responsible person(s) are shown as the point of contact. Optional, but recommended.
• Hierarchy / Parent Unit — Designates this unit as a child of another existing unit, creating a parent-child relationship. Leave blank to create a top-level (root) unit. If no organizational units exist yet, this field will be empty. Optional.
• AD Groups — Links one or more Active Directory groups to this unit. Only visible and functional if your company has configured the AD integration in IT Settings. Members of the linked AD groups are automatically associated with the unit. Optional.

How this connects to the rest of DPMS

Organizational units configured here become selectable values throughout the entire DPMS platform. They are a foundational configuration element: without them, the organizational unit assignment field will be empty everywhere else in the system.

The most important downstream areas that depend on correctly configured organizational units include:

• Records of Processing Activities (RoPAs): When creating or editing a processing activity, you assign it to an organizational unit to indicate which department owns or is responsible for the processing.
• Tasks: Tasks can be assigned to an organizational unit, helping teams filter and manage their own compliance actions.
• Assets: Asset records support organizational unit assignment, so risk assessments can be scoped to a specific department.
• DPIAs, Vendors, Assessments, Projects, and TOMs: All of these support organizational unit assignment in their creation and editing forms.
• Reporting and filtering: Many list views in DPMS offer filtering by organizational unit. These filters only produce results if units are correctly configured.
• User management with AD integration: If AD groups are linked to organizational units, user-to-unit associations are maintained automatically through directory membership.

After creating organizational units here, you will typically return to other parts of DPMS — such as RoPAs, Tasks, or Assessments — to begin assigning records to the units you have just defined.

Tips & common pitfalls

Tip: Create all your top-level units first, then go back and create sub-units. This way the parent dropdown is already populated when you need it, and you avoid creating units out of order.

Heads up: The Name field is required, but the form does not display a visible asterisk by default. If you try to save without filling in the Name, you will see a validation error. Always fill in the Name field before clicking Save.

• Hierarchy cannot be rearranged by drag-and-drop. Once a unit is saved as a child of a parent, changing that relationship requires opening the unit's edit view. Plan your hierarchy in advance, especially for organizations with many departments.
• A newly created unit may not appear immediately in filtered list views elsewhere. If you create a unit and then go to a RoPA or Task list that has an active search filter, the new unit may appear to be missing. Clear all active filters to confirm the unit was created successfully.
• The AD Groups field requires the AD connector to be configured first. If you do not see any groups listed, or the field is not visible, ask your IT administrator to check whether the Active Directory integration has been set up in IT Settings.

Tip: If you partially fill in the form, navigate away, and then return to the Create screen in the same browser session, you may find your previous entries still visible. This is a session-level form state feature. If you see stale data when you expect a blank form, a hard browser refresh (Ctrl+F5 or Cmd+Shift+R) will clear it.

• Users with read-only access cannot create units. If a colleague reports they can see the Organizational Units list but cannot find a Create button, they likely have viewing permission but not creation permission. Contact your system administrator to review their access level.