How to use Divisions

by Marc Staine

Last updated: 16-Sep-2025

Mastering Divisions: The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Supportbench Instance

As your organization grows, so does its complexity. What starts as a single support queue can quickly spiral into a tangled web of different brands, departments, and client needs. How do you provide a tailored experience for your customers and a streamlined workflow for your agents without deploying multiple, disconnected helpdesks?

The answer lies in Divisions, Supportbench's most powerful feature for organizational architecture.

This guide will not only show you how to use Divisions but will teach you why it's the strategic key to unlocking security, customization, and scalability across your entire company.

❓ The Core Problem: When a Single Workspace Isn't Enough

A one-size-fits-all approach to support eventually breaks down. You might be facing challenges like:

• Data Security: Your HR team needs to handle sensitive employee cases that the IT department should never see.

• Brand Integrity: You manage support for two distinct brands (e.g., a luxury line and a budget line) with different branding, workflows, and customer expectations.

• Workflow Clutter: Your technical support team needs custom fields for "Product Version" and "Error Code," while your Billing team needs fields for "Invoice Number"—and neither team wants to see the other's irrelevant options.

• Reporting Chaos: Your analytics are muddled with data from every department, making it impossible to see how the European support team is performing versus the North American one.

Divisions solve all of this by allowing you to create secure, self-contained, and highly customized workspaces within a single Supportbench instance.

🚀 What Are Divisions? Digital Walls and Secure Bridges

Think of a Division as a dedicated container for a specific brand, department, or even a large client. When you create a Division, you are building digital walls that segment data and workflows, ensuring teams only see what is relevant and permitted to them.

But it's not just about walls. Divisions also act as secure bridges, allowing you to seamlessly transfer cases between teams when collaboration is needed.

Here's what you truly unlock with Divisions:

🔐 1. Granular Security & Data Segregation Isolate sensitive information and give teams access to only what they need.

• Role-Based Access Control: Define which agents can see the cases, knowledge base articles, and assets within each Division.

• Segregated Analytics: Dashboards and reports will only display data from the Divisions a user has access to, providing clean, relevant insights.

• Scoped Search: Search results for agents are locked to their assigned Divisions, preventing accidental data exposure.

⚙️ 2. Deep Customization & Tailored Workflows Equip every team with the exact tools they need to be effective.

• Division-Specific Custom Fields: Create unique fields for each Division. Your Hardware team can track "Serial Numbers" while the Software team tracks "License Keys."

• Custom Lists & Taxonomies: Tailor default lists like Activity Types, Issues, and Outcomes for each Division's unique workflow.

• Targeted Surveys: Deploy different CSAT or NPS surveys for each brand or department to gather highly relevant feedback.

• Unique Communities & Forums: Foster dedicated community spaces for different product lines or customer segments.

🏢 3. Streamlined Administration & Scalability Manage a complex organization with elegant simplicity.

• Delegated Administration: Assign a "Divisional Administrator" who can manage agents and settings for their specific Division, without having access to global settings.

• Subdivisions: Create nested Divisions (e.g., Support > North America > Tier 1) for even more granular control.

• Unlimited Growth: There is no limit to the number of Divisions you can create.

💡 Putting It Into Practice: Real-World Use Cases

🛠️ The Blueprint: How to Configure Divisions

Part 1: Creating Your First Division

1. Navigate to Configuration > Organization > Divisions.

2. Click New Division.

3. Enter the name of your Division (e.g., "Brand A," "HR Department").

4. Fill in the relevant properties and click Save Changes.

💡 Pro-Tip: You can create Subdivisions by selecting a "Parent Division" when creating a new one. This is perfect for creating hierarchies like Sales > USA > West Coast.

Part 2: Controlling Access with Roles

Creating a Division doesn't automatically restrict access. You must use Roles to define who can see what.

1. Navigate to Configuration > Organization > Roles.

2. Click New Role.

3. Give the role a descriptive name (e.g., "Brand A Support Agent" or "HR Manager").

4. In the Divisions section, check the box for every Division this role should have access to.

5. Click Save Changes.

⚠️ Important Note: If you leave all division boxes unchecked for a role, that role will have access to all Divisions by default. To restrict access, you must explicitly select one or more Divisions.

Part 3: Assigning Roles and Divisions to Agents

1. Navigate to Configuration > Organization > Agents.

2. Select the agent you wish to configure.

3. You will see two key settings:

   • Division: This sets the agent's default Division. When they create a new case, it will automatically be assigned to this Division.

   • Role: Select the new role you created in Part 2. This dictates the full list of Divisions the agent is allowed to access.

4. Click Save Changes. The agent's view will now be filtered according to the permissions you've set.

Conclusion: Architect Your Success

Supportbench Divisions are more than just a feature—they are a foundational tool for building a scalable, secure, and efficient support operation. By moving beyond a one-size-fits-all model, you empower your teams with tailored workflows, protect sensitive data, and gain crystal-clear insights into the performance of each unique part of your organization.

Start mapping out your organizational structure today and build a Supportbench instance that grows with you.