A department is a named group of rooms within a single campus. Departments give Kio Apps another way to organize rooms without changing the Smart Location hierarchy. The location hierarchy remains fixed: campus, building, floor, and room. A department is not a level in that hierarchy. Instead, it is a label assigned to rooms. A department can include rooms from different buildings and floors within the same campus. A department cannot span more than one campus. In healthcare settings, departments are sometimes called units. In Smart Location, both terms refer to the same kind of room grouping.
How departments work
You create a department first, then assign rooms to it. A room assigned to a department still belongs to its original campus, building, and floor. Assigning a room to a department does not change the room’s floor plan polygon, device assignments, or location data. A room can be assigned to no department or to one department. A room that is already assigned to one department is not available to add to another.
How users and apps use departments
Departments are shared across Kio Apps. Apps use the same department definition for user access, default views, dashboards, reporting, and workflows.
For user access and Assigned Home Location
In the Users app, a user can be assigned to one or more departments by setting their Assigned Home Location. The Assigned Home Location defines the campus and departments the user can access in apps that support department-based access.
Supported apps can use a user’s Assigned Home Location to determine which department data the user sees by default. For example, a user assigned to the Pediatrics department may see Pediatrics data by default in supported apps. If the user also has access to the Emergency department, they can switch to that department in apps that support department switching.
For app views, dashboards, and reports
Several Kio Apps use departments to group, filter, or scope data.
- Asset Tracker: Uses the Assigned Home Location filter to display assets located in a specific campus and department.
- Behavioral Health: Filters the patient list by the user’s Assigned Home Location. Users can switch to other departments they have access to.
- Hand Hygiene: Provides a department-level compliance dashboard separate from the campus-level view.
- Temperature Monitoring: Generates reports by department, even when rooms span different floors or buildings.
Note: Alert Rules target locations, such as campus, building, or floor. They do not target departments or rooms. This applies across Kio Apps. Departments group rooms for views, dashboards, reporting, and user access, not for Alert Rule targeting.
What departments do not change
Departments are not a level in the location hierarchy. They do not appear between floor and room, nor do they replace the campus → building → floor → room structure. Think of them as labels mapped onto rooms.
Department mapping does not affect:
- Room polygon placement or shape on a floor plan
- Device-to-room assignment
- Location data emitted by tags or infrastructure
- The way Smart Location renders the map
A room can be mapped to no department or to a single department — it belongs to at most one — without changing any of the above. A room already assigned to one department is not available to add to another.
Create and manage departments
You manage departments from the Departments menu in Smart Location. Managing departments requires the Smart Location Creator or Administrator role.
You create the department first, then assign rooms to it. A department requires only a name. Duplicate names are allowed but not recommended because identical names can create ambiguity in app views.
Once a department is created, you can:
- Assign rooms to it.
- Assign users to one or more departments in the Users app.
- Use departments in supported apps for default views, filters, dashboards, workflows, and reports.