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Departments

Departments are the functional areas of your dental practice. They organize your team members, roles, and SOPs into logical groups so everything is easy to find and manage.

What Departments Are​

Every dental practice has distinct areas of operation, and SOPHIE mirrors that structure with departments. The default departments are:

  • Marketing -- patient outreach, social media, new patient acquisition
  • Sales -- treatment presentations, case acceptance, financial arrangements
  • Operations -- clinical workflows, sterilization, patient flow, compliance
  • Finance -- billing, insurance processing, accounts receivable, payroll
  • Admin -- front desk, scheduling, office management, HR

These five departments cover the core functions of a dental practice. Each department groups together the people, roles, and SOPs that belong to that area.

How Departments Are Used​

Departments touch many parts of SOPHIE:

  • SOPs -- when you create or assign an SOP, you choose a department. Team members only see SOPs that belong to their department (or that are shared across all departments).
  • Team view -- the org chart on the Team page groups people by department, making it easy to see who works where.
  • Roles -- every role belongs to a department. When you create a "Dental Hygienist" role, you assign it to the Operations department so it appears in the right place.
  • Approval routing -- department leads are automatically considered as reviewers when SOPs in their department are submitted for approval.
  • Gap analysis -- SOPHIE identifies missing SOPs by department, helping you prioritize where to build out your procedures.
  • Filters and dropdowns -- throughout SOPHIE, you can filter views by department to focus on one area at a time.

Department Order​

The order departments appear in SOPHIE is fully customizable. By default, they follow the order listed above, but you can rearrange them to match your priorities.

To change the department order:

  1. Go to Settings > Departments.
  2. Drag departments into your preferred order.
  3. The new order takes effect immediately.

This ordering is applied everywhere departments appear -- the Team page, SOP assignment dropdowns, filter menus, and dashboard views. If Clinical Operations is your most important area, drag it to the top so it always appears first.

Renaming Departments​

You can customize department display names to match the language your practice uses:

  1. Go to Settings > Departments.
  2. Click on the department you want to rename.
  3. Enter the new display name (e.g., rename "Operations" to "Clinical" or "Admin" to "Front Office").
  4. Save your changes.

The underlying department key stays the same, so existing SOP assignments and role connections are preserved. Only the name that your team sees changes.

Match your practice language

If your team calls it "Front Office" instead of "Admin", rename it. Using familiar terms reduces confusion when your team is learning SOPHIE.

Department Leads​

Each department should have a designated lead -- a management role responsible for that area. Department leads are set up through the role hierarchy:

  • In Settings > Roles, create or identify the lead role for each department (e.g., "Clinical Lead", "Front Office Lead").
  • Mark the role as a management role with approval authority.
  • Assign a team member to that role.

Department leads automatically gain the ability to review and approve SOPs submitted within their department. They also appear as the default manager for team members assigned to roles in their department.

Having a clear department lead for each area ensures that SOPs are reviewed by someone with the right expertise and authority.