Organisational Structure in the Portal

The organisation structure in the ChurchDesk Portal shows all organisations in your Portal as a tree. You can see at a glance which parishes belong to which level, and you can model the structure to reflect your organisation — for example with deaneries, pastoral areas or benefices.

What you can do with the organisation structure

• See all organisations in your Portal in a clear hierarchy.
• Search for an organisation and see its full path in the tree.
• Move organisations to a different level.
• Create units for levels that don't have their own ChurchDesk workspace, such as a deanery or a nursery.
• Define your own types, so each level is named the way your organisation names it.
• See who the users of an organisation are and invite new users.

Availability

The organisation structure is only available in the Portal-Organisation of an enterprise diocese's contract.

Content

• Rights and roles
• View the organisation structure
• Move an organisation to another level
• Create units
• Define types for your structure
• See users and invite new users
• Request a new workspace

Rights and roles for the organisation structure

• Organisation administrators of the Portal organisation: Have full access to the organisation structure and all Portal permissions.
• Users with a Portal role: Can access the parts of the Portal their role allows. For example, you can let a communications officer see the structure without giving them access to the users of each organisation.
• Users of the member organisations: Don't see the organisation structure. It is only visible within the Portal organisation.

View the organisation structure

1. Go to "Portal" and select "Organization" in the left sidebar.
2. Open the "Structure" tab. The top level of the tree is your Portal organisation.
3. Click "Expand all" to open every level, or "Collapse all" to close them again. You can also open single levels by clicking the plus or minus sign next to a name.

The list shows the following information for each entry:

• ID of the organisation
• Type, e.g. Parish or Deanery
• Contacts — the number of contacts in the organisation
• Connected event categories and Connected blog categories

Use "Show columns" to choose which columns you want to see. The "All organizations" tab shows all organisations as a flat list.

Search the structure

Type a name into the search field. The results show the matching organisation together with all levels above it, so you always see where it sits in the tree.

Move an organisation to another level

1. Click the "Details " button on the right side. The details panel opens on the right.
2. Under "Sits under", select the new parent level.
3. Click "Save".

The organisation now appears under its new parent level. Units and organisations can be nested to any depth.

In the details panel, you can also change the "Type" of the organisation and see its address and connected categories. Use "Manage" to change which event and blog categories are connected.

Create units

A unit is a level in your structure that doesn't have its own ChurchDesk workspace. Use units to group organisations or to show places that belong to your diocese but don't use ChurchDesk.

EXAMPLE: Create a unit "North Deanery" and move all parishes of that deanery under it. Or add a nursery that belongs to a parish so it appears in the structure.

1. Click "Add" in the top right and select "Create unit".
2. Select a "Type".
3. Under "Sits under", choose the level the unit belongs to.
4. Enter a "Unit name".
5. Click "Create unit".

Units don't have an ID, contacts or users. To delete a unit, open it and click "Remove".

Define types for your structure

Types define what each level is called in your diocese — for example Parish, Benefice, Deanery or Archdeaconry. Every diocese uses different names, so there are no predefined types. When you start, the list is empty and all organisations sit directly under your Portal organisation.

1. Click "Types" in the top right.
2. Enter a name in the empty field and click "Add type".
3. To rename a type, change its name in the list.
4. Click the bin icon to delete a type.

Next to each type you can see how many organisations and units use it.

Renaming a type applies immediately to every organisation and unit that uses it.

See users and invite new users

When you open an organisation in the structure, you can see its users with their name, email address, role and status. This helps you find out who the administrator of a parish is, for example when you need to contact them or check who has admin rights.

Active users and draft users are shown. Blocked users are not shown.

Invite a new user

1. Open the organisation and click "Invite user".
2. Enter "First name", "Surname" and "Email" and click "Next".
3. Under "Setup", add the user to groups and set up time registration if needed.
4. Under "Permissions", select the roles the user should have.
5. Send the invitation.

You can assign all roles that exist in the organisation. You can't create or edit the roles of a member organisation from the Portal.

Request a new workspace

New organisations, such as parishes, are set up by ChurchDesk. This makes sure that licence, master data and access are configured correctly.

1. Click "Add" in the top right and select "Create workspace".
2. Click "Open support chat".
3. Send us a short message with the name of the organisation you want to add.

We usually reply within one business day.

Keywords: Organisation structure, organisation hierarchy, organisation tree, Portal, diocese, deanery, benefice, archdeaconry, parish, unit, units, types, sits under, parent organisation, structure, hierarchy, enterprise, invite user, Portal permissions, Portal role, create workspace, new parish

Updated on: 08/10/2026