Departments in Bullhorn ATS

Learn how departments work in Bullhorn ATS and how to plan, set up, and manage them. Departments divide your organisation's data so that users only see records relevant to them — controlling access to candidates, contacts, jobs, and related activity.

For example, a user in a Recruiting department can be restricted to records owned by other Recruiting users, with no visibility into contacts owned by the Sales team.

Departments control which records a user can see. User types and entitlements control what they can do with those records. For an overview of how all three concepts connect, see Departments, User Types, and Entitlements

How Departments Work

Every record in Bullhorn has an owner. A user's department determines which records they can access based on who owns those records. Their user type's entitlements control whether that access is scoped to their own department, multiple departments, or the whole organization.

To understand how department membership affects record visibility in practice, see How Departments Divide Data in Bullhorn ATS.

Users can belong to more than one department. You assign a primary department and, if needed, one or more secondary departments. To update a user's department assignments, see Changing a User's Departments.

Setting Up Your Departments

There's no single right way to structure departments — it depends on the size and shape of your organization. The three most common setup patterns are described below.

Setup	Best For	Example
By Region	Organisations with multiple offices or geographic territories.	Boston, New York, San Francisco, or broader regions like North East and West Coast. Users have access to their city and optionally to a full regional group.
By Roles	Single-office organisations with distinct teams or functions.	Sales, Recruiting, HR, Customer Service. Each user belongs to one department that matches their role.
By Region and Roles	Multi-office organisations that need granular reporting by both location and function.	New York Sales, New York Recruiting, Chicago Sales, Chicago Recruiting — plus broader groups like New York and Chicago. Lets regional and national managers report accurately across both dimensions.

 

If you're not sure which pattern fits your organization, By Roles is the simplest starting point for single-office teams. By Region and Roles gives the most flexibility for reporting if you have multiple locations.

Adding, Editing, and Deactivating Departments

All department changes — adding, editing, and deactivating — are made by Bullhorn Support. Before requesting a department change, use the table below to understand the impact and any updates you might need to make.

To request a department change, contact Bullhorn Support.

 

Action	When to do it	What to Check Beforehand
Add a department	You need to further divide or restrict access to your company's records.	Which users will belong to this department? Will any need to belong to multiple departments? Do you have custom objects, tabs, or templates that this department needs access to?
Edit (rename) a department	An office has moved, or a department name no longer reflects its purpose.	Is the original department name included in any reports, custom fields or templates?
Deactivate a department	An office is closing, users are moving to a new department, or two departments are merging.	Is this department name included in any reports, custom fields or templates? Are there any custom tabs or templates that are only accessible by this department?

 

Primary and Secondary Departments

Every user must have a primary department. This is their main department for record ownership and reporting purposes.

Users can also be assigned secondary departments, which extend their record visibility beyond their primary department. This is useful for managers or team leads who need oversight across multiple teams.

For a detailed breakdown of how department membership affects record visibility, see How Departments Divide Data in Bullhorn ATS.

Standard reports are designed for managers to review activity for users who report to them. For these to work correctly, the Reports To field on every user record must be filled in, and the user's primary department must match their manager's primary or secondary department. See Managing Existing User Accounts in Bullhorn ATS for help updating this information.

FAQ

How do I add, edit, or delete a department?

Admins can add and remove users from departments via Menu > Admin > Users by opening the user's settings page and editing their primary and additional departments. However, departments themselves can only be added, edited, or deactivated by Bullhorn Support. Contact Bullhorn Support to make these changes.

What's the purpose of departments in Bullhorn ATS?

Departments control data visibility and ownership. Records such as candidates, jobs, and contacts can be associated with one or more departments, and a user's access to those records is determined in part by their department assignment. See How Departments Divide Data in Bullhorn ATS for more information.

Can I give a user view-only access to records owned by another department?

Yes. You can configure a user type to allow view-only access to records owned by another department without granting edit rights or record ownership. This configuration is done at the user type level via action entitlements. See User Action Entitlements in Bullhorn ATS for more information, and contact Bullhorn Support to make changes to a user type's entitlements.

Department visibility settings can be complex to configure correctly. Test the setup with a non-production user before rolling out broadly.

Can I restrict which records a user sees based on their department?

Yes. By default, users only see records associated with their own department. You can extend visibility to additional departments using entitlements. Contact Bullhorn Support if you need help configuring a user type.