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Documentation › Getting started

Add your staff and departments

Put everyone who works for you on one list — with a phone or without — and group them into the departments your callers, reports and payroll already think in.

Last updated 12 October 2026

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At a glance

  • Everyone goes on one list — the same person on the phone system, the attendance sheet and the payroll.
  • A phone is optional. Someone with no extension uses none of your plan’s extensions.
  • Signing in is optional too, and separate from the phone.
  • A department is a team — and, on the phone system, one destination that rings all of it.
  • Only a name is required. Fill in the rest as you learn it.

On this page:

  1. Who needs what
  2. Add a person
  3. Give them a phone
  4. Let them sign in
  5. Create your departments
  6. Put people in departments
  7. When someone changes or leaves
  8. Questions

1Who needs what

Filantis keeps three things about a person apart, so you switch on only what each one needs:

The person Name, designation, department. Always there.
A phone number An extension with voicemail. Optional.
A sign-in A login name and password for the panel. Optional.
This person…Phone numberWeb sign-inFor example
Takes calls and uses the panel✓✓Receptionist, manager, accountant
Takes calls only✓–A workshop or kitchen handset user
Uses the panel only–✓A bookkeeper who never answers the phone
Neither — on the register––Housekeeper, porter, driver, night watchman

The page is titled with your own word for your people — Staff, Team, Colleagues, Associates, Employees, Agents or Members — chosen when you finished setting up. This guide says “employees”.

2Add a person

You need the admin role.

  1. Open Office → Employees and click Add an employee.
  2. Type their Display Name — the only box you must fill.
  3. Add an Email and Phone if they have them. Neither is required: a porter or a watchman needs no work email.
  4. Under Staff details, give a Designation — “Housekeeping supervisor” — and choose a Department if you have made one.
  5. Decide the two switches at the top — a phone number and a sign-in — covered in the next two sections.
  6. Save. They appear on the list at once.

3Give them a phone

The switch Assign a phone number is on when the form opens. Leave it on for anyone who will make or take calls.

  • Extension number is filled in with the next free one. Keep it, or type another inside the range shown beneath the box.
  • Enable voicemail is ticked, so missed callers can leave a message.
  • Do not disturb is there for someone who should start with calls held back.

Turn the switch off for someone who does not need a phone. They are still on the register for attendance and payroll, and they do not use up an extension.

The free Mini size has 10 extensions; every paid size — Small, Medium and Large — has no limit. An extension can be assigned to any person, room or location, and one extension can ring a desk phone, the Windows app and the Android app at the same time. More on numbering in Extensions and numbering.

An extension by itself does not ring anything — a device has to sign in to it. Each desk phone, app and browser gets its own password, listed under Devices afterwards. The quickest first test is the dial pad in the browser: see Make your first call.

4Let them sign in

The switch Can sign in to this web interface is separate from the phone. Turning it off does not affect any handset the person has.

  1. Leave the switch on for anyone who will open Filantis in a browser.
  2. Type a Login name — dana.o — or leave it blank and one is built from their name.
  3. Set a Password and confirm it, then tell them both. If you gave an email, they can sign in with that as well.
  4. Choose the Role: User for most people, Admin for someone who should manage the workspace with you.

Admin

Runs the workspace

Adds people, changes settings, sees the subscription and the bill.

User

Does their job

Their own phone, voicemail and the pages their work needs.

Someone who will never sign in gets no password at all — which is the right answer for most of a kitchen or a housekeeping team.

5Create your departments

A department is a team — Front Desk, Kitchen, Accounts. You may have typed your first ones on the Finish setting up form; add the rest here.

  1. Open Office → Departments and click Add Department.
  2. Type the Name and, if you like, a Description.
  3. Pick a Color and an Icon to mark it on reports and wall boards.
  4. Choose the Manager Extension — the person responsible for the team. They need an extension first, so add them as an employee before the department.
  5. Tick Enable Department Voicemail if callers should be able to leave the team a message, then create it.

The free Mini size has 1 department; every paid size has no limit on departments.

A department has no extension of its own. You send calls to it by choosing it — in a call menu, a forwarding rule or an incoming-number route — and Filantis rings its members. Departments and ring groups covers that side in full.

6Put people in departments

There are two ways, and they do the same thing:

As you add the person

Choose a Department under Staff details on the Add form.

From the Departments page

Find the person in the list under the departments, pick one in Assign and click Add.

1Add employeesPriya 104 · Arjun 105 · Meera 109
2Create “Reservations”Manager: Priya, 104
3Assign the threeOn the form or the Departments page
4A team that ringsRoute a call to Reservations — all three ring
People first, then the team. The manager has to exist before the department does.

7When someone changes or leaves

  • A new name, role or phone — click the pencil on their row, change it and save.
  • A new department — on Office → Departments, open the department’s Assign button to take them out of one team and add them to the other. Calls to the old department stop reaching them; no route needs updating.
  • A new password — type one in Password on the edit form. Leave it blank to keep the current one.
  • They no longer need a phone — free the extension on Phone & Extensions → Extensions. The person stays on the register and the number goes back in the pool.
  • They leave — free their extension first if you want to reuse it straight away, then remove them from Employees.

The bin on Extensions frees a number. The bin on Employees removes the person. They are different buttons on different pages on purpose.

8Questions

Do people without a phone count against my plan?

No. Someone added without a phone number has no extension, so they use none of the 10 that the free Mini size includes. Paid sizes have no extension limit at all.

Does everyone need an email address?

No. Email is optional. Someone who signs in can use a login name instead, and someone who never signs in needs neither.

Can a person be in more than one department?

Yes, where your workspace allows multiple membership: the Assign list on the Departments page offers every department the person is not already in. Someone who covers two teams then rings with both.

Can I add a department before I have any staff?

You already have one person — yourself, with the extension you were given when the workspace was built. Make yourself the manager for now and change it when the real one is added.

I am not “staff” — we say “team”.

Change the word on Tune up → Appearance. Page titles, buttons and reports follow.

One list of people, used everywhere

The receptionist you add today is the same person on the phone system, the attendance reader, the payslip and the till. You enter them once — and never pay per head for it.

  • No per-user priceSizes are priced by calls, not people.
  • Phone optionalRegister everyone; number only who needs it.
  • Teams that ringA department is a ring group by default.
Create my free workspace See Filantis for offices

What to do next

Your people have extensions — now hear one ring. Follow Make your first call, then read Departments and ring groups to send callers to a whole team.

Still stuck?

Write to support@filantis.com with your workspace name and what you were trying to do.