Workforce ManagementIndia6 min read

Live Staff Location for Department Heads: Each Manager Sees Only Their Own Team

In short

Give each department head the live map of their own team only, not all 116 staff. How to set it up in an employee location tracking app, step by step.

The owner and co-owners see everyone; a limited manager sees only their own team on the live map and the Phones reports.
Limit a role by department, by work location, or by the holder's own crew.
Ask to check, Export, Review flags and Send set-up reminder are separate ticks, all off by default.

By Oscar Jamuar, Founder, ShiftelioPublished 30 September 2026Last updated 30 September 2026

You run a business with more than one team. A kitchen and a service floor. A housekeeping crew, a security crew and a maintenance van. Sales executives in the east of the city and service technicians in the west. You want each head to see where their own people are during the shift, because that is how the day gets run. What you do not want is the kitchen head scrolling through the phones and positions of the whole company.

This is the question most owners ask late, after they have already handed out the live map: can a manager see only their own team's live location? In Shiftelio the answer is yes, and it follows one rule everywhere the location and phone details show up. This article explains the rule, how to set it up in about five minutes, and the one gap you have to close yourself.

Why one live map for everybody is the wrong default

A live map is supervision. It answers "where is my team right now, while they are on shift". It is a fair thing for a department head to have for the people they are responsible for.

Everybody else's location is a different thing. A department head who can see all 116 people, including other departments, the owner's own family members on the payroll and the accountant who works from home, holds location data they have no job reason to hold. If their phone is lost, or they leave for a competitor, that is what walks out with them.

India's data law puts the responsibility on you, not on the manager. Under section 8(5) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the business must protect personal data in its possession "by taking reasonable security safeguards to prevent personal data breach". Showing each supervisor only the people they supervise is the simplest safeguard there is. The Ministry keeps the Act and its rules on its data protection framework page.

116: staff in a restaurant group with four departments
32: people the kitchen head's role covers
84: people whose location the kitchen head never needs

What a department head sees, and what the owner sees

The owner, and every co-owner, sees everybody. That does not change.

A manager whose role is limited to a department, a work location or their own crew sees only the people that role covers, on every screen that shows a person's location or phone:

Screen	Owner	Department head
Live map positions	Everyone clocked in	Their team, clocked in
Phones: Reporting	Every phone	Their team's phones
Phones: App version	Every phone	Their team's phones
Ask to check	Anyone, or everybody	One of their team, or all of their team
Phone change history	Every device	Devices used only by their team

The last row needs a word. A phone change history shows which handset each person has used. If a phone was also used by somebody outside the head's team, the head does not see that phone in the list, because it would tell them something about a person they do not manage.

The same rule carries to the small actions too. A head can send the "please update" reminder for the app only to somebody in their team. Asking one phone to check its settings works only for a person the head manages, and "everybody" means everybody in their team, not the company.

Infographic headed EACH HEAD SEES ONLY THEIR OWN TEAM. Two wide phone screens showing a city map with staff pins: the owner's phone is crowded with pins and reads 116 staff; the kitchen head's phone shows only a few pins and reads 32 people. A small bird mascot plants a blue pin on the kitchen head's map. — The owner sees all 116 staff on the live map; the kitchen head, limited to Kitchen, sees only the 32 people their role covers.

How to set it up, step by step

Everything below is on the Roles screen, and it takes about five minutes for a business with four departments. If you have not given a manager access before, read giving a manager access without sharing your owner login first: it covers creating the role itself.

1. Put every person in a department

Open each department and check the list. This matters more than any tick box, for the reason in the next section.

2. Create one role per head

Create a role such as "Kitchen head". Under Live Map, tick View. That is what the product calls "See where staff are right now while they are clocked in."

3. Limit the role

In the same role, pick the department under Department Access (leave empty for all). If your heads run sites rather than departments, use Limit this role to specific work locations, or leave empty for access to all instead. If you pick both, a person must be in one of the chosen departments and at one of the chosen locations to appear.

4. Tick the extra actions on purpose

Live Map has separate ticks for Ask to check, Export, Review flags and Send set-up reminder. Every one of them is off until you tick it. Export is worth thinking about: the file carries every recorded GPS point for that person and day, and it keeps working after the role is taken away.

5. Give the role to the head, then check

Assign the role, then ask the head to open the live map and the Phones tab on the Attendance page. Count the people. If the number is higher than their team, somebody has no department yet.

Infographic headed LIMIT THE ROLE TO THE KITCHEN. A wide tablet shows the Kitchen head role: Live Map with View ticked, and Department Access with Kitchen ticked. The subtitle says the kitchen head's live map then shows only the kitchen team. A small bird mascot taps the Kitchen tick box with its wing tip. — The Roles screen: Live Map View ticked and Department Access limited to Kitchen, so the kitchen head's live map shows only the kitchen team.

The one gap you close yourself: people with no department

Here is the honest part. A person with no department is visible to every head whose role is limited by department. Shiftelio does not hide somebody because their department is missing, since a person who silently vanished from every manager's screen would be worse: nobody would notice them not turning up.

So the setup only works as well as your department lists. The check in step 5 catches it. So does opening each new joiner's profile and setting their department on the day they join.

Two more things the rule does not do, so that nobody is surprised:

It is about location and phones, not about everything. Each area of the app has its own ticks. A role can see the live map for the kitchen and still have no payroll access at all.
Location is only collected while a person is clocked in. The live map shows people on shift. It is not a way to see where somebody is at night or on a day off, for the owner or for anybody else.

Where crews fit

Some businesses do not run by department. A housekeeping agency has site supervisors, each with their own list of cleaners, and people move between those lists. For that, a role can be set to cover each holder's own crew. The live map then follows the crew list: when a cleaner moves from one supervisor's crew to another, they leave one supervisor's map and appear on the other's, with nothing for you to change.

The product that does this

Which employee location tracking app lets each department head see only their own team?

Shiftelio's live map, the Phones reports and every phone action behind them follow the same department, location and crew limits you set on a manager's role, and the owner always sees everybody. Custom roles and the live map are both in the plan, with no per-seat charge for tracking. What sets it apart is that the limit is applied to the phone reports and the small buttons too, not only to the map, so a head cannot reach a phone outside their team by asking it to check in.

Shiftelio pricing, annual, excluding 18 percent GST. Read off the pricing page in August 2026.
Plan	A year	What it covers
Growth	Rs 5,999	up to 25 employees, 3 locations, every plan feature
Business	Rs 14,999	up to 100 staff, unlimited locations, every plan feature

Where it is the wrong choice: A business where one person runs everything, or where you want a manager to see staff location outside working hours: the map only shows people who are clocked in, and a person with no department is visible to every department-limited head until you place them.

See all plans and what is in them See the employee tracking app

You can see the whole tracking side on the employee tracking app page, including route replay and offline check-ins.

Can a manager see only their own team's live location?

Yes. Limit the manager's role to their department, work location or crew on the Roles screen. The live map and the Phones reports then show only the people that role covers. The owner still sees everyone.

Does the department head see where staff are after work?

No. Location is only collected while a person is clocked in, so nobody, including the owner, sees a live position outside the shift.

Why can a head still see somebody from another department?

That person has no department set. Shiftelio shows people with no department to every department-limited head rather than hiding them. Put them in their department and they drop off the other heads' maps.

Can a head download a team member's location history?

Only if you tick Export on their role. It is off by default, because the file keeps every GPS point for that day and still works after the role is removed.

Free to use, no signup: Shift roster template.

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