There are many ways to organize your contacts within SetKeeper, and the differences between Lists, Departments and Distro Groups can get confusing when you're organizing a large crew!

They all fundamentally serve the same purpose: to organize contacts into groups based on certain shared characteristics. We'll explore the differences in this article so you can determine the best way to organize your production.

Distro groups are located in Distribution > Groups.

Their purpose is to create groups around specific documents that you will send. You could make groups like "Call Sheet", "Sides", or "Contracts."

Once you create a group, you have to add people one at a time, either by searching for them using the search bar (if you have already imported contacts into People), or adding their contact info into the correct fields. This can quickly become a time consuming process.

A faster and easier method is to go to the People module, select contacts on the "All" tab, click on More > Departments and Distro Groups. This way you can add multiple people to a distro group at once.

After you've created the distro group, you'll be able to search for it in the "Recipients" bar when creating a message.

Departments are stored in People > Lists > Departments.

Lists are meant to be broad categories, such as "Second Unit", "Cast", "Crew", or "Post Production." You cannot search for list names in the "Recipients" field when writing a message.

Departments are the individual units within a production, like "Make Up", "Wardrobe", "Grip and Electric", etc. You can search for department names in the "Recipients" field when writing a message.

You can add people to your departments from within your list:

Or you can go to the "All" tab in people and select several at once, just like for distro groups:

In the end, you can experiment with the best Departments and Distro Group set up for your production. If you have any questions or need some advice, you can always contact SetKeeper support!

__________________________________________________________________