Sahana Disaster Management System designed to follow the following hierarchical models.

Human resource

• Site Administrator- The authority who is involved with the setting up and initial configuration of the system. This is the top most layer of administration and next levels of users ( except Anonymous user ) should be created by site administrator. System location, and modules can be configured through site administrator privilege.

• Organization administrator – Who manages the registering users of a particular organization and assigning tasks to the users.

• Registered user – Organization operative. This level of user can manage organization resources.

• Anonymous user – Can view most of the informations available in the system. They can search and view data and submit missing person informations.

Organization hierarchy

• Organization – Represents an organization operational in the management of a particular disaster situation. This might locate within the country affected or overseas. This level is represented by a parent organization, holding company or similar agency in that capacity.
• Department, Subsidiary or Branch – These are sub sections within an organization. These sub sections might have same or different physical locations of operation.

Disaster situation hierarchy

Disaster situations are represented by Sahana as follows.

• Disaster- The disaster situation an organization is providing relief services
• Event – Arbitrarily set sub areas of the disaster
• Incident – Sub areas of event, which is defined for the disaster management activities