What is the best way to setup folder structure for sharing common processes?

To avoid duplicating shared processes across departments in Nintex Process Manager, combine folder structure with re‑usable processes/variations rather than copying.

A practical pattern is:
 

Use cross‑department “shared” groups for common processes  

Create one top‑level process group (folder) for organization‑wide or cross‑functional processes (for example, “Enterprise Core Processes” or “Shared Services”), and put the single canonical version of shared processes there. Then give each department its own process group that links to those shared processes instead of creating departmental copies. Where only some steps differ by region/department/product, use the Process Variant Management module to create variations of a single process and share activities across those variations, instead of separate, duplicate processes [1].  
 

Use sub‑processes for common segments  

If a set of steps is reused in several end‑to‑end processes, model it as a sub‑process and link to it from multiple parent processes. The guidance recommends using shared sub‑processes specifically when steps are shared across processes, so the same content can be linked rather than copied [3]. This keeps maintenance in one place and avoids divergence across departments.


Sources  
1. Managing shared activity process variations  
2. Process writing guidelines