Members and Roles

Two things decide what someone can do in Paperwork. A seat decides whether they can use Paperwork at all, and their roles decide what they can do once they are in. Seats are handed out in Account. Roles are managed in Paperwork, on the Members and Roles pages.

Give someone a Paperwork seat

Being a member of your organisation is not enough to use Paperwork. Each person needs a Paperwork seat of their own, and only an organisation Owner can hand them out.

Open Members in Account

Open Account from the app switcher, choose your organisation, and click Members in the sidebar. The page is titled Organisation members.

Add Paperwork to the person

On the person's row, click the dashed Add pill and choose Paperwork. The list shows how many Paperwork seats are in use, for example 3/5, and pending invitations count towards that total.

Choose their role and grant access

Under Role for Paperwork, pick a role and click Grant. The person can open Paperwork straight away.

You can also choose Paperwork when you click Invite member. The role you pick travels with the invitation.

To take a seat away, click the x on the person's Paperwork pill.

The first Paperwork seat in an organisation is always given the Paperwork Owner role, so there is always someone who can administer Paperwork. You will see the note "The first Paperwork user is set as Owner so your organisation has a Paperwork admin."

If you are the organisation Owner and have no seat yourself

Opening Paperwork without a seat shows You need a Paperwork seat. Click Manage members in Account and add Paperwork to your own row. On your own row there is no role to choose — you are granted access straight away with the Paperwork Owner role.

You also need a seat before you can give roles to anyone else. If you try without one, Account offers Take my seat first.

See who has access

Click Members under Admin in the Paperwork sidebar. You need the View permission on the Members module to see the page.

The table shows Name, Email, Phone, Employee ref, Roles and Joined. Use the search box to find someone by name, email, phone or employee reference. You can also hide columns you do not need.

A person who has no Paperwork seat shows a dashed No seat badge. Hover over it for the explanation: "Role inactive — no Paperwork seat. Manage seats in Account." Any roles they hold are greyed out and have no effect until they are given a seat.

If you are an organisation Owner, the Edit member details in Account link at the top takes you to Account for names, contact details and seats. Paperwork itself only manages roles.

Change a member's roles

Open the row menu

On the member's row, click the three-dot menu and choose Manage roles. You need the Edit permission on the Members module. The option is greyed out for people without a seat.

Tick the roles they should have

A panel opens listing every role, each marked System or Custom, with a count such as "1 of 3 roles assigned". Ticking or unticking a box saves immediately.

People can hold several roles at once, and their permissions are the union of all of them — they can do anything that at least one of their roles allows. There is no way to deny a permission, so to take something away, remove the role that grants it.

Create a custom role

The two system roles are a good start, but most teams need something in between — a dispatcher who can edit jobs but not see invoices, for example.

Open Roles

Click Roles under Admin in the sidebar. The page is titled Roles & Permissions and needs the View permission on the Roles module.

Click New role

The New role button needs the Create permission on the Roles module. A panel titled Create Role opens.

Name the role and choose its permissions

Enter a Name (required — otherwise you will see "Name is required") and a Description. The Permissions grid has one row per module and four columns: View, Create, Edit and Delete. Tick individual boxes, or use the box on a row or at the top of a column to toggle a whole row or column.

Click Create

The role is available straight away. Use Manage roles on the Members page to give it to people.

The modules are Customers, Suppliers, Contacts, Opportunities, Sales, Jobs, Invoicing, Roles, Members and Portal. A few features borrow another module's permission instead of having their own: purchase orders, Scheduling, Asset tracking and Printing follow Jobs, and rate cards follow Suppliers.

Use the Owner and Viewer system roles

Every organisation has two system roles:

• Owner — "Full access to all Paperwork features".
• Viewer — "Read-only access to Paperwork". It holds every View permission and nothing else.

System roles can be opened with View but never edited or deleted. Create a custom role if you need something different.

If someone with a seat opens Paperwork and has no role yet, Paperwork gives them one automatically: Owner if they are an organisation Owner, Viewer for everyone else.

Edit or delete a custom role

Open the three-dot menu on a custom role's row.

• Edit opens Edit Role. Change the name, description or permissions and click Save Changes. The change applies to everyone who holds the role, straight away.
• Delete asks Delete role? and tells you "You can't undo this." A role that is still given to someone cannot be deleted — you will see "This role is assigned to members. Reassign them before deleting." The Members column on the Roles page shows how many people hold each role.

Know which Owner you mean

The sidebar reflects this: Members and Roles appear if your roles allow them, while References and Settings appear only for organisation Owners.

Set your own notification preferences

Notification preferences belong to each person, not to the organisation. Click Notifications in the sidebar, then the Settings tab.

Notifications are grouped as Mentions and comments, Records you watch, Assignments, Your emails and Reminders. For each one you choose two things:

• In-app — a switch for whether it appears in your notifications list.
• Email — Off, Immediately or Daily digest. Some notifications cannot be emailed, and their selector is greyed out.

Changes save as soon as you make them. The defaults differ by type — for example, a notification when someone edits a record you watch starts switched off, while an @-mention starts with an immediate email.

What to do next

• Configure numbering and sales settings — only organisation Owners can open Settings
• Set up your reference data so people have containers, vehicles and tax rates to pick from
• Invite customers and suppliers to the portal
• Setup guide, step 2: Set up your organisation and team if you are setting Paperwork up for the first time