Overview
Managing user permissions is essential for the security and efficiency of any system. Whether assigning permissions to employees, clients, or contractors, in Productive, the process is simple and intuitive.
In this article, we'll walk you through the steps of changing a user's permissions, allowing you to tailor access levels to your organization's needs.
Steps to Change User Permissions
Select the User
Navigate to Settings > Users, Resourcing > Employees, or CRM > Contacts to find and select the user whose permissions you want to change. Click on the Permission Set field in the user’s Info tab.
Update the Permission Set
Here, you can switch the user’s role to Employee, Client, or Contractor. You can then assign them either a default system permission set (described below) or a custom permission set created using the Permission Builder.
Important Consideration
Before adding users, such as Employees and Contractors, ensure that you have a sufficient number of paid seats in your account.
Default (System) Permission Sets for Employees
Employees (paid seats) can be assigned one of these default system permission sets:
Admin
Manager (+ Manager with restricted access)
Profitability manager (+ Profitability manager with restricted access)
Coordinator (+ Coordinator with restricted access)
Staff (+ Staff with CRM access, Staff with CRM and time access, Staff with time access)
Note that any restricted-access permissions sets mean that the users will need to be manually added to a project or budget for them to see and work on it!
For more information on Employee permissions, please check out the following article:
User Permissions Overview.
Admin
Admins can manage everything, including cost rates and general organization-level settings.
Manager
Managers can oversee projects and deals, with access to all deals containing pertinent financial details excluding cost and profit. They lack access to cost rates and organization-level settings. This permission set grants access to all deals and projects.
Similar to regular Managers, those with restricted access can manage projects and deals, accessing all relevant financial information except for cost and profit. They are also barred from accessing cost rates and organization-level settings.
However, this permission set limits access to deals and projects only where the user is defined as a member. Note that Managers with restricted access can create projects and add budgets there.
Profitability manager
In addition to all the information a Manager can see, the Profitability Manager also has access to the budget's profit and revenue information as well as the profit of the whole organization.
Profitability managers can oversee projects and deals, with access to all deal-related financial information. However, they are restricted from accessing cost rates and organization-level settings. This permission set grants access to all deals and projects.
Similarly, Restricted profitability managers can oversee projects and deals, with access to relevant financial data but not to cost rates or organization-level settings. However, their access is limited to deals and projects where they are defined as members.
Coordinator
The Coordinator sits between a Staff member with extended permissions and a Manager. This user has access to everything project-wise, besides project financials (budgets and profitability).
Coordinators can access, schedule, and add people to projects, overseeing time components within budgets and approving time off but without access to financial data or approving time entries. They enjoy full project access, however, they do not have permission to add, edit, and delete projects on their own.
Restricted Coordinators have similar permissions but are confined to projects they are members of, maintaining the same limitations on financial data and time entries while overseeing time budgets and approving time off.
Staff
Staff is a role with a basic set of permissions. Staff members can manage tasks and task lists and collaborate on projects.
Staff members can't access company settings, financial information, or cost rates.
They can't manage People and Companies or see other people's time entries by default.
Staff members have access to all projects they are a part of, where they can manage tasks, task lists, and collaborate. They can view their own time tracking and scheduling but cannot access organizational settings or financial information by default.
Staff (with CRM access): In addition to regular staff privileges, those with CRM access can also manage people and companies within the projects they are involved in.
Staff (with CRM and time access): Building on the previous permissions, staff members with CRM and time access can also view and manage other people's bookings, worked time, and service estimates on budgets.
Staff (with time access): Similarly to the previous category, staff members with time access can view and manage other people's bookings, worked time, and service estimates on budgets, but without CRM access.
Tip: In addition to the default system permission sets mentioned above, you can create custom permission sets tailored to your organization’s needs.
These custom sets can be based on the default permission sets, allowing you to make adjustments as necessary for specific users.
Check out this article for more information about customizing your permission sets.
Default (System) Permission Sets for Clients
Client Staff members (not counted as paid seats) have specific default permissions that enable them to effectively collaborate and manage tasks:
Manage Tasks and Task Lists
Clients can manage tasks and task lists associated with their projects.Collaborate on Projects
They can collaborate with your team on projects they are involved in.
Additionally, clients can gain access to budgets and timesheets if you grant them the Client Manager permission set.
You can also create custom client permissions using the Permission Builder. For more information, take a look at this article.
Important: Granting budget and timesheet access is specific to a particular client.
To provide the said client access to a specific budget, you'll need to navigate to the budget and enable Client access from the sidebar located in the upper right corner, as illustrated in the picture below.
Default (System) Permission Sets for Contractors
Contractors in Productive, who count as paid seats alongside Employees, have one specific default permission set. While they do not have various permission options to choose from, contractors can perform the following actions:
Collaborate on projects they were added to
Manage tasks and task lists (but not add or delete task lists)
View their bookings in Resourcing
Manage Docs (they can add new Docs as well as work on docs shared with them)
Submit personal expenses (tied to services and budgets they were added to)
View and manage their time entries
Be assigned to and use time-off entitlements (request time off)
Have a cost rate set up
