You can invite new people if you want to add them as users to your account. Invite people by sending them an email or by providing a join link.
What is the Difference Between a User and a Contact?
In Productive, it’s important to distinguish between Users and Contacts:
Users (Employees, Contractors, or Clients) have login access and can participate in project collaboration, track time, and more.
Contacts don’t have login credentials. They serve as repositories for notes, contact details, and email filing. However, a Contact can be converted into a User at any time.
📌 Note: Adding Employees and Contractors requires available paid seats in your account. Clients are always free to add.
Ways to Add New Users
Once you’ve decided whether you’re adding a User or a Contact, you can invite them in several ways:
1) Inviting Users Directly via Email
Hover over your profile in the upper-right corner and select the "Invite people" option.
Then, specify their user type. They can be an Employee (paid seat), Client (free to add), or Contractor (paid seat).
📌 Tips for inviting multiple people at once:
Use a public join link to invite employees in bulk via Slack, email, or other communication tools.
Add multiple email addresses simultaneously to invite your entire team, multiple clients or contractors at once. Simply input the email addresses, press Enter after each one, and once you've finished, proceed to invite them all by clicking "Invite".
The Company Field
When adding Client or Contractor users, you’ll notice a Company field. This refers to the client company the user belongs to.
Select the company from your existing list in CRM > Companies.
If the company doesn’t exist yet, you can:
Create it first in CRM > Companies by clicking + Company (add the name, logo, currency, etc.), or
Use the quick create option directly when inviting the user, then fill in the company details later.
For Employee users, this field is not required since they belong to your own organization.
The Company field ensures that contractors and clients are linked to the correct organization and only see projects and information relevant to them.
2) Adding Users Without Sending Invitation Emails
Navigate to Settings > Users and click "+ Add User", and fill in the user's details.
By unticking the "Send invitation via email" box, you can add them instantly without sending an invitation.
📌 Note: These users will appear in Resourcing > Employees just like active users. You can send the invitation later when needed.
You can also add new users through:
Resourcing > Employees > + Employee (for Employees and Contractors)
CRM > Contacts > + Contact (for Clients and Contacts)
3) Converting a Contact into a User
Visit the Contact's profile page in CRM > Contacts, and click "Invite" in the upper-right corner.
Choose between the user type (Employee, Contractor, or Client) and assign permission sets if needed. Then, invite them to join.
4) Using the Quick Add button
The Quick Add button in the main navigation makes inviting people even faster. Select "+" and scroll down to "Contact" to invite a new User or a Contact.
5) Importing Users and Contacts from CSV
In Settings > Data Import, use Productive's CSV data import templates to import your Contacts and Users.
Refer to this article for importing Contacts and Companies, and this one for importing Users (Employees, Contractors, and Clients) for detailed instructions.
