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.
📌 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
Click your avatar in the top-right corner and select Invite people.
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. Enter the email addresses, pressing Enter after each one, then click Invite.
The Company Field
When adding Client or Contractor users, you'll notice a Company field. It means something different depending on the user type.
For clients, this is the client company they belong to.
For contractors, this is the firm or agency that employs them on their end. It isn’t a client they’ll work for, and it isn’t one of your own entities.
If the company doesn't exist in Productive yet, you can create it inline directly from the invite form, or add it first in CRM > Companies.
📌 If a required custom field exists for companies, creating it from the invite form opens the full company creation form, where you'll need to fill in that field before you can continue. If no required custom field exists, the company is created inline without leaving the form.
👉 Learn more about adding and managing contractors.
2) Adding Users Without Sending Invitation Emails
Go to Settings > Users, 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.
📌 These users will appear in Resourcing > Employees just like active users. Their profile shows a No login access label until you invite them. When you’re ready, click Invite in the top-right corner of their profile.
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
Open the contact’s profile in CRM > Contacts and click Invite in the top-right corner.
In the Invite contact window, choose whether they’ll be an Employee, Contractor, or Client, and pick a permission set if needed. Click Invite person.
📌 The contact needs an email address before you can invite them. If it’s missing, add it on the contact’s Info tab first.
4) Importing Users and Contacts from CSV
In Settings > Data Import, use Productive's CSV data import templates to import your Contacts and Users.
👉 For step-by-step instructions, see Importing Users from CSV for employees, contractors, and clients, and Importing Companies and Contacts from CSV for contacts.
