What is the difference between a User and a Contact?
In Productive, it's essential to discern between Users and Contacts:
Users, classified as Employees, Contractors, or Clients, have login access, enabling them to engage in project collaboration, time tracking, and other tasks.
Contacts, however, do not have login credentials but serve as repositories for notes, contact information storage, and email filing within the app. That said, Contacts can seamlessly transition into Users at any time!
Note: Adding Employees and Contractors to your account will be possible only after you've made sure you have an adequate number of paid seats in your account.
There are several ways to expand your network within Productive:
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 (they do not take up seats in your organization and as such, are completely 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".
Adding Users Without Sending Invitation Emails
Navigate 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.
Note: You will see such a user in Resourcing, just as you would see an active user. The invitation to the said user can always be sent at a later date.
Alternatively, the new user can also be added through:
1) Resourcing > Employees > + Employee if you are adding Employees and Contactors.
2) CRM > Contacts > + Contact if you adding Clients (and Contacts).
After this, simply follow the steps outlined above and your new user will be created.
Converting a Contact into a User
Visit the Contact's profile page in CRM > Contacts:
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.
Using the Quick Add button
The Quick Add button in the main navigation simplifies the process of sending invitations or adding contacts even further.
Select "+" and scroll down to "Contact" to invite a new User or a Contact.
Importing Contacts and Users 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.
