User roles in todo.vu
Employees of any team or organisation have varying roles. That’s why todo.vu has different user roles to help managers and teams, and even their contacts, collaborate and work effectively in todo.vu.
Every user with access to a todo.vu workspace is assigned a specific user role. What users can see and do in the workspace is dictated by this user role.
Learn about the different user roles in todo.vu, and how you can invite new users, set user roles, restrict users, remove users and more.
In this Help article, we’ll cover:
About user account roles
If you’ve ever logged into a todo.vu workspace, you have a todo.vu user account, and so you are a todo.vu user.
Within each workspace, every user has a specific role, which dictates what the user can see and do within the workspace.
Learn more about workspaces here, and todo.vu user accounts here.
These roles are:
The workspace owner
The workspace owner is a role granted automatically to the workspace’s creator.
While there can only ever be one workspace owner user role, a workspace owner can transfer their owner role to an administrator user at any time.
Administrator users
Administrator users have full access to all of a workspace’s features.
The admin user role is the only user role, besides the workspace owner, with access to billing and account settings and rights to edit these settings.
There is no limit on the number of admin users you can have in any one workspace.
Staff users (full or restricted access)
Staff users can have full access to all clients and tasks, but can never have access to time billing or account information.
Staff users can be further restricted to specific clients or projects as per the needs of your business and workflow, see below for details.
Contacts
A contact role will generally be a contact of your client, or your client themselves! Contacts can not be assigned tasks, but they can create them.
Contacts have a limited view of the workspace; they cannot see any time tracking or billing information, for example, and they are not counted as a todo.vu user in your subscription.
Staff user access levels
todo.vu’s “staff” user role allows for varying degrees of access to a workspace’s data and features.
As you can see in the screenshot below, some of the team members on this workspace have ‘Restricted access’, while others have ‘Full access’. You will also notice that others are labelled as ‘Admin’ or ‘Workspace Owner’.
Restricted and full access represents and determines the two different levels of access granted to todo.vu’s “staff” user role.
Restricted access
With restricted access, a staff user can only access specific clients and projects in the workspace. Note that you can give a staff user access to all projects for a specific client, or only a select few projects.
Be aware that giving a staff user ‘Restricted access’ will automatically exclude that user from everything on your workspace, until you have manually selected which clients and projects you want them to have access to.
Full access
With full access, a staff user can access all clients and projects in the workspace.
You can also allow your full access staff users to modify (edit and add) clients, projects and task Labels. If you don’t allow this, your full access staff users will simply work with whatever exists in the workspace.
Edit user access levels
If you are an Admin or Workspace Owner, you can give any staff user full, restricted or Administrator access.
Simply select the staff user from your Team Dashboard in todo.vu. Select the three-dot menu at the top left-hand side of that staff user’s profile and select ‘Edit user details’ to edit this user’s access.
In the pop-up window that appears, under ‘Access’, you can select ‘Administrator’, ‘Full access’ or ‘Restricted access’, granting that user with the access level you choose.
If you select ‘Restricted access’, then you will have to configure additional access details; for example, selecting the clients and projects that the restricted staff user will have access to.
Press ‘Done’ to save your configuration.
Invite new users into your workspace
Only Workspace Owners and Admins can invite new users to a workspace.
1. Invite new users from the fixed header bar
Click the (…) icon (or avatar, for solo users*) in the fixed header bar of your workspace to open your Team Dashboard. Here, you will see all of your workspace users. If you are an Admin user, you will have the option to invite a new staff user here.
Click the button on the top right-hand corner of the dashboard that says, ‘Add staff’.
*If you collaborate with your team in todo.vu, you will see an ellipses icon (…) in front of your team members’ avatars in the fixed header bar of your workspace. If you are a solo todo.vu user, you will see a sole avatar icon in the header that says, ‘Go to Team page’ when selected.
Once you select ‘Add staff’, a pop-up window will ask you to enter the new staff user’s full name and email address. Once you have entered these details, simply click ‘Invite to login’, and your new staff member will receive an invite in their email inbox.
Or, before you send the invite, you can select ‘More details and access’ to edit the user’s access levels and details before you invite them.
Note
Admins can edit staff users’ details through the Team Dashboard at any time.
2. Invite new users from within a task
You can always add users on the go, whether you are creating a new task, or modifying an existing task, in todo.vu.
You can invite new staff from within a task by adding them as the assignee of that task. An assignee is the person who is in charge of the task (there can only ever be one assignee on each task).
While you have a task open, select ‘Assignee’ at the top of the task. This will open a new window prompting you to ‘Select assignee’, while displaying a list of your existing staff users.
Within the search bar at the top of this pop-up window, simply type the name of a person you wish to make the assignee and thus invite into your workspace as a staff user.
In the same way, you can invite a staff user from within a task by adding them as a follower to that task. As a follower, they are not in charge of the task, but they are invited to track time and comment on the task, and will receive notifications for that task. While you have a task open, select ‘Followers’ at the top of the Task. This will open a new window prompting you to ‘Select followers’.
To invite a new staff user as a follower, simply type in their name in this search bar, and select ‘Invite a new staff’. (Ignore ‘Invite a new contact’ for now, more on this below!)
How many staff users can I invite?
This depends on your todo.vu subscription!
When you select ‘Invite a new user’, you will receive a pop-up message showing you how many users – or ‘seats’ – are available on your todo.vu subscription plan – if you have any, that is! If you are on a Solo Free plan, you will need to upgrade your subscription to a Business Time plan before you can invite a second User.
If you are already on a Business Time plan with unlimited users (11+ seats), you will not see this because you are able to add unlimited users to your account.
Receiving an invite
Once you have sent an invite to the new user, the user will receive an email asking them to join your workspace.
If the newuser does not have an existing todo.vu account:
They will be asked to create one before accessing your workspace.
If the new user has an existing todo.vu account:
Once they select ‘Accept invitation’ from within the email, they will be automatically taken to your workspace. They will be able to toggle between any workspaces they already have access to by selecting their workspace’s name and navigating to the bottom of the drop-down list.
They will also see any pending workspace invites within their own workspace settings page, which is accessed either by following this link, or by clicking on their avatar on the bottom-left of their workspace, selecting ‘Your profile and account options’ and then ‘Workspaces’ from the left-hand side.
You, the inviter, will receive an email notification as soon as the new user, the invitee, accepts the email invitation to join your workspace. You can always check on the status of your invite, or resend the invitation, by navigating to your invited User’s details from the Team Dashboard.
Note
Only the Workspace Owner and Admin users can add new users. Staff users and contacts will not see this option.
Contacts
As mentioned above, Contact users in todo.vu will typically be contacts of clients, or your clients themselves.
Contact users do not count towards your todo.vu subscription seat count. Contacts have either no or limited access to your workspace.
Contact user access explained
Contacts can have either 1) email-only access or 2) limited-login access.
Contacts with 1) email-only access can be added to tasks as ‘Followers’ and receive email updates about their followed tasks. They can also email tasks directly into your workspace. However, they cannot log in to your workspace.
Contacts with 2) limited-login access can log in to your workspace to view and comment on either:
- Followed tasks only: The most restricted setting, this option will give your Contact access to view and comment only on tasks to which they’ve been added as a follower.
- All tasks in selected projects only: This option will give your Contact access to view and comment on tasks for selected projects.
- All tasks for the client only: This option will give your Contact access to view all tasks in a workspace for all of their linked clients.
Note on Contact email-only access
To ensure Contacts have email-only access, within the pop-up window that opens as you select ‘Add a new contact’, ensure you do not select the ‘Invite to login’ option.
You can reconfigure a Contact’s access levels at any time by selecting the Contact from within your Contact Dashboard, selecting the three-dot menu at the top right of their profile, and selecting ‘Edit user details’.
Invite Contacts
Invite Contacts from the Contact or Client Dashboards
You can invite Contacts into your workspace either through an individual Client on the Client Dashboard, or as a Contact from within the Contact Dashboard in todo.vu.
Navigate to your Client Dashboard on the left-hand sidebar of your workspace. Navigate to your Contact Dashboard from here by selecting ‘Contacts’ at the top left-hand side of the page, next to Clients.
Simply click the ‘Add contact’ button on the top right-hand side of the page to add a Contact from the Contact Dashboard.
To add a Contact from within the Client Dashboard, simply select a specific Client from that page, select the ‘Contacts’ tab and then ‘Add contact’.
Invite Contacts from within a task
You can also add Contacts on the go while in or creating a new task.
Simply click ‘Followers’ while within a task. Select and add an existing Contact or create a new one by typing their name into the search bar at the top of the pop-up window.
Notice that Admins and Workspace Owners add both Contacts and staff users as followers from within a task.
Invite email-only Contact to log in
To change a Contact’s access from email-only, select the Contact whose access you would like to change from within the Contact Dashboard in todo.vu.
Navigate from ‘Recent work’ to ‘Access’, as per the screenshot below. Then, select ‘Invite to log in’. Or, select the same from the three-dot menu on the right-hand side under ‘Edit user details’.
Changing Contacts to staff Users or vice versa
You may encounter a situation where a team member who works for one of your Clients needs to change from staff user to a Contact or vice versa. This is easily done.
Change staff user to Contact
Click on the Teams icon on the fixed header bar from any page in your workspace, or follow this link to go straight to your Team Dashboard. Once you are on your Team Dashboard, select the staff user you want to change to a Contact
Select the three-dot icon on the top right-hand side of the staff User’s page, and select ‘Make contact of a client’.
Change Contact to staff user
Click on the Client icon on the left sidebar from any page in your workspace, then navigate to Contacts. Or, follow this link to go straight to your Contact Dashboard. Once you are on your Contact Dashboard, select the Contact you want to change to a staff user.
Select the three-dot icon on the top right-hand side of the Contact’s profile, and select ‘Make a team member’.
You can also navigate to your Contacts’ profiles via the Client/s to which they are linked. Select the Contacts tab when on your Client Dashboard.
Remove users
Removing users from your workspace is easy, can be done at any time, and won’t affect your workspace in any way; for example, any tasks the deactivated user created or was attached to will remain as they are.
In fact, all task records and reports will still – and will always – reference the old user account. Tasks assigned to this user will remain assigned as they were, until you reassign them. This ensures the accuracy of your historical records.
Remove a staff user
To remove a staff user, simply select and open their profile from your workspace Team Dashboard, select the three-dot menu on the top right-hand side and hit ‘Deactivate’ from the drop-down menu.
This will automatically remove the user; however, they will always be accessible on your Team Dashboard under ‘Past team members’. If you are an Admin or a Workspace Owner, you can always reactivate staff users from here.
Remove a Contact
To remove a Contact, navigate to the Contacts tab within your workspace’s Client Dashboard, or navigate straight to your Contact Dashboard.
Select and open the Contact’s profile, select the three-dot menu on the top right-hand side and hit ‘Deactivate’ from the drop-down menu.
