Managing users, roles and licences

Team members, or users, are the people who work in your business. Each one gets roles that decide what they can do in Avaza, from logging time to running the whole account.

This guide covers adding a team member, choosing roles, licences, rates and working hours, invitations, and what to do when someone leaves. For the Contacts page, companies and company contacts, see managing contacts.

Add a team member

Administrators, Finance Managers, Portfolio Managers and Project Managers can add team members.

1. Open Contacts, go to the Team tab and click Add User. You can also click + at the top of any page and choose Add Team Member.

   

2. Enter the Email Address, First Name and Last Name. Only these three are required. Click the avatar if you'd like to add a Profile photo.

3. Fill in any other details you need:

   • Mobile, Phone and Position Title.
   • Standard Working hours: the hours the person works on each day of the week (decimals are fine, such as 6.5).
   • Default Billable Rate and Default Cost Rate: what you charge for an hour of their time, and what an hour costs you. Only Administrators, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers see these.
   • User Tags: labels such as skills or location.

4. Choose their projects, if you see the options: Add to all new projects, Add to all existing projects or Add to specific projects (see below).

5. Under Assign Roles, tick the person's roles. Project Collaborator, Timesheet/Expense User and Chat User start ticked.

   

6. Leave Send Email Invite to User ticked to invite them now, and click Save.

Roles

A few rules explain most "why can't they…?" questions:

• Project Collaborator is the minimum role for opening a project, and only projects the person is a member of. With Timesheet/Expense User alone, someone can log time on a project but can't open it.
• Only Administrators and Finance Managers see every project. Portfolio Managers and Project Managers only reach projects they're members of. See Project Manager and Portfolio Manager.
• Everyone except Administrators needs Timesheet/Expense User to log time and expenses.
• Administrators can only be booked in resource scheduling if they also have Scheduling User.
• Timesheet Approvers approve the time of people they're default approver for (see Approvers below), and all time on projects where they're a project approver. Expense Approvers can approve anyone's pending expenses; the default and project expense approvers only decide who's emailed. See configuring timesheet approval and expense approvals.
• You can't remove your own Administrator role. Another Administrator has to.

Company contacts can have Project Collaborator, Timesheet/Expense User, Scheduling User, Chat User, Timesheet Approver and Customer Finances, and nothing else. Which reports each role can run is in using Avaza reports.

Licences

Your subscription sets how many people can hold these roles:

• Timesheet/Expense User and Scheduling User: everyone who has the role, team members and company contacts alike.
• Chat User: team members only. Company contacts with the role don't count.
• Administrator and Finance Manager: one shared limit, counted once per person.

The other roles, including Project Collaborator, don't use a licence, so you can add as many of those people as you need. A role uses a licence as soon as you save it, even if you haven't sent the invitation. At the limit, saving shows a message such as "Your account has reached the limit of Timesheet users". Archiving someone removes their roles and frees their licences. See licences when someone leaves and comparing Avaza plans.

Projects, rates and working hours

Administrators, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers can add people to projects from their contact record:

• Add to all new projects adds the person to every project created from now on.
• Add to all existing projects adds them to every active project, once. Tick both to cover future projects too.
• Add to specific projects adds them to the projects you choose. Later, use the Project Membership tab on their record. See project membership.

When someone joins a project, the project copies their default rates, and turns on timesheet entry and approver permissions to match their roles at that moment. Later changes to the contact don't reach projects they're already in. If you give someone Timesheet/Expense User after they joined a project, tick Timesheet entry allowed? for them in that project's settings. See project settings.

To push new rates to existing projects, an Administrator can choose Bulk Update Rates in the person's ⋮ menu. It updates their rates on all or some active projects, and optionally on uninvoiced timesheets and schedule bookings. See updating rates in bulk. Change the defaults on the contact record for future projects.

Standard Working hours set the person's availability on the Team Schedule, and changing them recalculates their current and future bookings. When the Weekly Timesheet Reminder is on in Settings › Timesheet Settings, it goes to Timesheet/Expense Users and Administrators who have logged less than their standard hours that week, counting time in any status. New people start with the account's Default working hours per day, and an Administrator creates User Tags, both in Settings › Scheduling Settings. Tags show on the Contacts page and the Team Schedule, and you can search by them.

On the Approvers tab of Edit Team Member, choose a Default Timesheet Approver and Default Expense Approver from the team members with those approver roles. They're the people notified when this person submits time or expenses.

Invitations

If you untick Send Email Invite to User, the person can't sign in until you invite them. Their roles still use licences. That's useful when you log time on someone's behalf: see entering time for someone else. To invite them later, click Send Invite in their row.

If an invitation hasn't arrived:

1. Check the email address on their contact record.
2. Ask them to look in their junk or spam folder, and to add no-reply@mail.avaza.com to their contacts. See whitelisting Avaza emails.
3. Click Resend in their row, or Resend Invitation in the ⋮ menu. Only the newest invitation's link works.

Your teammate can also ask for it again: on your account's sign-in page, they click Forgot password? and enter their email address.

Invitations count towards your account's daily email limit. If you reach it, Avaza shows a message asking you to contact Avaza Support. For more checks, see invitations not received.

When someone leaves

Delete in the ⋮ menu only works for someone with no history in Avaza. A person with timesheets, expenses, tasks, task comments, chats, schedule bookings or recurring invoices can't be deleted, and nor can anyone with the Administrator role until it's removed. Administrators, Portfolio Managers and Project Managers can delete.

Archive everyone else from the ⋮ menu (Administrators only). Archiving keeps their work, removes all their roles and their access to your account, disables their project memberships, and stops recurring expenses and tasks assigned to them. You can't archive yourself, or the person chosen under Send replies to for automatic invoice reminders in Settings › Invoice & Bill Settings.

To bring someone back, click Restore on the Archived tab. They return with no roles. On their projects, access is still disabled, and Timesheet entry allowed?, the approver options and the task permissions (Create, Update, Delete, Comment) are off. Give them their roles again. Then, on their Project Membership tab, use Enable access and click each project to tick the permissions they need. See archiving users.

More about users

• Changing an email address: who can do it, and the new invitation it sends.
• Duplicate email addresses: when two contacts can share one.
• Resetting multi-factor authentication: for someone who lost their device.
• Custom fields: add your own fields to team members, contacts and companies.