Roles and permissions
Every member of a TimoDesk organization has 1 of 4 roles: Organizer, Business Manager, Team Manager or Staff. The role decides whose time and activity a person can see and what they can change. Every role can track their own time with the desktop app.
The 4 TimoDesk roles
Each role has a different reach, from the whole organization down to a person's own work.
- Organizer
- Has full access to everything, including billing, screenshot storage, organization settings and manual time settings. The person who registers the organization is its first Organizer and its owner.
- Business Manager
- Runs the organization day to day. Sees everyone, manages members, teams, projects and clients, and handles billing and support requests. Can't change storage, organization info, manual time settings or the referral program.
- Team Manager
- Leads 1 or more teams. Sees their own work and the members of the teams they manage. Creates projects and manages tasks within that reach, but can't add, approve or edit members.
- Staff
- Tracks time and sees only their own time, activity, apps, websites and screenshots. You can also make a Staff member a project leader.
In some places the dashboard calls a Business Manager a "manager". It's the same role.
What each role can see and do
This table compares the permissions of each role. "Their teams" means the Team Manager plus every member of the teams they manage. "Own" means the person's own data only.
| Area | Organizer | Business Manager | Team Manager | Staff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Track time with the desktop app | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dashboard | Team dashboard, everyone, with the Billing card | Team dashboard, everyone, with the Billing card | Team dashboard, their teams | Personal dashboard, own |
| Projects: view | All projects | All projects | Projects their teams work on | Projects they're on, lead, have tasks in or tracked time on |
| Projects: create and edit | Yes | Yes | Yes, within their teams' projects | No |
| Projects: assign members | Anyone | Anyone | Their teams' members | Only as a project leader |
| Projects: assign project leaders | Any Staff member | Any Staff member | Staff in their teams | No |
| Tasks and the task board | All tasks | All tasks | Tasks on their teams' projects | Create tasks for themselves, edit the title, description, section, labels and subtasks of tasks they created or are assigned to, archive tasks assigned to them |
| Members: view | Everyone | Everyone | Their teams | No access |
| Members: invite, add, approve, reject | Yes | Yes, but can't give the Organizer role | No | No |
| Members: edit, disable, turn tracking and screenshots on or off | Yes | Yes, except Organizers | No | No |
| Members: change roles | Any role. Only the owner can change another Organizer's role. | Business Manager, Team Manager or Staff | No | No |
| Teams | See all, create, edit, delete, add managers and members | See all, create, edit, delete, add managers and members | See the teams they manage | No access |
| Tracking policy (tracking, screenshots, idle timeout, screenshot interval, screenshot alert, manual time and manual time approval) | Organization defaults and per member | Organization defaults except the manual time ones, and per member except Organizers | No | No |
| Manual time: request own time | Yes, when turned on for them, and added right away | Yes, when turned on for them | Yes, when turned on for them | Yes, when turned on for them |
| Manual time: review requests | Everyone's | When the setting includes Business Managers | Their teams, when the setting includes Team Managers | No |
| Screenshots, App Usage, Websites & URLs | Everyone | Everyone | Their teams | Own |
| Time & Activity, Project Timing, Weekly Worklog, Time Calendar | Everyone | Everyone | Their teams | Own |
| Member Timing, Monthly Timesheet | Everyone | Everyone | Their teams | No access |
| Top Performers and Low Performers | Everyone | Everyone | Their teams | No access |
| Productivity Leaders | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Who's online now | Everyone | Everyone | Their teams | Project leaders only, for their projects |
| Clients: invite, set portal access, assign projects, disable and enable | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| A project's Clients tab and Manage Clients | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Billing: invoices, deposits, transactions | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Support Requests | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Screenshot storage | Yes | No | No | No |
| Organization info (name, logo, time zone, week start, address) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Manual time settings | Yes | No | No | No |
| Referral program | Yes | No | No | No |
| Own profile and password | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TimoDesk browser extension (who's online, from the toolbar) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
If a role can't use a page, that page doesn't appear in the person's sidebar. A Team Manager or Staff member who opens a client link anyway gets an error. On the Billing card, Organizers and Business Managers also see Billable clients when the bill includes clients. See how clients are billed.
Where do clients fit in?
Clients aren't members and have no role. They're people outside your organization, such as the customer the work is for, who follow their projects in the read-only client portal. They don't use the dashboard or the desktop app.
- Only Organizers and Business Managers see the Clients page and the Clients tab on a project. They invite clients, choose each client's projects and screens, and disable or enable them.
- To invite a client or resend an invitation, you need to have verified your own email.
- On the Projects list, a project with no description shows up to 2 client names under its title. Organizers, Business Managers and Team Managers see these names. Staff don't.
See Clients for the full guide.
What an Organizer can do
Organizers can do everything in the dashboard. Only they see these parts of Account: the Organization info form on Organization Setting, and the Manual Time and Referral Option tabs. Only they see Storage in the sidebar, and only they can change the organization's manual time defaults on the tracking policy page. The unpaid invoice notice on the dashboard also appears only for Organizers.
An organization can have more than 1 Organizer. An Organizer can give the role to someone else from Edit Member. When an Organizer adds their own manual time, it's added right away. Only an Organizer can review an Organizer's requests.
The organization owner
The owner is the Organizer who registered the organization. Nobody can change the owner's role, disable their account or give them their own tracking policy. Only the owner can change another Organizer's role or edit the owner's profile. If the organization is suspended for an unpaid invoice, TimoDesk sends the owner to the invoices to pay it. Everyone else, other Organizers included, sees a Workspace suspended page saying the dashboard and time tracking are paused, with a Sign out link.
What a Business Manager can do
Business Managers see the whole organization and run it day to day: members, teams, projects, tasks, clients, reports, billing and support requests. They see Account > Organization Setting as read-only: they can't change the organization info, and the Activity & Tracking panel only has an Open tracking policy button. On the tracking policy page they can change the organization's tracking defaults, except the manual time defaults, which only Organizers can change.
They can't invite, create, edit, disable or change the tracking of Organizers, and they can't give anyone the Organizer role. They can change the role of Business Managers, Team Managers and Staff. They can also set a personal tracking policy for Business Managers, Team Managers and Staff, including their manual time and manual time approval settings, but not for themselves. They review manual time when the organization's Who can review setting is Organizers and business managers (the default) or also includes team managers.
What a Team Manager can do
A Team Manager's reach comes from the teams they manage. They see themselves and every member of those teams. They also see the projects any of those people are on, lead, have tasks in or have tracked time on. Within that reach they can:
- see the team dashboard, reports, screenshots, app and website usage, Member Timing, the Monthly Timesheet and Top and Low Performers
- create projects, edit the projects in their reach, assign their teams' members and pick project leaders from their teams' Staff
- create, edit, assign and archive tasks on those projects
- review their teams' manual time, if the organization's Who can review setting includes team managers
Team Managers can't invite, add, approve, edit or disable members, and they can't create, change or delete teams. They can't open the tracking policy page or edit or delete labels. They don't see billing, support requests, clients or Productivity Leaders. Organizers and Business Managers set up teams and choose who manages each one.
Only people with the Team Manager role can manage a team. If you change a Team Manager to another role, they stop managing all of their teams.
What Staff can do
Staff track time and see their own records: a personal dashboard, their own screenshots, app and website usage, Time & Activity, Project Timing, Weekly Worklog and Time Calendar. They see the projects they're assigned to, lead, have tasks in or have tracked time on.
On a project they're on, Staff can create tasks (assigned to themselves). On tasks they created or are assigned to, they can edit the title, description, section, labels and subtasks, and drag or complete the task. They can archive tasks assigned to them. They can't set priority, dates or estimates, move tasks on the calendar or assign tasks to other people. See who can do what on the board. They can't open Members, Teams, Clients, billing or the performance reports.
What a project leader can do
A project leader is a Staff member picked in the Project Leaders field of a project. It isn't a separate role. It gives that person extra rights on the projects they lead, and nowhere else. On a project they lead, a project leader can:
- see the whole project, including every member's time, activity and screenshots on it
- create, edit, assign and archive any of its tasks
- create labels, but not edit or delete them
- assign members to the project
- see which of the project's members are online
Project leaders can't pick other leaders. Only Organizers and Business Managers can edit or delete labels, because every project shares them. Outside the project, their reports still show only their own time. Organizers and Business Managers can make any Staff member a leader. Team Managers can pick Staff from their own teams.
How to change someone's role
Organizers and Business Managers change a member's role in the Edit Member popup.
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Open Members and click the member's name, or choose View profile in their actions menu.
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Click the pencil icon (Edit Member) at the top of their profile.
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Pick the new Role and click Save Changes.
The change works right away. You can't change your own role or the owner's role. Only the owner can change another Organizer's role, so other Organizers and Business Managers can't. New people get their role when you invite them by email or create their account. People who join with an invite link always start as Staff. See Members for details.
Common questions
Can Staff see other people's time or screenshots?
No. Staff see only their own time, activity, apps, websites and screenshots. The exception is a project leader, who sees everyone's work on the projects they lead.
What's the difference between a Business Manager and a Team Manager?
A Business Manager sees and manages the whole organization, including members, teams and billing. A Team Manager sees only the teams they manage and can't add or edit members.
Can a Team Manager approve new members?
No. Only Organizers and Business Managers can invite, add, approve or reject members, or turn someone's tracking and screenshots on or off.
Who can see the bill?
Organizers and Business Managers. They see the Billing card on the dashboard and the Invoices, Deposits and Transactions pages.
Who can manage clients?
Organizers and Business Managers. Team Managers and Staff don't see the Clients page or a project's Clients tab, and clients themselves have no role in your organization.
Can there be more than one Organizer?
Yes. An Organizer can give the Organizer role to another member. The person who registered the organization stays its owner.