Roles and permissions: what each person can see and do

Everyone on your team has a role, and every role is built on an access level. The access level decides which clients, jobs and money someone can reach at all. The role then switches areas on or off within that level, like Invoices and payments or Approve timesheets (crew leads: their crew’s). The database enforces both, not just the screens, so a role holds everywhere, in Claude and ChatGPT too.

To invite someone and give them a role, see Invite your team and set roles. This page is the full reference.

The access levels

There are six levels for your team. Settings → Roles lists them under Built-in roles, with what each one reaches:

Access level	What Crewtavo says it reaches
Owner	“Everything, including billing and ownership”
Admin	“Everything”
Office	“All clients, jobs and money”
Estimator	“Clients, requests, quotes and the schedule. No invoices”
Crew lead	“Schedules and staffs their own crew, sees its time. Sees the whole schedule. No prices”
Field crew	“Only their own visits and time. No prices”

A few things only an owner can do:

Make someone else an owner, or change another owner’s role or remove their access.
Make a password reset link for an admin. (Nobody can make one for an owner: owners reset their own.)
Download everything under Settings → Your data.
Keep a key file for getting back in. See Sign in, reset a password and get back in.

An owner always has every area, and no role can take one away. Admins can be limited by their role.

There’s a seventh level, Subcontractor, for the businesses you hire. You don’t give it out here: a sub gets it with a sign-in from their page under Subcontractors, and sees only their own jobs, their price on each and their paperwork. See Work with subcontractors.

The areas a role can include

These are the 15 areas (permissions) you switch on or off for a role, with the levels that can have each one. A role can only include areas its level allows.

Area	What it opens	Levels that can have it
Quotes and sales	Making and sending quotes, adding and changing requests and jobs, Packages, and seeing what a job is worth	Admin, Office, Estimator
Invoices and payments	Invoices, payments, Stripe deposits, refunds, the invoices on a job or client, and autopay: inviting clients, Approve charge and Charge card. Owners and admins with it also get Settings → Payments. Without it, invoices are hidden completely.	Admin, Office
Job costs and profit	A job’s costs, expenses and profit, Timesheets → Pay, pay rates and piece rates, equipment costs, and labor cost in Metrics	Admin, Office
Finance and metrics	Metrics, and Finance (which also needs Invoices and payments)	Admin, Office
Marketing	Marketing once Crewtavo - Marketing is installed (campaigns, reviews, referrals, social posts and promo codes), and Website if you edit your site from Crewtavo	Admin, Office
Automations	Settings → Automations and Settings → Client notifications. Owners and admins need it, with Marketing, to change automated campaigns and when clients are asked for reviews and referrals.	Admin, Office
Schedule the whole team	Booking, moving and assigning visits for every crew	Admin, Office, Estimator, Crew lead
Approve timesheets (crew leads: their crew’s)	Approving time. Office staff approve everyone’s, a crew lead their crew’s.	Admin, Office, Crew lead
Price list, checklists, crews and booking forms	Changing the price list, Weather rules, Document style, Contract terms, Custom fields, Online booking, Crews and Checklists. Owners and admins with it also get Settings → Storage.	Admin, Office
Write and edit guides	Writing and changing guides in the Knowledge base	Admin, Office
Manage people and roles	Settings → People and Settings → Roles	Admin
Connect apps	Apps, Settings → Calendars and Settings → Email	Admin
Manage equipment and maintenance	Adding and changing equipment and its maintenance schedules	Admin, Office, Estimator, Crew lead
Subcontractors, their paperwork and pay	Subcontractors	Admin, Office
Job applicants and hiring	Applicants, once Careers is installed	Admin, Office

Someone given an access level directly (under Built-in in the role picker) has every area that level allows. A Field crew role has no areas: “This level sees only their own visits and time.”

Some areas only control changing things. Without Quotes and sales, someone at the Office or Estimator level can still open quotes but not change them. Without Price list, checklists, crews and booking forms, they can still see the price list and checklists.

The starter roles

Every business starts with five roles. Change them, delete them or make your own.

Starter role	Access level	Areas it starts with
General manager	Admin	Every area except Connect apps
Office manager	Office	Every area Office can have
Operations manager	Office	Quotes and sales, Job costs and profit, Finance and metrics, Schedule the whole team, Approve timesheets, Write and edit guides, Manage equipment and maintenance, Subcontractors, their paperwork and pay
Foreman	Crew lead	Only Manage equipment and maintenance
Employee	Field crew	None

What that means day to day:

A General manager can’t open Apps or Settings → Calendars until you switch on Connect apps for the role.
An Operations manager doesn’t see Invoices, Finance, Marketing, Automations or Applicants, and can’t change the price list, crews or checklists.
A Foreman schedules and staffs their own crew’s visits and sees their crew’s time, but can’t move another crew’s visits, and can’t approve time out of the box. To let foremen approve their crew’s time, edit the role and switch on Approve timesheets (crew leads: their crew’s).
An Employee sees only the visits they’re on.

With every area its level allows:

Sidebar	Owner, Admin	Office	Estimator	Crew lead	Field crew
Home	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
My day	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Schedule	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Their own visits
Team chat (once installed)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Clients	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Only theirs
Requests	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Only theirs
Quotes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Jobs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Only theirs
Invoices	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Drive (once installed)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Marketing (once installed), Website	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Finance, Metrics	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Timesheets	Everyone’s	Everyone’s	Their own	Theirs and their crew’s	Their own
Applicants (with Careers)	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Subcontractors	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Equipment	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Knowledge base	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Apps	Yes	No	No	No	No
Settings	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Once the Paving or Roofing app is installed, the business also has Paving or Roofing, for owners, admins, office staff and estimators with Quotes and sales. On a phone, everyone gets My day in the bar at the bottom. See Find your way around.

Which Settings tabs each level gets

Settings tab	Owner	Admin	Office	Estimator	Crew lead, Field crew
Profile, AI assistants, Terms and license	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Company, Schedule and routes, Maps, Web address, Hosting	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Payments (autopay)	Yes	With Invoices and payments	No	No	No
Storage	Yes	With Price list, checklists, crews and booking forms	No	No	No
Price list	Yes	Yes	Yes	See only	No
Packages	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Weather rules, Document style, Contract terms, Custom fields, Online booking, Crews, Checklists	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
People, Roles	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Email, Calendars	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Automations, Client notifications	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Your data	Yes	No	No	No	No

Web address and Hosting only show on a Crewtavo you run for your own business (Hosting only on Railway). A tab that needs an area disappears when the person’s role switches it off.

What each level can do

Owners can do everything. For the others, with every area their level allows:

	Admin, Office	Estimator	Crew lead	Field crew
Clients and properties	See all, add and change	See all, add and change	See all, can’t change	Only the clients they have visits for
Requests	See all, add, book assessments	See all, add, book assessments	See all, can’t change	Only ones they have a visit for
Quotes (estimates)	Make and send	Make and send	No	No
Jobs	See all, add and change, with prices	See all, add and change, with prices	See all, the work but no prices	Only the jobs they have a visit on, no prices
Job costs and profit	Yes	No	No	No
Schedule	Book, move and assign anyone	Book, move and assign anyone	See it all; book, move and staff their own crew’s visits	See their visits, start and finish them, add notes; can’t move them
Invoices, payments and autopay	Yes	No	No	No
Drive (once installed)	Yes	Yes	No	No
Timesheets	See and approve everyone’s; pay	Their own	Their crew’s; approve their crew’s, not their own	Their own
Equipment	Add, change, log	Add, change, log	Add, change, log	See it, log hours, miles, service and repairs
Price list	Change	See only	No	No
Marketing, Automations	Yes	No	No	No
Finance and Metrics (reports)	Yes	No	No	No
Knowledge base	Read and write guides	Read	Read	Read
People and roles	Admin only	No	No	No
Apps	Admin only	No	No	No

A crew lead’s own crew means the crews they’re on, set in Settings → Crews. With Schedule the whole team switched on, a crew lead schedules every crew, the way an office does. See Set up crews and checklists and Run the schedule day to day.

Gate codes and access instructions on a property show to owners, admins and office staff at all times. Anyone else sees them only while they’re on an unfinished visit there, today or tomorrow.

Calendars added from Google, Outlook and others show on the schedule for everyone except field crew.

Drive and the Trash

Drive is for owners, admins, office staff and estimators, once an owner or admin with Connect apps installs Crewtavo - Drive. No area switches it on or off within those levels. Crew leads and field crew don’t get Drive.

The Trash keeps every file deleted anywhere in Crewtavo for 30 days, whether or not Drive is installed, and everyone on the team can open it (search for “Trash”). What each person sees there goes by who could see the file before:

Owners, admins, office staff and estimators see Drive’s files and folders, and the photos and other files deleted elsewhere.
Receipts show to people with Job costs and profit, subs’ paperwork to the office with Subcontractors, their paperwork and pay, and résumés to the office with Job applicants and hiring.
Anyone else sees only what they deleted themselves.
Only owners can Delete forever or Empty Trash. Everything else is deleted for good after its 30 days.

Marketing

Marketing is for owners, admins and office staff with the Marketing area, once an owner or admin with Connect apps installs Crewtavo - Marketing. They send campaigns, ask for reviews and referrals, reply to Google reviews, post to social media and make promo codes.
Changing automated campaigns, and when clients are asked for reviews and referrals, also takes Automations, and only owners and admins can. Only owners and admins change your review link and the referral credit and offer.
Anyone who makes quotes (owners, admins, office staff and estimators) can ask one client for a review or referrals from the client’s or the job’s menu, like Ask for a review by email, without the Marketing area.
Connecting Google Business Profile and Facebook & Instagram takes Connect apps, like any app.

Autopay

Owners, admins and office staff with Invoices and payments invite clients to autopay, pause it, take a saved card off, choose Approve charge on a charge that waits for an OK, use Charge card and make refunds.
Settings → Payments, where autopay’s terms, timing and limit are set, is for owners, and admins with Invoices and payments.
Only an owner can record that clients whose cards came in from Stripe already agreed to be charged (These clients agreed to be charged automatically).
A charge for work an AI assistant marked done always waits for the office’s OK. See Connect Claude and ChatGPT.

Storage

Settings → Storage, which shows how much room your photos and files take, who’s using it and your business’s limit, is for owners, and admins with Price list, checklists, crews and booking forms. See Manage storage space.
Only owners give one person, or everyone with a role, a storage limit of their own: with Storage limit under the person in Settings → People, or on a role in Settings → Roles (Storage limit for everyone with this role). A person’s own limit comes before their role’s. Owners are never limited.
Owners and admins get a notice when storage reaches 80% and 95% of the limit.
Crews always finish the job: visit and quote photos, receipts and subs’ paperwork are never turned away, whatever the limits.

Giving admin access asks for your password

Admin access is the Owner level, or the Admin level with any of Connect apps, Price list, checklists, crews and booking forms or Manage people and roles: what it takes to change Stripe, your business’s email or who’s on the team. Crewtavo asks for Your Crewtavo password whenever you:

invite someone with admin access, or resend their invite;
change someone’s role to one with admin access (“This gives Sam admin access, including payments, email and who’s on the team.”);
save a role that didn’t have admin access and now does;
make a password reset link for someone with admin access.

Every owner hears about it, in Crewtavo and by email. Signed in with Google or a link and have no password yet? Set one under Settings → Profile first, within 10 minutes of signing in. See Change your password. An AI assistant can’t give anyone admin access.

Make a role

Owners, and admins whose role has Manage people and roles, set up roles.

Open Settings → Roles and choose New role.
Type a Name, like “Salesperson”.
Pick the Access level: Admin, Office, Estimator, Crew lead or Field crew. The line under it says what that level reaches. A role can’t be an owner or a sub.
Under Can use, switch on the areas this role gets. A new role starts with everything its level allows, and picking another level starts again from that level’s areas.
Choose Create role.

Each role shows as a card with its level, how many people have it and its areas, or “Their own work only” when it has none.

Change or delete a role

To change one, choose the pencil on its card, change it, then choose Save role. It changes for everyone who has the role. If you pick another access level, the areas that still apply stay on, and everyone with the role moves to the new level.

To delete one, choose the bin on its card, then Delete role. If people have it, Crewtavo says so: “2 people have this role. They keep Crew lead access.”

Change someone’s role

Open Settings → People.
In the Role column, pick their new role. Your own roles are under Your roles, and the access levels on their own under Built-in.

Crewtavo says “Role changed”. A few limits:

You can’t change your own role.
Only an owner can make someone an owner, or change an owner’s role.
To change the role of someone whose access you removed, choose Restore first.

Why can’t someone see or do something?

“You don’t have access to this” means the screen isn’t part of their role. “Ask an admin if you need it.”
No New job or New request button: their role doesn’t have Quotes and sales.
Can’t move a visit: without Schedule the whole team, a crew lead can only move their own crew’s visits, and office staff and estimators can’t move any.
Can’t approve time: their role needs Approve timesheets (crew leads: their crew’s). Nobody approves their own time as a crew lead.
Price list is greyed out: they can see it but not change it. That needs Price list, checklists, crews and booking forms, which estimators can’t have.
No prices on a job: crew leads and field crew never see prices, invoices or pay rates.
No Drive or Marketing in the sidebar: it isn’t installed yet (an owner or admin installs it from Apps), or their level doesn’t get it. Marketing also needs the Marketing area.

Claude and ChatGPT never get more than the person who connected them. See Connect Claude and ChatGPT. Team chat channels go by role too: see who sees what in Team chat.