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Roles and permissions

Cadence has three roles (owner, admin, and member). Here is what each one can do and how role changes take effect.

Every person in your organisation has one of three roles. The role decides what they can see and change, from tracking their own time up to controlling billing for the whole team. Most people are members; a small number are admins or owners.

The three roles

Roles stack in order of reach. An owner can do everything an admin can, and an admin can do everything a member can. Where a permission lives (the website or the desktop app) is noted below, because the two parts of Cadence do different jobs.

Owner
Full control of the organisation: billing and the subscription, members and their roles, and organisation settings. Whoever creates the organisation is its first owner. Owners can promote others, including making another person an owner, and can hand the organisation over. There is always at least one owner.
Admin
Manages the team day to day (inviting people, assigning roles, and removing members during a trial) and sees the organisation-wide view. On a paid plan, removing a member is owner-only (scheduled to the end of the billing period). Billing, the subscription, and ownership stay with owners, so an admin cannot change the plan or pay the bill.
Member
Tracks their own work, sees their own time, and connects their own integrations. Members do not manage other people or the organisation. This is the right role for almost everyone on the team.

Self-escalation is blocked

You can never raise your own role. A member cannot make themselves an admin, and an admin cannot make themselves an owner. Promotions only ever come from someone who already holds the higher role, which keeps control of the organisation deliberate rather than accidental.

When a role change takes effect

Role changes are applied straight away on the server, but the desktop app reads a person’s role when it starts. So if someone’s role changes while they are working, they need to fully quit and reopen the Cadence app before the new role (and any areas it unlocks or hides) shows up.

Tell people to restart
After you promote or demote someone, ask them to restart the app. Until they do, they will still see the areas tied to their old role.

Owners and admins see role-gated areas in the desktop app (members, team, and admin views) that members do not. To assign roles in practice, see managing members. For the role-gated areas in the app, see signing in.