Adding users

Users are managed in the Admin panel, under Users: everyone is listed on the left, and the person you pick opens on the right with four tabs - Profile, Modules, Projects and Email. Everyone in your business who needs SmarteBuild gets their own account. Every plan has unlimited users.

Creating one

Press Add user. It asks for:

Field	What it is
First name / Last name	Their name, shown throughout
Email	Their login, and where notifications go. Each person needs their own - an address another user already has is refused
Position	Their role in the business, printed under their name on orders and emails
Mobile or phone	Optional
Administrator	Whether they can manage users, the subscription and company settings
Email them their sign-in details now	Sends a welcome email with a temporary password; they choose their own password when they first sign in

After Add user you land on their Modules tab. Then set what they can reach — see Roles and access.

One account per person

Never share a login.

Every measurement, order, claim and variation records who created it and who changed it. A shared account makes that record meaningless, and it is the record you need when a number is queried or something goes wrong.

It also means someone leaving requires changing a password everybody uses, which nobody gets round to.

Shared logins destroy the audit trail

“Who changed this quantity?” has an answer if everyone has their own account, and no answer at all if three people share one. The history is one of the more valuable things the system keeps.

Administrators

Administrator grants management of users, the subscription and company settings.

Keep it to the people who genuinely need it — usually one or two. An administrator can change what everyone else can see and do, which is not a permission to hand out because someone asked.

Have at least two. One administrator on annual leave with a user locked out is an avoidable problem.

You cannot remove your own Administrator tick, or disable or delete your own account - another administrator has to. That is what stops a company ending up with nobody who can get in.

When someone leaves

Two options, and the difference matters:

	Disabled	Deleted
They can log in	No	No
Their history is preserved and attributed	Yes	Reduced
Reversible	Yes	Less so

Disable is nearly always right. It stops access immediately and keeps their work attributed to them — which is what you want when a job they estimated is queried a year later.

Choose between them with Status on the Profile tab. Show disabled and deleted, above the list, brings them back into view.

Delete, at the top of someone’s page, removes them completely - but only for someone with nothing recorded against them (no orders, notes, timesheets and so on), such as an account made by mistake. Everyone else is set to Deleted instead.

Disable the account the day someone leaves. It is the one bit of housekeeping that matters immediately.

What a new user needs

Beyond the account:

1. Module access — which parts of the system they can open
2. Project permissions — which jobs they can see
3. Email settings, if they will send orders or claims — see Email settings
4. Their own profile and signature — see Your profile

A user with an account and nothing else logs in to an empty screen, which is the most common “it is not working” report from a new starter.

Xero integration

Can use the Xero integration, on the Profile tab, controls whether that user can push orders and expenses to Xero.

Grant it to whoever does the books, and not to everyone. See Integrations.

Other things you can do for someone

The buttons at the top of a person’s page:

Button	What it does
Email sign-in details	Sends the welcome email again, with a new temporary password - for a new starter who lost the first one
Reset password	Emails a temporary password; they set a new one when they next sign in
Duplicate	Makes a copy with the same modules, projects and permissions - the quickest way to set up a second person in the same role. Change the copy’s name and email before they use it
Delete	Shown only for someone with nothing recorded against them; see above

Other settings on the Profile tab: Give them every new project automatically, Send them a copy of every purchase order, and Hide modules they cannot open, which keeps their menu short instead of showing locked items.