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Roles and permissions
Two things decide what you see in Perspective. Your roles decide what you are allowed to do. Your company's plan decides which areas of the app are switched on. Both have to allow something before it appears.
The roles
An Admin gives each user one or more roles on the Users page. If you hold several roles, you get everything each of them allows.
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Admin | Everything. Manages users and their roles, company details, holidays and Settings, the Roles and Resources lists, and pay rates. Has everything the PMO has as well. Every company must keep at least one Admin. |
| PMO | Runs the portfolio. Manages every project and plan in the company, works the Roadmap and portfolio Plans, decides on project Requests, and sees financials. Does not manage users or company settings, and does not approve timesheets. |
| PM | Creates projects, and manages the projects they are a manager of: details, plans, tasks and staffing. Sees costs and financials. Can view the rest of the portfolio. |
| Team Lead | Manages the teams they lead: members, resources, people's allocations, time off and loans to other teams, and approves their team's timesheets. |
| C-suite | Sees the whole portfolio and its financials, read only. Their Dashboard link opens the Executive view of the portfolio. Can sign off approvals they are named on. |
| Contributor (self-service only) | Sees their own work, logs their own time and books their own time off. Their menu shows only Dashboard, Enter time and Time off. |
PMO, PM, Team Lead and C-suite can all act on an approval step that names them. That is the only change a C-suite user can make.
TIP
Contributors are free and do not take a paid seat. Anyone with any other role does.
Roles carry down to the companies below
Some organisations have a parent company with divisions or subsidiaries below it. A role you hold in a company applies there and in every company below it.
So an Admin of the parent company is an Admin of every division too. Roles never travel upward: being PMO in one division gives you nothing in its parent or in a sister division.
To give someone roles in more than one company, use Add company under Role assignments when you edit the user.
Project managers manage their own projects
The PM role lets someone create projects, but it does not hand them every project in the company. A PM manages the projects they are a manager of, and can view the rest.
- When you create a project, you become its manager automatically.
- To add another manager, open the project and use the Project access card. Choose the person, pick Manager, and select Grant. Choose Viewer instead to give read access.
- Admin and PMO users manage every project, whether or not they are listed.
Team leads manage the teams they lead
The Team Lead role works the same way for teams. A team lead manages the teams where they are set as the Lead.
- To make someone a team's lead, open the team, select Edit team, choose them under Lead, and select Save. The lead is picked from the team's members, so add them to the team first.
- The lead is a person on your roster, so they need a login connected to that person. The simplest way is to tick Create a login & email an invite when you add them on the People page, then give them the Team Lead role on the Users page.
- Admins manage every team.
Plans and what they include
Your company's plan switches whole areas on or off. If an area is not on your plan, its menu items are hidden for everyone, whatever their role. Each plan includes everything in the one before it.
| Plan | Includes |
|---|---|
| Starter | Projects, teams and people. Plans and scheduling. Tasks, risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies, and comments. The dashboard. |
| Professional | Everything in Starter, plus time tracking and actuals; cost, rates and forecasting; the portfolio roadmap and optimizer; demand intake (project requests); workflow automation and approvals; change history and audit; file attachments; and the report builder. |
| Enterprise | Everything in Professional, plus AI insights, the executive portfolio and Programs, portfolio planning (portfolio Plans), and integrations. |
An Admin can see which plan your company is on, and change it, under Settings in Licence & billing.
When something is missing
If you expect to see a menu item and it is not there, check these in order:
- Your role. For example, the Roadmap needs the Admin or PMO role, and Users needs Admin.
- Your company's plan. For example, Timesheets and Reports need Professional or above.
- The company you are in. If you work in more than one company, roles are set per company, so you may have more access in one than another.