Help Center

User Roles

User Roles

In Shortcut, we offer multiple user roles: Owner, Admin, Member, and Observer. By default, the first person in the system is given the role of Owner, but Organizations can have multiple Owners and Admins.

Free plan accounts do not have access to Member or Observer roles. For additional access, please consider upgrading to a paid plan. Additionally, while the Observer role is only available on paid plans, there is a cap of up to five Observers per paid seat.

When you’re ready, invite the rest of your team and manage their roles easily from your Account Settings.

Owner

Owners have full administrative access:

  • Access the Manage Organization and Workspaces Dashboard
  • Enable and disable an Organization and its Workspaces
  • Add new Workspaces to an existing Organization
  • Create, edit and archive Teams
  • Create new Organizations
  • Request the deletion of a Workspace or Organization
  • Edit a Workflow State
  • Add, manage, and communicate with Shortcut about billing and payment information
  • Add and manage user access, user roles, and invitations
  • Request and authorize the removal of Two-Factor Authorization for users
  • Promote another user to an Owner
  • Choose and manage Workspace features and settings
  • Add integrations
  • Work in Shortcut by viewing, following, creating, and editing Spaces, Stories, Epics, Objectives, Labels, and Docs
  • Access all reporting and search data
  • Manage their own user profiles

Admin

Admins can manage Workspace settings and users:

  • Access the Manage Workspaces Dashboard for only those Workspaces in which they are an Admin
  • Add new Workspaces to an existing Organization
  • Create new Organizations
  • Create, edit and archive Teams
  • Edit a Workflow State
  • Add and manage user access, user roles, and invitations
  • Request and authorize the removal of Two-Factor Authorization for users
  • Promote another user to an Admin
  • Choose and manage Workspace features and settings
  • Add integrations
  • Work in Shortcut by viewing, following, creating, and editing Spaces, Stories, Epics, Objectives, Labels, and Docs
  • Access all reporting and search data
  • Manage their own user profiles

Member (Paid Plans)

Members can work with all content:

  • Work in Shortcut by viewing, following, creating, and editing Spaces, Stories, Epics, Objectives, Labels, and Docs
  • Access all reporting and search data
  • Manage their own user profiles

Observer (Paid Plans)

Observers have view-only access:

  • View and follow all Spaces, Stories, Epics, Projects, Objectives, Labels, and Docs
  • Access all reporting and search data
  • Manage their own user profiles

With the Observer role, users can gain access to your Shortcut in order to view progress on an individual Story or across the Workspace. Observers can view Spaces, follow Stories, and use the various Search bars and filters. However, they cannot move, change, or comment on anything.

Key Details

  • Observers can retrieve data, but not change data via the API
  • Observers cannot create Stories via Slack
  • Observers are available for free to all Workspaces on a paid plan
  • Up to five Observers per paid seat

Inviting Observers

  1. Navigate to Settings > User Directory
  2. Click the Invite New Users button
  3. Change the “Role” to Observer via the dropdown options
  4. Type the email addresses you wish to invite
  5. Select the Team the user(s) will join (optional - can be set later)
  6. Click Send Invitations

Assigning the Observer Role

Users can also be converted from Members, Admins, or Owners to Observers by going to User Directory and toggling the role next to the user’s name to Observer.

Your Workspace will not be charged for Observers.

Observers and Permissions

Please note that the Observer role only limits what a user can do, it does not limit visibility. While Observers cannot make any changes, they can still see everything in the Shortcut Workspace.