Team and roles

There are two kinds of "team" in Chiffchaff: the people customers mention in reviews, and the people who sign in.

The people customers mention

Settings → Team lists the people who work with you, so replies can thank them by name. Add someone under Add someone to the team with their first and last name, and optionally their role and what they do. You can also import a list from Settings → Import a list.

You can paste replies each person has written, so drafts that thank them sound like them. See Edit your reply voice.

Adding someone here doesn't give them a sign-in.

People who sign in

Everyone who signs in has a role:

• Owner: everything, including billing, and the only role that can download or delete the business's data. There's one owner, the person who set the business up.
• Manager: runs the day to day. Managers can change settings and the listing, post and manage autopilot replies, send requests to a list, read private notes, handle disputes, manage billing, download reports, get alerts and invite people.
• Staff: can read reviews, draft and save replies, stop an autopilot reply, and look after customers and requests. Staff can edit their locations' name, address and phone, but a location's Google place ID, and adding, importing or deleting locations, are for owners and managers with every location. Owners and managers decide what posts, set the reply voice, and connect Google and the other tools.

What each person sees

Chiffchaff only shows people what they can use. A button, link or page someone can't use isn't there for them, rather than greyed out. Settings that cover the whole business still show their current value to everyone, with a short note saying who can change them.

• Where they start. Someone whose only everyday job is sending review requests opens Chiffchaff on Requests. That's staff, unless you've switched more on for them, or anyone whose permissions leave only Send review requests. Their dashboard, if they open it, shows how their requests are doing. Everyone else starts on the dashboard, as before.
• The menu. Listing shows to people who can change the listing, and to owners and managers. Analytics shows to owners and managers. Billing shows to people who manage billing; anyone can still open it from an upgrade link to see the plans.
• The dashboard. Each card shows to the people who can act on it: reviews to reply to for people who post replies, listing to-dos for people who change the listing, requests for people who send them, and the setup checklist and connection problems for you and managers with every location.
• A link to a page they can't use, from an email or a bookmark, opens their start page instead of an error.

These follow the roles and the switches below. There's nothing to set up, and nobody chooses their own layout.

Invite someone

1. Go to Settings → Team. You can also do this while setting up your business.
2. Under Invite someone, type their email and choose Manager or Staff.
3. Click Send invite.

They get an email with a link to sign up. Until they do, they show under People who sign in as Invite waiting, and you can click Cancel invite. Once they sign up, they're in your business with the role you chose, at every location. Owners and managers can invite people.

On the Group plan you can also choose their locations and permissions before they join: under Invite someone, click Choose locations and permissions, pick Every location or Only these locations and the switches you want, then send the invite. They start with exactly that when they sign up, so a new manager for one location never sees the others first. The waiting invite shows what you chose. You can only give permissions you have yourself, and limiting someone to some locations starts with Manage billing off (turn it on if they should have it). Cancelling the invite throws the choice away. If you leave it closed, they get their role's usual permissions at every location, as before.

Choose locations and permissions (Group)

On the Group plan, the owner can choose what each manager and staff member can do. Go to Settings → Team, find the person under Roles and permissions and click Change.

• Locations: Every location (the usual choice, and it includes locations you add later), or Only these locations. Someone limited to some locations only sees the reviews, replies, requests, private notes and listing for those locations, and can't act on the others. They can't add or remove locations or change a location's Google place ID, and the dashboard and reports only count their locations.
• What they can do: switch these on or off for that person, on top of their role: - Post replies: post, edit and delete public replies, and approve them from an alert email. On for managers, off for staff. - Send review requests: ask customers for a review. On for everyone. Sending to a list stays with owners and managers. - Change the listing: hours, photos, posts, the Today button and the other listing tools. On for managers, off for staff. - Read private notes: the notes customers leave. On for managers, off for staff. - Manage billing: change the plan, pause it, open the billing portal and get the billing emails (a failed payment, the trial ending, a pause ending). On for managers, off for staff. Billing covers every location, so when you limit someone who had every location to some, it's switched off for them. You can turn it back on, and it stays on. - Invite people: on for managers, off for staff. A staff member you let invite can only invite staff.

Click Save. It applies the next time they open a page. Back to the usual manager permissions (or staff permissions) puts them back to their role at every location; click Save after it.

A few things stay the same whatever you choose:

• You, the owner, always have everything at every location, and only you can change what people can do.
• A manager or staff member you've limited (to some locations, or with a permission switched off) can't invite people, since a new person would start with more than they have.
• Someone limited to some locations can't change settings that cover every location, like your reply voice, sending hours or reply autopilot. They can still change their own notification choices and settings for their own locations.
• Someone limited to some locations can't connect, reconnect, disconnect or change the tools that work for the whole business: Google, Facebook, Square, texting registration and the Zapier API keys (they can't see the keys either). They can't pick which Facebook Page or Square location goes with a location, since that can move one off another location. They can still link the Yelp listing for their own locations and turn Square requests on or off for them. They also can't import locations, start a dispute case about your whole Google profile, or download the monthly recaps. Cases about reviews at their own locations still work.
• A manager limited to some locations gets the alert emails for their locations only: new reviews, flags, failed requests, text replies, private notes and the rest, with a daily digest and weekly summary that count their locations. Emails about the whole business, like the monthly recap and reconnecting Google, stay with you and managers with every location. Billing emails (a failed payment, the trial ending, a pause ending) follow Manage billing instead: anyone you've given it to gets them, wherever they work, and nobody without it does. See Choose your alerts.
• Every change is in Settings → Activity. Someone limited to some locations sees only the changes they made themselves there and on the dashboard, not the whole business's.

If you move from Group to another plan, or the plan ends, everyone goes back to their role's usual permissions at every location, and the choices are cleared. Nobody loses access they had from their role. If you come back to Group, choose again.

How many people

Solo is for one person, so it includes 1 team member who signs in: you. Duo includes 2. Crew and Group include as many as you need, and so does the free trial. Invites still waiting count toward the number, so cancel one you don't need to make room. Group also lets you choose locations and permissions for each person (above). The free trial has the usual roles only, unless you've started a trial of Group from Billing.