Administration
Teams & permissions
One-line summary: organise employees into teams, each with a leader and a chat group of its own, and grant every employee individually whatever they need out of 25 permissions spread across 9 groups.
Plan: Teams are available on every plan without exception. But creating, editing and deleting a team needs the "Manage teams" permission, and granting permissions or changing roles is the admin's alone. Start with Employees.
Overview
Duwam keeps three things apart that many people run together:
- The role — who you are in the system: "User" or "Admin".
- Permissions — 25 switches granted on top of the role, each one opening a door of its own.
- The team — a group of employees who share a kind of work (design, customer service, installation…).
A single employee can be in several teams at once. And a team is not a box of permissions: membership grants nothing and withdraws nothing. A team is a name work is assigned to, a chat group, and an area on the virtual office map.
Note: The team list is open to everyone who signs in to the company — team names and their members are not secret. What is withheld is changing them, not reading them.
Roles: "User" and "Admin"
| Role | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Admin" | Every permission inside their own company. They pass every gate by virtue of the role, before their permission list is read at all |
| "User" | Runs their work, logs their attendance and uses chat; anything beyond that comes from permissions alone |
| Platform admin | Outside the company: administers every company. The role is granted only by another platform admin, and any other attempt is refused |
Note: The "Role" list offers these two choices and nothing else. The old "Project manager" role is no longer granted from the interface at all, and survives in the system only for accounts created before that. In the employee list the role tag reads ACCOUNT-ADMIN or USER.
Where do I find teams?
Open the "Employees" row in the sidebar, then the "Teams" tab beside the "Employees" tab. The tab shows a pill carrying the number of teams, and a table with the columns "Name", "Leader" and "Members" — and until you have a team it reads "No data".
Note: There is no row called "Teams" in the sidebar — the way in always runs through the "Employees" row. And the getting-started checklist item "Create your first team" opens a separate teams page that has no sidebar row either; it does the same work of creating, editing and deleting, and when it cannot fetch the list it says "Couldn't load teams".
How do I create a team?
- From the "Teams" tab press "New team".
- Type the "Name" (required).
- Pick the "Leader" — a dropdown of every active employee, defaulting to "—", meaning no leader.
- Tick the team's "Members" from the checkboxes in the scrollable box.
- Leave "Create a chat group for this team" ticked (that is the default) or clear it.
- Press "Save"; "Saved" appears and the team is listed in the table.
Caution: Leave the "Name" empty and the team is not saved — you get the raw error code (missing_name) in a red alert instead of a readable message.
Tip: There is no ceiling on the number of teams, nor on a team's membership. The only limit is your plan's seats: Basic five seats, Professional and the trial twenty, Advanced fifty, Business one hundred, the Custom plan no limit — and when the ceiling is reached it is adding the employee that is refused, not creating the team. See Plans & billing.
The team's chat group
Creating a team with the chat box ticked automatically creates a chat group named after the team, whose members are whoever created the team along with the members and the leader, opened with a welcome message. That is what the hint under the box itself says: "Members and the leader will be added to a new group in Chat."
And the sync between a team and its group runs both ways:
- Renaming the team renames the group, and adding or removing a member on the team adds or removes them from the group.
- Equally: renaming the group from the conversation's settings renames the team, adding a person to the group joins them to the team, and taking them out of it takes them out of the team.
Caution: The group imposes on the name what the team does not: renaming a group is refused if the name runs past 80 characters, or if it is another group's name in the company. So pick a short, distinctive name from the start.
See Chat & messaging for the detail of managing groups.
What does a team leader actually hold?
The leader is an optional field, and their authority is three things with no fourth:
- They run their team's chat group — rename it, add and remove members, and moderate the channel, without being granted any permission.
- They see their members' deals if granted the "Team's deals" permission — their scope then widens from their own deals to the deals of every member of a team they lead. See Deals & pipeline.
- They are among the recipients of the WhatsApp message automation sends to the team.
Caution: The leader is not the first person responsible for the team's tasks, and has no priority on them. Nor do they approve their members' leave: approving is a permission in its own right, called "Approve leave", granted to whomever you please, leader or not. See Leave.
How do I edit a team's members?
From the team's row press the pencil icon, "Edit team". The same dialog opens with its three fields (without the chat box, which belongs to a new team alone), so you change the name or the leader, or tick and untick members, then "Save".
Caution: The member list you save replaces the previous one; it is not added to it. Whoever you untick leaves the team — and its chat group with it.
Points you will run into in this dialog:
- The picker does not show deactivated employees; anyone carrying the "Inactive" tag never appears to be added.
- The team's row in the table shows eight member chips at most, however large the team grows, with the full count written in text beside them.
- Removing a member from a team leaves them an employee with all their permissions; membership is one thing and permissions another.
- A team is one level: no sub-teams and no team inside a team. If you need a finer division, create a second team and put whoever you like in both.
How do I delete a team?
From the team's row press the bin icon, and the browser asks you "Delete team?".
Caution: That question is shorter than its consequence. Deleting removes the team, lifts the team off its members' files, and permanently deletes the team's chat group and every message in it. Export or copy whatever you need out of the group before deleting.
Note: Deleting does not touch tasks. A task or a stage that was assigned to the deleted team stays bound to a team that no longer exists, so review the team's tasks and reassign them before you delete it.
Binding teams to task stages
The great benefit of teams shows up in tasks of the "Pipeline task" type:
- From "Work" → "Tasks" create a new task and choose the "Pipeline task" type.
- In each stage's row pick the team responsible for it.
- A stage you leave without a team is marked with a visual warning and the text "Pick the owning team…" — but it does not block saving.
The stage then appears for every member of that team inside the "My tasks" screen, under the "My active stage" section: a section headed "Team queue: ‹team name›", carrying the number of items and the number of members, with the line "First to claim takes it. Once claimed, it disappears from everyone else." beneath it, and a "Claim this stage" button.
Tip: Whoever presses the button first wins and reads "I've claimed this stage", and the stage disappears for everyone else. That is why a stage is assigned to a team and not to a person: the queue distributes itself.
And to filter the admin board by team, open "Work" → "Tasks" → the filters → "Team"; the filter gathers both the tasks assigned to the team directly and the tasks one of whose stages belongs to it, and your choice is written into the page's link, so you can share it. See Tasks.
Note: Stages bound to teams belong to the task, not the project. See Projects for the project's own workflow.
Where else do teams show up?
- Pinned memos — address a memo to "A team" instead of a person or everyone, from the "Attendance" screen.
- Automation — a step that sends a WhatsApp message to every member of a given team, with its leader among them. See Automation & integrations.
- Virtual Office — the map is built out of the teams: every team with members becomes a desk area under its name, and whoever has no team sits in the "No team" area. See Virtual Office.
Note: Anyone who is a member of more than one team is seated on the map in the first team by creation order alone — they are not copied into two areas.
How do I grant an employee a permission?
- Open "Employees" → the "Employees" tab.
- Press the pencil icon, "Edit", in the employee's row.
- Choose "Permissions" from the dialog's side list (beside "Profile", "Work" and "Payment info"; a "GOSI / Saudi compliance" tab is on the roadmap and only shows for Saudi companies once enabled).
- Move between the nine groups in the top strip — each group carries a badge saying how many of its permissions are on out of its total.
- Flip the switch beside the permission, then "Save".
The counter at the top of the dialog reads "n / 25 Permissions", so you know where you stand against the total.
| Group | Permissions in it |
|---|---|
| "People & Teams" | Create employees · Edit employees · Manage teams |
| "Tasks & Projects" | Assign tasks · Approve tasks · Manage projects · Work orders |
| "Attendance" | Manage attendance · Approve leave |
| "Field Ops" | Manage field ops |
| "CRM" | Access CRM · All deals · Team's deals · Deal amounts · Export CRM data · CRM bulk actions |
| "Automation" | Manage automations · Use automations builder |
| "Reports & Billing" | View reports · Manage billing · Manage rewards |
| "Communication" | View all chats |
| "Accounting" | View the books · Post entries · Close periods |
Caution: The "Select all" and "Clear all" buttons act on the group in front of you alone, not on the twenty-five permissions. "Clear all" while you are in "Accounting" touches nothing in "CRM".
Tip: The employee need not sign out and back in. The moment you save, a "Your permissions were updated" notification reaches them with a body summarising what was added and what was withdrawn, and their session updates where it stands.
Administrative permissions are also what open the administrative rows in the employee's sidebar under the heading "Admin" — an employee without a single administrative permission does not see the "Employees" screen at all.
The six CRM permissions
The "CRM" group is the largest of them, and it holds things whose effect shows only in use:
| Permission | What it opens |
|---|---|
| "Access CRM" | View and manage contacts, companies and deals |
| "All deals" | Sees every deal in the company, not only those assigned to them |
| "Team's deals" | Sees the deals of the members of every team they lead, plus their own |
| "Deal amounts" | Sees amounts, totals and forecasts; without it they are stripped from every response |
| "Export CRM data" | Exports contacts and deals to a CSV file |
| "CRM bulk actions" | Messages, assigns, tags and deletes a whole selection in one request |
Caution: The "Access CRM" permission on its own no longer means export, nor bulk actions. Whoever held it alone has lost those two doors, and there is no automatic compensation — grant them "Export CRM data" and "CRM bulk actions" explicitly if they need them. Without those, the "Export selected" and "Export list (CSV)" buttons and the bulk-action bar disappear from the screen altogether.
FAQ
Q: How do I promote an employee to admin? A: Only the admin can change roles: "Employees" → the employee → "Edit" → "Profile" → "Role" → "Admin" → "Save".
Q: I granted the admin a permission and nothing changed. Why? A: Because "Admin" passes every gate by virtue of the role, before their permission list is read. Granting an admin a permission or withdrawing one has no effect — if you want to restrict them, change the role itself.
Q: My employee edits employee records, so why do they not see the "Permissions" pane? A: Because the "Edit employees" permission opens the profile and the work hours only — never roles, permissions or pay. So the "Permissions" and "Payment info" panes do not appear for them, and they cannot edit an admin's record at all.
Q: I deleted a team that had members. What happened? A: The members stay employees with all their permissions, and the team is lifted off their files. But the team's chat group was deleted along with every message in it, and the tasks that were assigned to it stayed bound to a team that no longer exists and need reassigning by hand.
Q: Can an employee be in more than one team? A: Yes, with no limit. The only consequence is that they are seated on the virtual office map in the first team by creation order only.
Q: I added a member in the edit dialog and the rest disappeared. Why? A: Because the member list in the dialog replaces rather than adds: what you save is the whole team. Make sure everyone you want is ticked before you save.
Q: I need an employee who can see reports without controlling projects. Possible? A: Yes. Keep them on the "User" role and grant them "View reports" alone. And for rewards: approving point-redemption requests comes from "Manage rewards", and there is no separate permission for payroll.
Q: I added an employee to the team's chat group. Are they on the team now? A: Yes. The sync runs both ways, so adding them to the group joins them to the team, and taking them out of it takes them out of it.
Q: Why can I not find some of my colleagues in the member picker? A: The picker does not show deactivated employees. Reactivate the employee from the "Employees" screen, then add them.
Quick reference
| Action | Path |
|---|---|
| Open teams | "Employees" → the "Teams" tab |
| Create a team | The "Teams" tab → "New team" → "Save" |
| Edit a team or its members | The team's row → the pencil icon, "Edit team" |
| Delete a team | The team's row → the bin icon → "Delete team?" |
| Create a chat group for the team | The "New team" dialog → "Create a chat group for this team" |
| Grant or withdraw a permission | "Employees" → the employee → "Edit" → "Permissions" |
| Turn a whole permission group on | The "Permissions" pane → the group → "Select all" / "Clear all" |
| Change an employee's role | "Employees" → the employee → "Edit" → "Profile" → "Role" |
| Bind a stage to a team | "Work" → "Tasks" → a new task → the "Pipeline task" type → "Pick the owning team…" |
| Claim your team's stage | "My tasks" → "Team queue" → "Claim this stage" |
| Filter tasks by team | "Work" → "Tasks" → the filters → "Team" |
| Address a pinned memo to a team | "Attendance" → pinned memos → "A team" |
| Team areas on the map | "Team Chat" → the "Virtual Office" tab |