User Management

Overview

PurposeTech has two kinds of account, and it helps to keep them apart:

They are separate accounts. A staff member who works in the admin portal and also coordinates an area has two accounts and signs in to each separately.

Role changes and team member removals are recorded with the admin who made them and a timestamp. See Audit trail.

Admin portal roles

Owner and Volunteer Admin are the only roles that can sign in to the admin portal. Add them under Organisation > Team Members.

Owner

Full access, including everything an Owner alone can see or change:

• Design (styles, brand colours, header and footer, custom CSS, registration form fields, onboarding flows)
• Settings (campaign and tenant settings, domains, API keys, Salesforce sync, documents)
• Creating tenants and campaigns
• Changing a team member's role and removing team members
• Setting someone's volunteer record to Volunteer Admin
• The Activity Map
• Email actions marked Owner-only in Email & Messaging, such as sending to a group

Give this role to the person who looks after the PurposeTech account and its integrations.

Volunteer Admin

Runs the campaign day to day:

• Volunteers: view and add volunteers, tags, private notes, roles, imports and exports, AI Search
• Calendar, campaign Overview, Shifts, Waitlist, Sites, Areas and Regions
• Reports
• Messaging: Email Templates and Email History
• Organisation: Team Members (see the list and add people) and AI Usage
• The roster pages on the volunteer site, including the At a glance view

A Volunteer Admin cannot open Design or Settings, and cannot change a team member's role or remove anyone.

Team Members page

Organisation > Team Members lists everyone with admin portal access. Click a person to open a panel with their recent activity, an audit timeline of their sign-ins and actions.

To add someone:

1. Scroll to Add Team Member below the table.
2. Enter their email address.
3. If you are an Owner, choose Owner or Volunteer Admin under Role. A Volunteer Admin's invite always goes out as Volunteer Admin.
4. Choose Add.

A Volunteer Admin can only add people whose email address is on the same domain as their own.

Adding someone creates their access straight away. PurposeTech does not send them a separate invitation, so tell them to go to the admin portal and sign in with that email address. They receive a sign-in link there.

An Owner can change a person's role from the dropdown on their row, or remove them. You cannot remove yourself. Removal takes away their admin portal access and they can be added back later. It does not touch any volunteer record they have on the campaign website.

Campaign website roles

These roles are set on a volunteer's record. They give access to the rosters on your volunteer site, not to the admin portal.

A Volunteer Admin on the website sees and edits rosters. It is not admin portal access.

Area Coordinator

The main role for people running a patch on the day. Area coordinators see the roster for the sites in their assigned areas, on the days they are assigned.

What they can do

• View the roster for each site in their areas, with volunteer contact details
• Add volunteers to shifts. Name and phone are enough on the day, and email is optional for an area coordinator
• Search existing volunteers by name when adding, or create a new record
• Move volunteers between shifts with the Move Tool
• Remove volunteers from shifts
• Reserve shifts for a group with Adopt-a-Site
• Export the roster as PDF or CSV, and download a site's consent form if one has been uploaded

What they can't do

• See sites outside their assigned areas
• Add private notes to volunteer records
• Change campaign settings, email templates or branding
• Use the At a glance view

Site Coordinator

Assigned to particular shifts at one or more sites, for locations that need their own lead. They work from the same roster page as area coordinators, limited to their assigned shifts. They can add and remove volunteers and export, and move volunteers only between shifts they are assigned to.

By default, assigning a site coordinator leaves the site open for public sign-ups, as an area coordinator assignment does. For Adopt-a-Site campaigns where the coordinator takes the whole site, an Owner can turn on Assigning a site coordinator reserves the site under Settings > Campaign Settings. Assigned shifts then read as full and the site drops off the public website.

Site Contact

A contact record against a site, with no access to anything. It holds a name, email and phone number for someone who knows the venue, such as a property manager. Admins set it in the Site Contact fields of the site's edit panel, or give a volunteer record the Site Contact role.

Giving someone a role

Make someone an Area Coordinator

From the volunteer:

1. Go to Volunteers and click the person's row to open their side panel.
2. On the Details tab, use the pencil beside Role, choose Area Coordinator and save.
3. Open the Areas tab that appears and choose Add area.
4. Pick the area and the days they cover, then choose Add. Repeat for each area.

Or from the area:

1. Go to Areas and click the area's row.
2. Open the Coordinators tab and choose Add Coordinator.
3. Search for the volunteer, pick the days, and choose Add.

Things to know:

• A coordinator can have several areas.
• Assignments are per day. Each row on the area's Coordinators tab is one person on one day, and the bin removes that day.
• Adding someone this way sets their role to Area Coordinator, replacing whatever role they had. Don't use it on a Volunteer Admin or site coordinator who should keep their role.
• The person receives the Area coordinator registers email.
• When an area coordinator is removed from all of their areas, their role goes back to Volunteer.

Make someone a Site Coordinator

1. On Volunteers, open the person's side panel.
2. On Details, set Role to Site Coordinator and save.
3. Open the Sites tab that appears and choose Assign Sites.
4. Pick their sites and shifts, then confirm.

Or start from the site: open Sites, open the site, go to the Coordinators tab and choose Assign Coordinator. The picker only lists volunteers who already have the Site Coordinator role. Nothing stops two coordinators being assigned to the same shift, so check the tab first if you want one per shift.

To take a site coordinator off a site or shift, open their volunteer panel. The site's Coordinators tab lists them and has a View button that opens that panel.

Coordinators who sign up themselves

Where a campaign runs an Area Coordinator sign-up page, new coordinators can register themselves. Their onboarding status then decides whether they can reach rosters. While it is In review, Onboarding or Declined, they see "Your account is awaiting approval". An admin changes the status from the volunteer's record.

Delegation patterns

Small event (1 to 5 sites)

• One Volunteer Admin or Owner manages everything from the admin portal
• No coordinators needed

Regional event (10 to 50 sites)

• 1 or 2 admins for setup and oversight
• A handful of area coordinators, each looking after 5 to 15 sites
• Admins keep an eye on gaps and reports

National campaign (100 to 500+ sites)

• 2 or 3 admins for setup, email and national reporting
• 15 to 25 area coordinators, each with 15 to 40 sites
• A few site coordinators for the busiest or most complex locations
• Admins use the At a glance view for national oversight

Organisation with several programmes

• An Owner who looks after tenants, settings and integrations
• A Volunteer Admin per programme or campaign
• Coordinators assigned per campaign

Onboarding coordinators

When someone becomes a coordinator, they sign in on your volunteer site, not in the admin portal. Tell them:

1. Sign in with your email. You'll be sent a sign-in link. There is no password.
2. You'll see your own sites. Your Rosters page lists only the sites you coordinate.
3. What you can do. Add walk-ins, move volunteers and export a PDF.
4. Export before you leave. Phone reception at some sites is unreliable.

Signing in

Nobody has a password, in the admin portal or on the volunteer site.

1. Enter your email address.
2. Open the sign-in link sent to that address.
3. You're signed in.

A link requested on the sign-in page expires after 15 minutes. The link inside an automated email lasts 24 hours.

Session length. A session lasts 24 hours from sign-in, then the person signs in again. Bookings and data are not affected. Switching tenant does not extend it.

Passkeys. Admin portal users can add a passkey (Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello) under My Account > Security and sign in with it instead of waiting for an email. Passkeys are added and removed on that page only. See Login & Authentication for troubleshooting.

Bulk importing volunteers

To load volunteers from a spreadsheet instead of waiting for sign-ups:

1. Go to Volunteers and choose Import CSV (Import Users from CSV on a small screen).
2. Choose Download Template to get the CSV format.
3. Fill in the file:

4. Upload the file. A preview checks every row:
   • Red rows have errors, such as an invalid email or phone number
   • Orange rows match a volunteer already in this tenant by email
   • Blue text shows where the file differs from the existing record
5. Tick the rows to import, then choose Import.

Only new volunteers are created, each as a Volunteer on the current campaign. Existing volunteers are not overwritten. The import does not assign shifts and does not send email, so use your normal sign-up or email sends afterwards.

If you end up with the same person twice, a volunteer record can be merged into another from the Volunteers page.

Audit trail

PurposeTech records changes made in the admin portal, including:

• Adding a team member, changing their role and removing them
• Creating, changing and deleting volunteers, sites, areas, regions, shifts, tags and events
• Adding volunteers to shifts
• Publishing sign-up flows
• Resolving sync conflicts

Admins can see the history for a person or record in its side panel. Each entry shows who did what and when. Owners also see where the action came from. Sign-ins and other events appear in the same activity timeline.

Common questions

What roles are there?

See the Glossary for definitions.

Can an area coordinator look after more than one area?

Yes. They see the sites in every area they are assigned to, on the days they are assigned.

What is the difference between a site coordinator and a site contact?

A site coordinator has roster access to their shifts. A site contact has no access and is only a name, email and phone number kept against a site.

Can I change someone's role?

Team members: an Owner changes the role on Team Members. Website roles: an admin changes Role on the volunteer's side panel. Only an Owner can choose Volunteer Admin there.

What happens when I remove a coordinator?

Taking an area coordinator off their last area returns them to Volunteer. They lose roster access and keep their volunteer account and bookings.

How many coordinators do I need?

As a guide, an area coordinator looks after 10 to 40 sites.

Next steps

• Login & Authentication – sign-in problems
• Organisation Setup – tenant configuration
• Roster Management – how coordinators use the roster on the day