---
title: How to invite your team and set up departments
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/get-started/invite-your-team
description: Build your departments first, then invite people straight into them, and send them the link yourself.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# How to invite your team and set up departments



Do this in one order: **departments first, then people.** Departments are the shape almost
every permission in Tideswell is checked against, and inviting somebody into the right team on
day one saves them coming back to ask.

## Before you start [#before-you-start]

Both jobs live in **Settings**, which is admin-only. If you created the workspace, you are its
owner and an admin automatically.

## Why departments before people? [#why-departments-before-people]

Because a department is not filing. It decides who can edit what.

Nearly every task, project and planning permission is checked against the **record's own**
department, so the same person can be a lead in Marketing and a plain member in Warehouse. That
is the single most useful thing to understand about the product, and
<Ref to="concepts/who-can-do-what" /> explains it in full.

Invite somebody with no departments and they sign in to a workspace with very little in it.

## How do you create a department? [#how-do-you-create-a-department]

**Settings › Departments**, then create one. Name it, pick a colour and an icon, choose its
starting members and leads, and set its sub-task defaults, all in one dialog.

Make one per real team: Marketing, Production, Warehouse. Not one per project, because projects
end and departments do not.

Full detail, including what a team calls the things it plans, is in
<Ref to="workspace-admin/departments" />.

## How do you invite somebody? [#how-do-you-invite-somebody]

**Settings › Members › Invite member**. Type their email, choose **Member** or **Admin**, tick
the departments they join, and flip **Lead** for any team they should lead.

Do the departments now. It is the difference between somebody being able to work when they sign
in and somebody having to ask you for access.

## Then send them the link yourself [#then-send-them-the-link-yourself]

**Tideswell reserves the seat rather than emailing them.** The confirmation tells you to have
them sign in at your workspace's address with the invited email.

This is the step people forget, and it is the usual reason a new starter is sitting waiting on
their first morning. Send the link.

Two things to tell them when you do:

* **Sign in with exactly this email address.** A personal address instead lands them in
  Tideswell with no workspace and a create-one screen, rather than joining yours.
* Point them at <Ref to="get-started/find-your-way-around" />.

An invite lasts 14 days, and there can be one pending invite per address at a time.

## Who should be an admin? [#who-should-be-an-admin]

Very few people. Admin is what opens **Settings**, and most of what people ask to be made admin
for is actually a permission row that can be set to lead instead, per
<Ref to="workspace-admin/permissions" />.

**Lead** is not in the role dropdown. Somebody becomes a lead by having the **Lead** switch
turned on for a department, and lead sits between member and admin.

## What happens when they sign in? [#what-happens-when-they-sign-in]

They land straight in the workspace with their role and departments already applied. They never
see the setup wizard, which belongs to whoever created the workspace.

If an invite fails to apply on a first sign-in, they are still signed in but with no workspace,
and the screen tells them to reload and ask an admin.

## What if somebody leaves? [#what-if-somebody-leaves]

Deactivate them from the roster, which removes their access immediately. Read the confirmation:
it is not something the roster undoes.

Before you do, check whether they own any workflows, since a workflow acts with its owner's
access. See <Ref to="workspace-admin/members-and-roles" />.