Why a button or section is missing

Tideswell usually hides what you cannot use rather than showing it greyed out. When an area of the menu, a page or a button you expected is not there, the cause is almost always one of two settings: a module switched off for the whole workspace on Settings › Modules, or a permission the person does not hold on Settings › Permissions.

This page works down from the menu to a single button. Troubleshooting Tideswell has the order to check things in.

Is it just folded away?

Check the menu first. It starts collapsed to a column of icons and opens while your mouse rests on it, and only one area shows its pages at a time. A page under Buying stays out of sight while Work is open.

Click an area's name to fold its pages open, or press Keep menu open to pin the menu wide. How to find your way around covers the menu in full.

Is a whole area missing?

Then it is a module or a permission, and for Selling and Buying it is usually the permission. An area appears only while at least one of its pages is open to you, so it disappears when every page in it is hidden.

• Selling and Buying both need the Store module. They also need at least one of three rows: View suppliers, View purchase orders and the buying calendar, or the row that opens sales, inventory, reports and the daily brief. All three are lead by default, so a member who leads no department sees neither area, even with Store on.
• Wholesale needs the Wholesale orders module.
• Objects shows one row for each Object you can view, and disappears when there are none. An Object called Repairs needs Repairs · View. See How to set who can see and edit an Object.
• Brain shows Decisions, Automations and Workflows, each with its own permission (see the next section). A member usually sees only Workflows there.
• Settings, at the foot of the menu, is for admins only. No permission row opens it to anyone else.
• The Agent sparkle on the right edge of the page needs Use the agent, which is member by default.

Chat and Work are always there, and so is Customers › Outreach. On Settings › Modules, Chat and Tasks show Always on.

Is one page missing from an area?

Then it is usually a module. An admin checks Settings › Modules, per How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.

• Purchase orders off removes Purchase orders, Bills, Approvals and Buying calendar from Buying, and Stock value from Selling.
• Suppliers off removes Buying › Suppliers.
• Reports, Special orders and Forecasting each remove one page from Selling. Forecasting's page is Selling › Demand.
• Invoices off removes Wholesale › Invoices.
• Documents off removes Work › Documents.
• Customers off removes Customers › Customers. Outreach stays.
• Decisions off removes Brain › Decisions.
• Automations off removes both Brain › Automations and Brain › Workflows.
• Inventory off removes Selling › Counts, which also needs Store.

Some pages also need a permission of their own, on top of the module:

• Buying › Bills needs View bills, lead by default.
• Brain › Decisions needs View decisions, lead by default.
• Brain › Automations needs Manage automations, admin by default.
• Brain › Workflows needs View workflows, member by default.
• Selling › Counts needs View stock counts, member by default.

If someone can open Buying › Suppliers but Selling › Analytics shows a padlock, they hold View suppliers and not See sales, inventory, reports and the daily brief.

Is the page there but one button missing?

Then it is a permission. Permissions are separate rows, so holding one tells you nothing about the next. You can open a list and have no button to add to it, or read a record and have no way to change it.

Each Object your workspace defines has four rows, for example Repairs · View, Repairs · Create, Repairs · Update and Repairs · Archive. Built-in areas split the same way: View suppliers and Edit suppliers are two different rows.

On Selling › Counts, four things each need a row of their own:

• New count needs Start stock counts, lead by default.
• Approve and post needs Approve stock counts and post them to Shopify, lead by default.
• The Due and Shrink tabs, and a count's numbers and dollars, need View inventory. Without it the review reads "You can see this count, but not the stock numbers or dollars. Ask an admin for inventory access to review it."
• Count settings, at the foot of the Due tab, shows only to people who hold Rename organization, admin by default.

See How to count your stock.

Work out which row you are short of, using How to work out who can do what in your workspace, before asking an admin. "I need Repairs · Create" gets fixed in a minute.

Is it there on one task and missing on the next?

Then it is the department. On tasks, projects and the work planned inside a project, a lead permission counts only in a department the person leads.

If Priya Raman leads one department and is a member of another, she gets a lead's controls on the first department's tasks and a member's controls on the second's. Check which department the task belongs to, then her standing in that department on Settings › Members, per How to add people and set roles.

Which controls appear only some of the time?

Four things appear only under certain conditions, so they can look missing when nothing is wrong.

A starter topic missing from the Agent. An empty Agent chat shows only the topics whose module is switched on and that you have permission to see. Press + › Saved prompts in the message box to reach every digest and saved prompt, as How to reuse a question: starters, skills, digests and saved prompts shows.

The Home Page Banner section missing from a task. It appears only while the task carries an unfinished Home Page Banner subtask. See How to schedule a homepage banner.

No Recurring section on a department page. It shows to people who hold Set tasks to repeat, lead by default, once the department has at least one repeating task. See How to make a task repeat.

No Close short or Reopen on a purchase order. Both sit in the order's ⋯ menu and need Change stock, receiving and store settings, lead by default. Close short appears while an order is partly received and Reopen once it has been closed short, so you never see both (see How to receive a delivery).

What if it is there but greyed out?

Then Tideswell has a reason, and it tells you when you hover over it.

• A purchase order stage you cannot pick yet says why, such as Needs approval first.
• Assign on a bulk selection reads Select tasks from a single department to assign them when the tasks come from more than one department.
• The Edit these permissions row on Settings › Permissions reads Locked to admin to prevent lockout.

Greyed out with a reason is a message, so act on what it says.