Understanding the Roles of Project Team Members

Before getting started...in setting up a project that includes Others, you will be asked to identify a role for yourself. Your choices are Administrator, Manager, Supervisor, Client or Worker.

Administrators, Managers, Supervisors and Clients make up the "Management Team" on any Team project. There may be only one person on a Management Team - or there may be several in each role, though only one can be "active" as an approving contact per role on a project.

The "Active" approving contact in each role is a person who approves the time and/or expenses submitted by the team members. The others (the "inactive" Management Team members) can run team reports, but they have no approval rights. In other words, there is no limit to the size of a Management Team, but only four people - at most - can be "approvers" on each project since there are four different Management Team roles.

Generally, your role is determined by whether you report time or expenses, approve time or expenses - or review time or expenses submitted by others.

If you will be reporting time or expenses to a project but will not be reviewing time or expenses submitted by others on the project, your role will be “Worker” and you will be a Team Member on the project - as opposed to a Management Team member.

If you will be the recipient of time and expense submissions by team members on this project, then you want to identify yourself as an Administrator, a Manager, a Supervisor or a Client.
  • A Manager is usually a person in a supervisory role, collecting and approving reports from team members under his or her supervision. A Manager may or may not report time to the project. By default, a Manager will always have access to Billing information on reports and site pages, but will not see Cost information - unless these values are changed in project setup.
  • Supervisor is a new role, created for users who were looking for another "layer" of supervisory approval - beyond that of Manager. The addition of this role allows for more flexibility in structuring the team. A Supervisor may or may not report time to the project. Note that by default, a Supervisor will always have access to both Billing and Cost information on reports and on the site - unless these settings are changed during project setup.

  • An Administrator is usually a person in some central function, collecting time and expense data for further processing such as payroll or billing. The Administrator may or may not be required to "approve" the submitted data - depending on how the Originator of the project set things up. In general, an administrator would not be reporting time to the project, but it is possible. Note that by default, the Administrator will always have access to both Billing and Cost information on reports and on the site - unless these settings are changed during project setup.

  • Clients would not be reporting time to a project but may review and/or approve time and expense submissions from team members. They might want to generate reports directly from the TimeXchange site as well. Most often a Client would be invited to join a project rather than creating it, but the option to create a project does exist for a Client. By default, Clients only have access to Bill rates and billing information - unless these settings are changed during project setup.
The “Originator” is the person who creates the project and sets up the team. The Originator usually will choose one of these roles for himself - however, if the Originator is doing nothing more than setting up the project for use by others, there is an option of "Originator Only" that can be selected instead of one of the roles.

Note: The Originator – regardless of role - will always have access to all information associated with the project he or she creates – and is the only person who is able to edit the information associated with the project setup.

As a point of information, those of you who work independently - as a "Team of One" and select "Me Only" in project setup, will default to the role of 'Administrator', which gives you complete access to everything concerning the projects you originate. You are your own "Management Team".