Every team member has one of three roles. The role controls what they can see and change.
The three roles
Owner
The person who signed up. Has full access to everything in the org:
- Build, edit, and publish schedules at any location
- Add, edit, remove employees
- Invite, edit, remove other team members
- Configure billing and view invoices
- Manage rules, tags, break policies, holidays
- Connect and disconnect integrations
- Configure SMS / email templates
Only owners see the Billing nav item. There's typically just one owner per org, but you can have more — invite someone with the "Owner" role.
Manager
A team member who runs day-to-day scheduling. Has access to:
- Build, edit, and publish schedules at locations they're assigned to
- Add, edit, remove employees at those locations
- Approve / deny / edit time-off requests
- View schedule rules (read-only)
- Use Smart Copy and AI Scheduler
- View analytics (Business+ plan)
What they can't do:
- See or change billing
- Edit / create / delete schedule rules
- Connect or disconnect integrations
- Edit SMS / email templates
- Access locations they're not assigned to
Employee
The default for anyone who's just on the roster. They don't typically log in to the web app — they get their schedule by email and SMS, and can text the Timely number to request time off.
If an employee does log in, they see a read-only view of their own schedule. They can't see other employees' shifts.
Assigning roles
When you invite a new team member (Settings → Team → "Invite team member"), you pick:
- Role — owner, manager, or employee
- Locations — which ones they have access to (managers and employees only; owners always see all)
For an employee who's already on the roster but should also have login access, the invite flow finds them by email and links the new profile to the existing employee row. No data duplication — see Employees vs. profiles for the model.
Changing a role later
Settings → Team, find the team member, click the role dropdown. Changes take effect immediately on their next page load.
What about SMS commands?
Time-off requests via SMS (Text-to-Timely) are tied to the employee's phone number, not their role. An employee on the roster with no login at all can still text the Timely number and have a time-off request show up in your manager inbox. See Text-to-Timely.