Roles: owners, administrators, members and guests

Everyone in an Organization has one role, and it decides what they can change. There are four kinds of person on the members list, and owners and administrators can move people between some of them.

The four kinds of person#

Owner. The person who created the Organization. The owner can do every administrative thing, and their role is fixed: nobody can demote them, and there is no way in the app to hand ownership to someone else. An owner who wants to step away while other people remain needs another owner to exist first (see Leaving, removing and closing).

Administrator. Someone the owner, or another administrator, has trusted with the same powers. Inside Rally, "administrator" means "owner or administrator" for every administrative action. The only things an administrator cannot do that the owner can are change the owner's role and remove the owner.

Member. An ordinary member of the team. Members can do everything the earlier chapters describe: start Channels and Spaces, work with Rally, build Sidekicks, connect their own tools, and use the connections the Organization shares. They cannot invite people or change Organization-wide settings.

Guest. Someone from outside who was invited into one conversation, as described in Sharing with people outside your Organization. A guest holds no role at all. They see only the conversations shared with them, and nothing else in the Organization.

Who can do what#

The exception: an owner who is the only owner cannot leave while other people are still in the Organization.

Members find most administrative controls missing or greyed out. The Invitations section and the Connect for organization buttons do not appear for them at all, and the time zone and internet access settings are shown read-only. If a teammate asks why they cannot find something, this is usually why.

The members list#

Open Settings → Organization and scroll to Members. Under the heading it says People with access to and your Organization's name, with a count of everyone on the list beside it.

Each row shows:

• the person's picture or initials,
• their name, with their email address underneath,
• a badge with their role: owner, admin or member, or Guest for a guest.

Everyone can see this list. Only owners and administrators see buttons on the rows.

Make someone an administrator#

1. Open Settings → Organization and find the person under Members.
2. Click Make administrator on their row.

Their badge changes to admin, and the change takes effect at once. Rally checks roles on every request, so they do not need to restart or sign in again.

To take the role away, click Remove administrator on the same row. Their badge goes back to member.

A few rows never show these buttons:

• The owner. Their role cannot be changed, so Rally shows no button rather than one that could only fail.
• People whose invitation is still pending. They are not members yet. Set the role on the invitation instead (see Inviting people).
• Guests. They get a different button, described next.

Rally also refuses to remove the last administrator. In practice the owner always counts, so you will rarely meet this.

Turn a guest into a member#

When a client or contractor becomes part of the team, you do not need to re-invite them. Their row in Members shows a Guest badge and a Make member button.

1. Click Make member on the guest's row.
2. A dialog titled Make guest a member explains that they will gain normal organization membership, and that their existing conversations and contributions stay with their account.
3. Click Make member to confirm, or Cancel.

They become an ordinary member, with the same history they had as a guest. Nothing they wrote is lost and none of their windows are closed. You can make them an administrator from there if you want to.

There is no button to turn a member back into a guest.