Invite a colleague to your workspace and assign the right access

TL;DR — To add a colleague, open your workspace members area, send an invite to their email address, and pick the smallest role that still lets them do their job. If you are unsure which role to choose, start with a non-admin role and promote them later. Reading time: ~5 min

Goal

When you finish, your colleague will have a pending or accepted invitation to your workspace, and their account will have a clearly chosen role that controls what they can view, edit, or manage.

Prerequisites

• Your workspace login
• A role with permission to manage members, usually Owner or Admin
• Your colleague's email address
• A short decision on what they need to do: view only, edit content, manage billing, or manage users
• Access to your provider's dashboard in a web browser
• Optional: your identity provider (IdP, your company login system such as Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID, or Okta) if your workspace uses single sign-on (SSO, sign-in through your company login)

Steps

Step 1: Open the workspace members page

In your provider's dashboard, go to the workspace you want to share, then open the members area. The exact label varies by product, but it is usually one of these paths:

• Dashboard → Workspace → Members
• Dashboard → Settings → Members
• Dashboard → Settings → Users
• Dashboard → Access → Team

If your provider has both an organization-level and workspace-level members page, choose the one for the specific workspace you want your colleague to access.

What you should see when this succeeds: a page listing current members, pending invites, or a button such as Invite member, Add user, or Invite teammate.

Step 2: Start a new invitation

Click the button labeled one of the following:

• Invite member
• Add user
• Invite teammate
• New invitation

Enter your colleague's email address exactly, for example:

alex@example.com

If the form allows multiple emails, enter one per line only if you want all of them to receive the same role.

What you should see when this succeeds: the email field accepts the address and the role selector becomes available.

Step 3: Choose the lowest role that fits the job

Pick the role from the role dropdown. Use the smallest access level that still lets the person do their work.

Use this table to choose:

If your product shows permission checkboxes instead of roles, select only the exact permissions needed. For example:

Can view: Yes
Can edit: Yes
Can invite members: No
Can manage billing: No
Can delete workspace: No

What you should see when this succeeds: the selected role appears next to the email address in the invite form.

Step 4: Send the invitation

Click the final action button, usually one of these:

• Send invite
• Invite
• Add member
• Create invitation

If the product asks for confirmation, click:

Confirm

What you should see when this succeeds: the person appears in the members list with a status such as Pending, Invited, or Awaiting acceptance.

Step 5: If your workspace uses SSO, confirm the email domain matches

If your team signs in through a company login provider, the invited email address usually must match the company's allowed domain. Check the email address before your colleague tries to accept.

Use the exact email format your company uses, for example:

alex@example.com

not:

alex@gmail.com

If your provider has an SSO settings page, check one of these paths:

• Dashboard → Settings → Authentication → SSO
• Dashboard → Security → Single sign-on
• Dashboard → Organization → Authentication

What you should see when this succeeds: the invited email domain matches the allowed sign-in domain shown in your authentication settings, or there is no SSO restriction enabled.

Step 6: Tell your colleague exactly what to do

Send your colleague a short message so they know which email to look for and which sign-in method to use.

Copy and send this text, replacing the placeholders:

Hi Alex — I invited you to the workspace "Marketing" using alex@example.com.
Please open the invite email and click Accept invitation.
If you normally sign in with company SSO, use the "Continue with SSO" option and the same email address.

What you should see when this succeeds: your colleague confirms they received the invite email or can see the invitation after signing in.

Step 7: Adjust the role after acceptance if needed

After your colleague accepts, reopen the members page and review their role. If they cannot do a needed task, change only that user's role instead of giving broad admin access.

In the members list, open the action menu next to their name, then use one of these paths:

• Members → [User] → Role → Member
• Members → [User] → Edit access → Viewer
• Members → [User] → Permissions → Admin

Choose the new role and save.

What you should see when this succeeds: the updated role appears next to the user's name immediately or after a page refresh.

Verify it works

Check all three of these items:

1. In Dashboard → Workspace → Members (or your provider's equivalent), your colleague appears with one of these statuses:

Accepted
Active
Joined

1. Ask your colleague to sign in and confirm they can open the workspace.

2. Ask them to try one action they should be allowed to do and one they should not. For example:

• Allowed: open the project list, edit a document, or update a task
• Not allowed: open billing, invite another member, or delete the workspace

Expected result: the allowed action works, and the restricted action is hidden or shows a permission error such as:

You do not have permission to perform this action.

Common pitfalls

Inviting the wrong email address

Mistake: sending the invite to a personal email instead of the colleague's work email.

Symptom: the person cannot accept the invite with SSO, or they join under the wrong account.

Fix: delete the pending invite and send a new one to the exact company email they use to sign in.

Choosing Admin when Member would do

Mistake: giving broad admin access because it seems faster.

Symptom: the colleague can change settings, invite users, or access billing when they should not.

Fix: change their role in Members → [User] → Role to Member, Editor, or Viewer.

Looking in the organization members page instead of the workspace members page

Mistake: adding the user at the wrong level.

Symptom: the colleague can sign in but cannot see the specific workspace, or they have access to more workspaces than intended.

Fix: open the target workspace first, then use its own Members or Access page.

The invite email never arrives

Mistake: assuming the system failed before checking spam, junk, or mail filtering.

Symptom: the invite stays in Pending and your colleague says they received nothing.

Fix: ask them to search for the workspace name in spam or junk, then use Resend invite from the pending invitation row.

SSO domain mismatch

Mistake: inviting an address outside the allowed company domain.

Symptom: the user clicks the invite link but gets bounced back to sign-in or sees an access denied message.

Fix: resend the invite to an email address on the allowed domain shown in Authentication or SSO settings.

Changing a role but the old access still appears

Mistake: testing immediately in a browser session that still has cached permissions.

Symptom: the user still sees old menu items or still gets blocked after you changed the role.

Fix: have the user sign out, close the tab, sign back in, and refresh the workspace once.

This article was written by an AI system and published pending human review. Verify anything you intend to act on.