Understand Users, Roles and Employees

Five settings decide who someone is in Ante, what they can open, who they answer to, and whether payroll knows about them: the department, the user levels, the role, the Reports To line, and the employee record. They live on different screens and are easy to mix up. This tutorial explains what each one is, sets them up in the right order with one worked example, and shows what each setting changes.

Before you start

You need access to these screens (an administrator usually has all of them):

Settings → Users & Access — Departments, User Levels, Roles and Users.
Manpower → Employees → HRIS — to add employees.

The example used throughout. It uses the default roles and user levels every new company starts with:

Roles: Super Admin (level 0, full access), HR Manager and Accountant (level 1), HR Staff (level 2) and Employee (level 3).
User levels: HR Viewer (9 permissions) and Leave Approver (10 permissions), both in the Manpower module.
People: Maria is the HR Manager. Ben joins as HR Staff and reports to Maria.

Info

A new company's roles carry no user levels yet — on purpose, so nobody receives permissions by accident. The defaults above appear on the User Levels page when you click Seed Default Data on an empty list.

The four building blocks

Each building block answers a different question. Keep the questions apart and the setup stays simple.

Building block	What it is	Question it answers	How many per person	Where you set it
User Level	A named pack of permissions for one module, such as "HR Viewer" for Manpower.	What can be opened, created, edited, approved or exported?	None directly — a person gets user levels only through their role.	User Levels
Role (inside a Department)	The job position. It belongs to one department, sits at a level in the company hierarchy, and carries a set of user levels.	What is this person's job, how senior is it, and which permissions come with it?	Exactly one. Every user must have a role.	Roles and Departments
Reports To	A line from one person to their direct supervisor (also labelled Supervisor).	Who approves this person's requests, and who looks after their attendance?	Zero or one supervisor.	On the user (Users) or the employee (Employee Records)
Employee record	The HR file: employee ID, contract and monthly rate, branch, schedule, payroll group, government and bank numbers.	Is this person on the payroll, and on what terms?	Zero or one. A user can exist without one; an employee is always also a user.	Employee Records (HRIS)

How they connect

Read each row as one link in the chain:

From	Link	To	What it means
Department	contains	Roles	Every role belongs to one department. A person's department is the department of their role.
Role	carries	User Levels	A role can carry several user levels, usually one per module.
User Levels	add up to	Permissions	The person's permissions are all the permissions of all their role's user levels, each counted once. A Full Access role skips this and has every permission.
Role	has a parent	Role	The role chart: positions, not people. A parent role is always more senior (a lower level number).
User	reports to	User	The people chart: who approves whom. The Reports To list only offers people who hold one of the parent roles above the person's role, or a level-0 role.
User	may have	Employee record	Adding an employee in HRIS creates both the user and the employee record in one step.

Tip

Two charts, two jobs. The role chart (Parent Role) controls who may see and manage whom on the settings screens. The people chart (Reports To) controls who approves requests. Setting one does not set the other.

Step 1: Create the department

Departments group roles, and an employee's department comes from their role. Every role needs one, so create departments first. A new company already has an Administration department holding the admin role: when someone signs up, they become the Company Administrator (level 1, full access). Level 0 is reserved for Multibook staff.

Open Settings → Users & Access → Departments and click Actions → Add Role Group
Name*
The department's name, for example Human Resources. It appears under each role in the role chart and on employee screens.
Code
Optional, up to 10 letters, numbers, dots, dashes or underscores (for example HR). Only needed when you sync departments with Multibook.
Description
Optional notes on what the department does.
Click Create Department. Result: "Department created successfully", and the department is now offered in the Department field of every role.

Step 2: Build the user levels

A user level is a reusable permission pack for one module. Build packs around jobs ("can approve leave", "can view HR records") rather than around people, so one pack serves many roles.

Open Settings → Users & Access → User Levels and add a user level
Label*
The pack's name as it appears when you attach it to a role, for example Leave Approver.
System Module*
The module the pack covers (Manpower, Treasury, Settings and so on). It decides which permissions the tree below offers. Changing it clears the permissions you already ticked.
Description
Optional. What the pack is for.
Permissions*
A tree built from the module's menu. Each page has its own rows for view, create, update, delete, approve and export. Ticking a page ticks everything under it. You must tick at least one, and you can only tick permissions you hold yourself.

On its own a user level does nothing — nobody has it until it is attached to a role in Step 3. When a role carries several user levels, a permission shared by two packs is counted once:

Ben's permissions: HR Staff carries HR Viewer + Leave Approver

HR Viewer		9 permissions
Leave Approver	+	10 permissions
Shared by both packsManpower access, Manpower reports, leave balance report — counted once	−	3 permissions
Permissions Ben holds	=	16 permissions

With Full Access ticked on the role instead, the user levels are ignored and the role holds every permission in the system.

Step 3: Create the role

The role ties everything together: the department, the seniority level, the position in the role chart, and the user levels that grant permissions.

Open Settings → Users & Access → Roles and click Add Role
Name*
The job title, for example HR Staff.
Department*
The department from Step 1. Everyone holding this role is in this department, and approval rules can be set per department.
Level*
The seniority rank: 0 is the top, and larger numbers are more junior (up to 99). It starts one below your own level, and you cannot choose your own level or anything above it. Several roles can share a level (HR Manager and Accountant are both level 1).
Parent Role
The role this one sits under in the role chart. It must be more senior (a lower level number); roles that cannot be a parent are greyed out with the reason. Leave it empty for a top-level role. It also decides who is offered in the Reports To list for people holding this role.
Position rank
Executive, Director, Manager, Senior or Staff (default Staff). A job-title grade that approval rules and assignee pickers can target. It is separate from Level.
Full Access
Grants every permission and lets the holder manage every role and user. Leave it off for everyone except the company owner.
Description
Optional. The role's responsibilities.
Permissions
The user levels this role carries, grouped by module. Tick a module to take all its user levels. You can only attach user levels whose permissions you hold.
For the example: Name HR Staff, Department Human Resources, Level 2, Parent Role HR Manager, user levels HR Viewer and Leave Approver. Click Create Role. Result: anyone given HR Staff holds the 16 permissions from Step 2.
1. 1Level — 0 is the most senior
2. 2Parent Role — the role chart
3. 3Permissions — tick the user levels

The level is not cosmetic. It decides what each administrator sees and manages on the settings screens:

What Maria (HR Manager, level 1) can do with each role

Role (level)	Sees it in lists	Can edit or delete it	Can give it to someone	Names of its holders
Super Admin (0)	No	No	No — above her level	Read "Restricted"
Accountant (1) — a peer	Yes	No	No — her own level	Shown
HR Manager (1) — her own role	Yes	No	No — her own level	Shown
HR Staff (2)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Shown
Employee (3)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Shown

Rule: you see your own level and below, but manage only strictly below. A Full Access role ignores all of these limits. Giving a role also requires holding every permission it grants.

Step 4: Check the role org chart

On the Roles page, click Organizational Chart. Each box is a role with its department underneath, arranged by Parent Role.

Review and rearrange the role chart
- Drag a role onto another to change its parent, then confirm Move. Dropping it on the company box makes it top-level.
- Click a role to see its department, level, description and number of direct reports, with Edit and Delete.
- Deleting a role moves its child roles up to the deleted role's parent. A level-0 role cannot be deleted.

Info

This chart shows positions only. To see who reports to whom, use the people chart in Step 6. The Departments page opens the same role chart from its Actions menu.

Step 5: Add the person

Now give the role to a person. Choose the screen by one question: will this person be paid through Ante payroll?

Which screen to use

Add the person on	Creates a user	Creates an employee record	Use it for
Manpower → HRIS → Add Employee	Yes	Yes	Staff on the payroll, with attendance and filings
Settings → Users → Actions → Add User	Yes	No	Outside accountants, auditors, consultants, system users

A user created in Settings can become an employee later: in HRIS, set the Status filter to Not Yet Set, or pick Link Existing Account on Add Employee.

Adding an employee in HRIS

Open Manpower → Employees → HRIS and click Add Employee
The fields that connect the employee to the building blocks above:
Account Type
Create New Account (default) makes a new user. Link Existing Account turns an existing user who is not yet an employee into one, filling in their role and supervisor.
Employee ID*
The HR file number. It belongs to the employee record, not the user.
Username, Email Address, Date of Birth*
The sign-in details of the new user. The employee chooses their own password through an activation link.
Send activation email now
Off by default. Leave it off to prepare the record quietly; send the invitation later from Settings → User Invite. Until the employee activates, they cannot sign in.
Role/Position*
The role from Step 3. It decides the employee's department, level and permissions.
Reports To
The direct supervisor. Pick the role first: the list then offers the people holding the parent roles above it, plus level-0 executives. Changing the role clears it.
Branch, Schedule, Payroll Group*
Employee-record settings. The branch also limits what by-branch timekeepers can see.
Monthly Rate, Employment Status, Start Date*
The first contract, used by payroll.
For the example: Ben, Role/Position HR Staff, Reports To Maria. Click Create Employee. Result: Ben appears in HRIS and in Settings → Users, with role HR Staff and Reports To Maria.

Adding a user who is not an employee

Open Settings → Users & Access → Users and click Actions → Add User
First Name, Last Name, Email, Username*
Who the person is and how they sign in.
Role*
The role from Step 3. Each option shows its department.
Supervisor
The same Reports To line as on the employee form, filtered the same way. Unlocks once a role is picked.
Temporary Password, Confirm Password*
A first password you hand over. The user must change it the first time they sign in.
Click Create User. Result: the user can sign in with the role's permissions, but does not appear in HRIS, attendance or payroll.

Step 6: Check the reporting line

On the Users page, open Actions → Organizational Chart. This is the people chart: each box is a person with their role and username, placed under their Reports To.

Review and fix who reports to whom
- Drag a person onto someone else to change their supervisor, then confirm Move.
- Click a person for their role, username and number of direct reports, with View Profile, Add Subordinate (opens Add User with the supervisor filled in) and Delete.
- A person with people reporting to them cannot be deleted until those people are reassigned.

The Reports To line decides what happens when Ben files a leave request:

Ben files a leave request (no custom approval rules)

Ben's Reports To	Who must approve	What happens
Maria	Maria	Maria is notified that a request is waiting for her approval.
Empty	Nobody	The request is held. Ben and the Full Access administrators are told "the employee has no superior recorded". It is never auto-approved.

Maria also gets read access to Ben's attendance and filings because she is his direct supervisor — even without company-wide timekeeping permissions.

What each setting controls

When something looks wrong, find the symptom here and change the matching setting:

Symptom	Setting to check	Where
A menu or button is missing for someone	The user levels on their role (or a missing permission inside one)	Roles, User Levels
An administrator cannot see or edit a user or role	Role level — they manage only strictly below their own level	Roles
A name shows as "Restricted"	That person's role is more senior than yours	Users
A request went to the wrong approver, or is on hold	The filer's Reports To, or the approval rules	Users, Approval Configuration
The person I want is not in the Reports To list	The Parent Role chain above the person's role	Roles
The wrong department shows for an employee	The department of their role	Departments
Someone signs in but is missing from payroll or attendance	They have no employee record	Employee Records (HRIS)

Common mix-ups

Level vs user level. A role's Level is a seniority number. A User Level is a permission pack. They are unrelated despite the similar names.
Parent Role vs Reports To. Parent Role arranges positions; Reports To names a person. The Parent Role only limits who can be picked as Reports To — it never fills it in.
Level vs Position rank. Level controls who manages whom on the settings screens. Position rank is a job-title grade used by approval rules and pickers.
Permissions belong to the role. To change what one person can do, give them a different role. Editing their role's user levels changes everyone who holds that role.
A peer is visible, not manageable. Two level-1 managers can see each other but cannot edit each other. Only someone more senior, or a Full Access user, can.

Warning

Do not give Full Access to make a problem go away. It grants every permission and every management right, and it overrides all the limits on this page.

Where to go next

Onboard a New Employee — finish Ben's setup: leave, allowances, schedule.
File and Approve a Leave Request — see the Reports To line at work.
Approval Configuration — replace the default "Immediate superior" approval with stages by role, rank or named approver.
Add a User and Set Permissions — inviting users, and removing access when someone leaves.

Understand Users, Roles and Employees#

Before you start#

The four building blocks#

How they connect#

Step 1: Create the department#

Step 2: Build the user levels#

Step 3: Create the role#

Step 4: Check the role org chart#

Step 5: Add the person#

Adding an employee in HRIS#

Adding a user who is not an employee#

Step 6: Check the reporting line#

What each setting controls#

Common mix-ups#

Where to go next#