Inviting users

Add a teammate to your organization. CartonCrew emails them the invitation; they sign in with the address you invited, and on first sign-in as staff they set up two-factor authentication.

Who this is for: Owner or Admin only. The invite button is gated on the role, not on a capability — no tick box gives it to anyone else.

If you are a Viewer, an Editor or a gallery role

“I’m a Viewer (or an Editor) — how do I invite a teammate, or make someone an Admin?” The answer is that you can’t, so there are no steps to follow.

You cannot invite anyone, and you cannot make anyone an Admin. The steps below do not work for you: your Users screen has no + Invite member button, shows every row with a role badge only, and says “Only owners and admins can change roles and what people can do, or deactivate users.” The server refuses an invite from any role below Admin, whatever the screen shows.

What to do instead: ask an Owner or Admin of your organization to send the invitation, and to pick the role. Either an Owner or an Admin can make someone an Admin; only an Owner can make someone an Owner.

Steps (Owner or Admin)

Check that you are signed in as an Owner or Admin. If you are not, stop here and see the section above.
Open Settings → Organization → Users: in the sidebar, click Settings, then the Organization tab, then the Users tab.
Click + Invite member (at the top of Team members). On a gallery with one Owner, an Owner can instead click Invite a second owner on the one-owner notice, which opens the same form set to Owner.
The Invite a member dialog opens. Choose who to invite:
- In a CartonCrew Studio gallery, pick one of your artists. There is no email box: type part of their name in the Member search box, then click the artist in the list (name, then email). The invitation goes to the email on their artist record. Artists already on the team are not listed. An artist with no email is listed but cannot be picked, and links to their record (Open their artist record) so you can add one.
- In any other CartonCrew organization, type their address in Email.
Pick a Role. The list is Owner, Admin, Editor, Viewer, Curator, Show manager, Front desk and Treasurer (and Calendar Manager in a gallery). It starts on Editor. There is no Guest artist role: a visiting artist gets a member portal login instead — see How a guest artist gets in.
- Owner is in the list only when you are an Owner. An Admin cannot invite an Owner.
- Nobody can invite at a role above their own.
- A built-in role your gallery has hidden or deleted on Settings → Roles cannot be given in an invite: pick another role, or show it again on its role page. See Roles and capabilities for what each role can do, and its Who gets what table for the role and tick boxes each committee needs.
- Preset, above Role, lists the gallery’s role presets (Marketing, Events, Education and Board member to start with). Picking one sets the Role and shows the tick boxes the invite carries under “They can also:”; they are set when the person joins. It is not offered when the role is Owner.
Click Create invite. (Cancel closes the dialog without inviting.)

What happens next

CartonCrew emails the invitation to the address you entered. The email comes from CartonCrew, names your organization, the role, and you as the inviter, and carries the accept link. It is valid for 7 days.
The dialog says whether the email went: “We emailed the invitation to …”, or “The invite for … was created, but the email was not sent”. Either way it shows the link with a Copy button, so you can send it yourself; it is the same link the email carries. Click Done to close.
The invitation now appears under Pending invites on the Users screen, with the role it carries and when it expires.
When they open the link they see your organization’s logo and name, who invited them, and the role. They sign in with Google or an emailed code, using the invited address. Someone new to CartonCrew who wants Microsoft signs in with the emailed code first and links Microsoft afterwards from Settings → Security: Microsoft sign-in only opens a login already linked to it, and the invite page says so under the Microsoft button.
Once accepted, they see a confirmation — You have joined <Organization> as <Role> — and are then taken to the dashboard. Staff roles are asked to set up two-factor authentication on the way.

Inviting someone who is already a member

An invite can change the role of someone who already signs in to your organization (for example, a Viewer invited as Calendar Manager). When they accept it, the new role and any preset capabilities apply straight away. An invite never lowers a role (an Editor invited as a Viewer keeps Editor; the invite is still marked accepted and they are told why) and never changes an Owner. Roles rank Owner, Admin, Editor, the gallery roles, then Viewer.

Accept for them

To accept a pending invite on the person’s behalf: Sidebar → Settings → Organization → Users → Pending invites → Accept for them (next to Revoke), then confirm in the dialog.

If they already have an account, the invite is applied now, with the same rules (never lowers a role, never changes an Owner, preset capabilities included), and leaves Pending invites. They see the role the next time they sign in.
If they do not have an account yet, the invite shows Accepts at their first sign-in and is accepted automatically the first time they sign in to your organization with that exact email address. No link is needed: signing in proves they own the address.
An expired or revoked invite is never accepted. An Admin cannot accept an Owner invite. Every use is recorded in the audit log.

Changing their role or what they can do after they join

The invite carries a role and nothing else. Once they have joined:

Role: use the role dropdown on their row in Team members. It saves as soon as you pick. To give them a role your gallery made, click What John can do on their row (it carries their first name), then Change next to their role.
What they can do: on the same person page, each sentence has a switch. The tick boxes that used to sit under their row (for example Event Manager or Email Campaigns) are sentences there now; switching one Just for John takes effect right away. See What someone can do.

Common issues

Invite email doesn’t arrive — check spam first, then send them the link the dialog showed. Pending invites are listed under Pending invites.
“This invitation has expired” — invites last 7 days. There is no resend button: click Revoke on the old one under Pending invites and create a new invite.
“This invitation has already been used” — someone already accepted it. If that was them, they can sign in normally.
“This invitation was sent to … but you’re signed in as …” — they opened the link while signed in with a different account. They should sign out, open the link again, and sign in with the invited address.
“Please confirm your email address first” — they are signed in with a login whose email address has never been confirmed. They should sign out, sign back in with the code emailed to the invited address (that confirms it), and open the invitation link again.
“Only an owner can invite an owner.” — you are an Admin. Ask an Owner.
“You cannot invite at a role above your own.” — pick a lower role, or ask someone who holds it.
“This gallery has hidden that role. Pick another one, or show it again on the Roles page.” (or “has deleted that role”) — the Owner hid or deleted that role on Settings → Roles. Pick another role.
No + Invite member button — you are not an Owner or Admin.
“Only this gallery’s artists can be invited, and no artist here has that email address.” — in a Studio gallery, a team member must be one of the gallery’s artists. Add them on Artists with their email first, then invite them from the list.
The artist you want is not in the list — they are already on the team (check Team members), or they are archived.
Wrong role assigned — change it with the role dropdown on their row; it takes effect on their next page load.

Last updated: 2026-10-14 · Applies to: CartonCrew v2.0.0+