Before you start
- Team members are free. Billing seats are approved advocates, not teammates. Inviting people does not change your bill.
- Your workspace needs a company email domain. A workspace created with a public email address (Gmail, Yahoo, and similar) cannot invite anyone. Invitees must use an address on your organization's domain.
- One workspace per login. A person who already belongs to another Kindling workspace cannot accept your invitation.
- Invitations expire after 7 days. Nothing reminds the invitee automatically; you resend by hand.
The four roles
| Role | What it means today |
|---|---|
| Owner | Everything an Admin can do, plus transfer ownership and manage billing in the Stripe portal. Exactly one per workspace |
| Admin | Manages the team and admin settings. Creates, edits, and deletes programs, reviews applications and submissions, processes payouts. Sees the Billing tab but cannot open the Stripe portal or change the plan |
| Manager | Creates and edits programs, reviews applications and submissions, reviews Conversation Opportunities. Cannot delete programs, process payouts, or see Billing or admin settings |
| Viewer | Read-only across programs, advocates, submissions, payouts, and analytics, with the exceptions listed under "What is not role-gated" |
The in-app page at Settings → Admin → Roles & Permissions shows the matrix, and the routes enforce it. A member without the permission gets "You do not have permission to do this". The dashboard does not yet hide buttons by role, so a Viewer can click Approve and receive that message.
What roles gate
| Area | Who | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Invite, re-role, and remove members | Owner, Admin | Settings → Admin → Team |
| Transfer ownership | Owner | Settings → Admin → Team |
| Stripe billing portal and checkout (payment method, invoices, plan, cancellation, reactivation) | Owner | Settings → Billing |
| See the Billing tab | Owner, Admin | Settings → Billing |
| Create and edit programs, pause, resume, open or close applications | Owner, Admin, Manager | Programs |
| Delete programs | Owner, Admin | No dashboard control; API only |
| Review applications | Owner, Admin, Manager | Program → Manage applications |
| Review submissions, single and bulk | Owner, Admin, Manager | Program → Submissions |
| Process payment on a single payout | Owner, Admin | Program → Submissions → Approved |
| Tax and payout identity | Owner, Admin | Settings → Payout Identity |
| EMV settings | Owner, Admin | Settings → Admin → EMV Settings |
| Topics settings (Conversation Opportunities configuration) | Owner, Admin | Settings → Topics |
| Website templates | Owner, Admin | Settings → Admin → Website Templates |
| Custom domains | Owner, Admin | Settings → Admin → Custom Domains |
| Review Conversation Opportunities | Owner, Admin, Manager | Conversation Opportunities |
The Settings → Admin section and the Billing, Payout Identity, and Topics tabs do not appear for Managers and Viewers.
What is not role-gated
Any active team member, regardless of role, can today:
- View analytics, programs, advocates, submissions, and payouts, and export payouts and submissions
- Create, edit, disable, and delete advocate invite codes
- Manage a program's company-defined reward catalog
- Archive a completed submission
- Mark a company-defined reward as fulfilled
- Send a payment reminder to an advocate
If a Viewer must not do any of those, do not give that person a login.
Invite a teammate
Settings → Admin → Team. Enter their email address and pick Admin, Manager, or Viewer. Owner cannot be granted by invitation.
The invitee receives an email with an accept link and appears as pending until they accept. If they sign in with the invited address before accepting, Kindling sends them to the accept page. The link works for 7 days from the send. Resend from the same screen to send a reminder and restart the 7 days.
An invitation is refused if:
- your workspace is on a public email domain
- the invitee's address is on a public email domain
- the invitee's address does not match your organization's domain
- that address is already a member or pending invitee of your workspace
Change someone's role
Same screen. You can only change the role of someone below you: an Admin can re-role a Manager or Viewer, but not another Admin. The Owner's role cannot be changed; use transfer ownership.
Remove someone
Same screen, same hierarchy rule. You cannot remove the Owner or yourself.
Removal deletes the membership. It cannot be undone; re-invite the person if you need them back. Programs, reviewed submissions, and the security audit log stay, because they belong to the workspace, not the member.
If the member created advocate invite codes, those codes are handed to the person doing the removing, in the same step. The links keep working and their attribution is kept.
Suspension
There is no suspend button. Suspension is automatic: every Monday at 06:00 UTC Kindling checks each member's login email against the workspace's organization domain and suspends any member whose email no longer matches. The member receives an email, and so do the workspace's Owner and Admins.
A suspended member sees "Access Suspended" on sign-in and cannot use the workspace. Only Kindling support can lift a suspension: support@kindlinghq.com.
Transfer ownership
Owner only, from Settings → Admin → Team. The recipient must already be:
- an Admin — promote them first
- active, with the invitation accepted
- email-verified, which accepting the invitation sets
- on your organization's email domain
There is exactly one Owner, so transferring makes you an Admin and the recipient the Owner. Both of you receive an email.
Do this before an Owner leaves the company, not after. An Owner who has lost access to their email is a support problem.
Troubleshooting
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| The invite button says we need a company email domain | Your workspace was created with a public email address. Contact support@kindlinghq.com |
| The invitation says the email does not match our domain | Invitees must use an address on your organization's domain. Personal addresses are refused |
| The invitee says the link has expired | Resend from Settings → Admin → Team. That restarts the 7 days |
| The invitee is told they already belong to another organization | A login belongs to one workspace. They need to leave the other one first, or use a different address. Contact support@kindlinghq.com if that is not possible |
| I cannot change another Admin's role | You need to be the Owner |
| Transfer ownership is refused | Check the four prerequisites above. The most common miss is that the recipient is not yet an Admin |
| A teammate was suspended and nobody did it | The weekly domain audit found their login email no longer matches your domain. Contact support@kindlinghq.com to restore access |
| We need a second Owner | Not supported. Use Admin, which differs on transferring ownership and on the Stripe billing portal |
Anything else: support@kindlinghq.com.