Understanding user roles and permissions

Overview

Below is an overview of permissions for each DeskTime user role. These permissions are based on default settings and may vary depending on your account’s configuration. For example, by default, Employees can't view their own screenshots. But if the Show screenshots on the My DeskTime page setting is enabled, Employees will be able to see them. 

Please see the detailed role and permission descriptions below! 

* User Administrators can adjust settings for their assigned teams, excluding Company Administrators and Owners.

** User Administrators can add and remove users within their assigned teams, but only for the following roles: Employee, User Manager, and User Administrator.

*** Employees and User Managers can edit their approved shifts. However, any edits will change the shift status back to Pending and require re-approval.

Definitions and exceptions

• See own data: This permission refers to your ability to view your own tracked performance, activity bar, and daily statistics via your personal My DeskTime page.
• See other data: This allows you to view the tracked productivity, activity, and time data of other colleagues or team members in the organization. Standard employee access to this data can be custom configured by Company Administrators.
• Change app settings: This refers to modifying configurations of the DeskTime tracking environment, such as managing tracking days or screenshot quality. By default, global configurations can only be adjusted by Company Owners, Company Administrators, or User Administrators (for their respective teams).
• Add/remove users: This permission enables inviting new employees to join the company account, or managing existing profiles by archiving or deleting them.
• See Dashboard: This allows access to the main DeskTime Dashboard page. This page provides a high-level, real-time visual overview of the organization's or team's total tracked hours, offline times, and productivity. Learn more here.
• See Team Members: This gives access to the Team Members administrative section. In this view, authorized roles can manage user lists, team assignments, and individual member permissions.
• See Colleagues: This section is designed for team members to see who is currently online, away, or tracking time, enhancing transparency across the workspace.
• Edit Absences: This permission allows adding, modifying, or removing planned absences (like vacations or sick leaves) within the Absence Calendar.
• Edit Work Schedules: This allows users to create shift schedules, apply shift templates, and edit or delete planned shifts for employees.
• Approve Offline time: This refers to the administrative process of reviewing and subsequently approving or declining manual time requests logged by employees for work-related activities done away from their computers.
• See screenshots: This grants permission to view screen captures recorded at random intervals while DeskTime is tracking. By default, screenshots are not enabled. See more here.
• Delete screenshots: This refers to the ability to permanently erase specific captured screenshots. This is particularly relevant if a screenshot inadvertently captures sensitive personal or clinical data.
• Archive team members: This allows administrators to deactivate an employee's tracking capabilities while preserving their historical work data. An archived user’s email remains linked to the system (meaning they can't register a new account with it) until an owner or admin deletes the archived record.
• Delete team members: This permission allows permanently purging an employee's profile and their associated historical tracking data from the team list.
• Access to Billing: This grants access to billing, pricing plan selections, payment methods (like credit cards or PayPal), and manual invoice payments.
• Delete account: This refers to the final, irreversible deletion of the DeskTime account. When executed by the Company Owner, all tracked data is immediately wiped from the servers, although billing invoices must legally be retained for accounting compliance.

User Roles

Company Owner: The highest level of permissions. The owner has ultimate control of what happens with their DeskTime organization and account.

Company Administrator: This role possesses broad, company-wide administrative capabilities. Company Administrators can manage organization-level settings, enable and configure screenshots globally
and manage employee profiles, including the ability to delete, archive, restore, or make changes to archived employee accounts.

User Administrator: This role serves as a manager with administrative rights restricted to their specific team. For example, while they can't alter company-wide configurations, a User Administrator has the authority to enable screenshots and adjust capture intervals or blur settings specifically for their team members. 

User Manager: Positioned as the fourth permission tier. User Managers have the same standard tracking features as an Employee, but with the added ability to view performance data (such as the Dashboard, team member lists, and screenshots) for their assigned teams.

Employee: This is the standard tracked user on the account. Employees can use the My DeskTime page to monitor their own performance, log their own Offline Time, and turn Private Time on or off. By default, they only see their own data and do not have administrative privileges.

Managing absences and work schedules

Absences & Vacations: Employees and User Managers can submit and edit their own planned absences on the Absence Calendar only while the request's status is still Pending. Once an absence is approved or logged, only a User Administrator (for their assigned team members) or a Company Administrator/Owner can make further modifications. You can always learn more about Absence calendars here. 

Work Schedules & Shifts: User Administrators hold the authority to build, edit, and assign work schedules for their team. While Employees and User Managers are permitted to edit their own approved shifts, doing so will automatically reset the shift's status back to Pending, which then requires an administrator to review and re-approve the changes before they're finalized.