You need to be a tenant admin to see and manage other users. If you can't see the user list, ask the person who set up Civic.ly for your council to check your admin status.
Once you've added team members, you can control exactly what each person can see and do in Civic.ly. This is useful when you have a mix of staff, councillors, volunteers, and contractors who need different levels of access.
Step-by-Step
Opening user admin
- In the web app, click the app icon (four small squares) in the top right-hand corner.
- Select Manage Accounts from the dropdown menu.
- You'll see a list of all users on your account. If you have a lot of users, use the pagination controls at the bottom of the list, or change the rows per page to show more at once.
Editing a user's profile
- Find the user in the list and click the edit button (pencil icon).
- You can change their profile picture, first name, and last name.
- If they've lost their invitation email, click Resend temporary password to send it again.
Resetting a user's password
- Click the magnifying glass icon next to the user.
- You have two options:
- Resend temporary password — sends the same invitation email again.
- Generate new password — creates a fresh temporary password. Click Generate, then the user will receive an email and be asked to set their own password on first login.
- If you tick Set as temporary password, the generated password becomes their login password without prompting them to change it. Use this only if you need to — it's more secure to let users choose their own password.
Promoting someone to tenant admin
- Click the cog icon next to the user.
- Select Make tenant admin.
Tenant admins can see and manage all users on the account, including permissions. Only promote people who need this level of access.
Setting fine-grained permissions
This is where you control exactly what each user can do with each type of data in Civic.ly.
- Click the cog icon next to the user.
- Select Manage permissions.
-
You'll see a permissions panel with five data objects listed down the left side: Assets, Inspections, Jobs, Defects, and Routines. These match the sections in the web app's main menu.
-
Click on a data object to expand it. Inside, you'll see the available actions: View, Create, Edit, Delete, Bulk Update, and Bulk Delete.
- For each action, you can set a constraint:
- Own — the user can only perform this action on records they created themselves.
-
Any — the user can perform this action on any record, regardless of who created it.
-
Set the permissions you want, then click Save. Changes take effect immediately in the web app and within 5–10 minutes on the mobile app.
How routines permissions work
Routines is slightly different from the other data objects. Because routines automatically create inspections and jobs in bulk, the user needs full permissions on both inspections and jobs (including bulk create, bulk edit, and bulk delete) for the routines section to be available to them. If those permissions aren't in place, routines will appear locked.
- Start restrictive, then open up. It's easier to grant more access later than to roll back permissions someone's already used.
- Councillors as read-plus-defect reporters. A common setup is to give councillors view access to everything, plus the ability to create defects. That way they can flag problems without being able to change asset records or job schedules.
- Contractors only see their own tasks. On the mobile app, users only see tasks assigned to them — so even if you set edit permissions to "any," a contractor won't see other people's work on their phone.
- "Own" is changing soon. Currently, "own" means records the user created. In a future update, it will also include records assigned to them, which makes more sense for jobs and inspections.
Common Questions
A tenant admin can access the Manage Accounts screen — meaning they can add or remove users, reset passwords, and change other people's permissions. A regular user with full permissions can do everything inside Civic.ly's main features (assets, inspections, jobs, etc.) but cannot manage other user accounts.
No. Permission changes apply immediately in the web app. On the mobile app, it can take 5–10 minutes for the changes to filter through.
No — permissions apply across both. However, the mobile app naturally limits what users see because it only shows tasks assigned to them, regardless of their broader permissions.
Yes. On the Manage Accounts screen, click the delete button (bin icon) next to the user you want to remove. This removes their access to Civic.ly completely.
They'll lose access to that section immediately in the web app. Any records they created will still exist — they just won't be able to see or edit them unless their permissions are restored.