Manage Roles
A role decides what somebody can see and do. BayWise ships six; you can also build your own.
Who can do this: Account Owners and Org Admins.
Changing somebody’s role
The change takes effect immediately, including for anyone currently signed in.
Creating a custom role
Useful where your workshop has a genuinely distinct job — a parts controller, an insurance liaison, a quality inspector — that no standard role fits.
Open Settings → Team → Roles
Start from the closest standard role
Do not build from nothing. Copy the nearest and adjust.
Add or remove permissions
Work through what the job actually needs to do, not what it might one day want to see.
Name it after the job
“Parts Controller”, not “Custom Role 2”.
Save
Narrowing a role changes what every person holding it can do, immediately. Check who holds a role before you change it — a narrowed Workshop Controller role at 4pm on a Friday can take the whole floor’s ability to complete work.
The two mistakes worth avoiding
Making everybody an admin. Simpler right up to the morning somebody edits the service catalogue to fix one job and changes what every future job of that type is estimated at. Configuration changes the shape of the shop; running the day does not.
Giving nobody the ability to close the day. If the last person out is a Service Advisor, they cannot close, and tomorrow’s scheduling is stopped until somebody who can arrives. Either give the closing permission to whoever is genuinely last out, or make closing part of a manager’s routine.
→ Understand the scheduling freeze
What roles separate
| Boundary | Above the line | Below it |
|---|---|---|
| Configuration vs operation | Bays, technicians, catalogue, hours | Running the day |
| Closing the day | Owners, admins, managers, controllers | Service Advisors, Read Only |
| Commercial | Rates, incentives, plan and billing | Everything else |
Common questions
Can somebody have different roles at different locations? Access is granted per location and the role applies across the locations they can reach. For genuinely different responsibilities at different sites, use the broader role and rely on location access to scope what they see.
What happens to somebody’s work if I change their role? Nothing. Work already recorded stays recorded, including anything they did under the previous role.
Can I delete a custom role? Move everyone off it first. A role nobody holds can be removed.
Do custom roles show in the permission matrix? The published matrix covers the six standard roles. A custom role is whatever you built it to be.
Somebody says a button has disappeared. Their role changed, or the day is frozen. A control you lack permission for is hidden; one disabled with a note is the freeze.