# Roles and access

Set up your roles, link them to Discord roles, decide what each may do, and keep Discord and Crew in sync.

Roles are the backbone of Crew. You set them up once under **Settings → Roles & access**, and
everything else uses them: the title on each profile, who can approve what, activity requirements,
promotions and the service record.

## Your role list

The **Roles** table lists your roles from highest to lowest. For each role you see:

- **Role**: its name, shown as the title on members' profiles. A role limited to one department shows
  "_Department_ only" underneath.
- **Discord role**: the Discord role it's linked to, if any.
- **Crew access**: what holders of the role may do in Crew (**Member**, **Manager** or **Super User**).
- **Members**: how many people hold it.

Drag a role to a new place in the list, or use the arrows to move it up or down. The order matters: it's the order of seniority, and a
promotion means moving someone to a role higher up the list.

### Adding roles

- **Import from Discord** lists your server's Discord roles that aren't in Crew yet. Tick the ones that
  make up your structure. They're added in the server's order and linked straight away.
- **New role** adds a role by name. Choose a Discord role to link, or **None (Crew only)** for a role
  that exists only in Crew.
- **Create role** (next to a Crew-only role) asks the bot to create a matching Discord role and links
  it. Crew can rename and delete Discord roles it created; it never deletes Discord roles that people
  made.

### Editing and deleting

**Edit** changes a role's name, its Crew access and the **Department** it belongs to (or **All
departments**). Deleting a role removes it from everyone who holds it. If Crew created its Discord
role, Crew asks whether to delete that Discord role too.

## Crew access levels

Every role gives one access level. Holders of several roles get the highest. In short:

- **Member**: their own profile, requests, activity and training, plus the directory and org chart.
- **Manager**: everything a Member can do, plus managing the people in their reporting line.
- **Super User**: everything, including settings, integrations and the audit log.

[Access levels](/crew/access-levels) has the full breakdown.

> [!NOTE]
> Managers can only give out roles up to their own access level. Only a Super User can promote
> someone into a role that gives Super User access.

## Discord and Crew stay in sync

A role linked to a Discord role works in both directions:

- **Discord → Crew.** Give someone a linked role in Discord and Crew updates their role, title, time
  in role and history right away. The change is recorded as made by "Discord", and the bot then
  removes their old role, so everyone holds exactly one. If they hold several roles from your list,
  Crew follows the highest. Removing someone's linked role in Discord removes their role in Crew too.
- **Crew → Discord.** Change someone's role in Crew, from their profile or with `/crew promote`, and
  the bot gives them the new Discord role and takes the old one away.

**Sync from Discord** re-reads everyone at once. Use it after importing roles, or after big changes
made while the bot was offline.

For syncing to work, the bot needs **Manage Roles**, its role must be **above** the roles it manages,
and the **Server Members Intent** must be on. **Settings → Integrations → Check the bot** checks all
three.

### Discord-managed roles

Some Discord roles carry moderation or admin permissions (kick, ban, manage roles, administrator and
similar). Crew uses them but **never hands them out or takes them away**. They're marked
**Discord-managed**:

- Give or remove the role in Discord, and Crew follows.
- In Crew you can only assign it to someone who already has it in Discord.

This means a promotion in Crew can never give someone moderation power by accident.

## Adding people automatically

Turn on **Add people automatically** and anyone who gets one of your roles in Discord, and has no
profile yet, gets one straight away, made from their Discord name (and the role's department, if it
has one), with today as their hire date. Together with **Sync from
Discord** this fills the directory without typing anything in.

When you add someone by hand and leave their role empty, Crew takes it from their Discord roles.

## Other Discord roles with access

Discord roles that aren't part of your structure can still open Crew. In **Other Discord roles with
access**, give any of them an access level:

- **View only** for people who aren't members but may look around: the dashboard, directory, org
  chart and leave calendar, with no contact details or records.
- **Member**, **Manager** or **Super User**, for example `@Admin` as Super User or `@HR` as Manager.

People with none of your roles and none of these roles can't open the organization at all.

## Owners and administrators

- The **server owner** is always a Super User, so an organization can never be locked out.
- Other **Discord administrators** are Super Users only until a role gives Super User access. After
  that, Crew follows your roles, not Discord's administrator permission.

> [!TIP]
> Give **Super User** access to a role as soon as you set up. A warning on this page reminds you while
> no role has it.

### Troubleshooting

- **"Discord-managed" on a role I want Crew to hand out.** Remove the moderation permissions from
  that Discord role, or give and remove it in Discord yourself.
- **A promotion in Crew didn't change the Discord role.** Move the Crew bot's role above that role in
  **Server Settings → Roles**, then promote again or use **Sync from Discord**.
- **Someone has two roles from the list in Discord.** Crew follows the highest of them. Remove the
  extra one in Discord, or change their role in Crew and the bot tidies up.

Source: https://docs.noyralabs.com/crew/roles-and-access