Members and invitations

Inviting people, what the invitation link is, why an invite can be refused, and the rules around removing someone.

Everyone who works in a workspace gets there by invitation. This page covers sending them, what can go wrong, and what happens when someone leaves.

Members are managed in settings, under Members, on the screen of WorkOS, the sign-in service Alchex uses. That screen is in English whatever language you use Alchex in. Only a workspace Owner or Admin sees it; everyone else sees who is in the workspace and their roles.

Sending an invitation

Invite user takes an email address and a workspace role: Owner, Admin or Member. The workspace role is the administration axis: who can invite people, change settings and manage billing. An Admin can give any of the three, Owner included.

The person joins the workspace's first team as a Writer — the role that can write and submit but not approve. Team membership is what actually gives them access to documents, so place them where they belong on the Teams page once they have joined. Which role to pick is on Roles and permissions.

The invitation itself

The invitation is a single-use link tied to that email address, and it expires. WorkOS emails it. The person following it can sign up, sign in, or use a single-sign-on provider — the accept page handles all three.

Their access is created when they accept, not when the invitation is sent. So a pending invitation is a promise, not a membership: until they accept, they hold no role and appear as invited rather than as a member.

If an invitation is lost, Resend it. Revoke takes it back and frees its place.

Why an invitation is cancelled

Every place you pay for is taken. On the free plan this is any invitation at all — Free is for one person — and the Members screen says so; move to Pro from Settings → Billing. On Pro your workspace pays for a number of people, and an invitation takes a place the moment it is sent. An invitation beyond that number is cancelled within a few seconds of being sent, and shows as Revoked once you reload the list. Revoke an unaccepted invitation to free a place, or pay for more people in Manage payment. See Seats and licences.

Removing someone

Removing a member ends their access to the workspace immediately: every team, every document. It does not delete anything they wrote. Their drafts, comments, submissions and approvals stay exactly where they are, still attributed to them, because the record of who approved what has to survive them leaving.

Two rules apply:

  • A workspace always keeps an Owner. Removing the last Owner, or giving them another role, is put back within a few seconds: a workspace with no Owner would have nobody able to pay for it or close it. Make someone else Owner first.
  • Removing a member frees their place, and changes nothing on the bill. The next invitation can use it; if you want to pay for fewer people, lower the number in Manage payment. See Seats and licences.

If someone is leaving but their approvals matter, remove them rather than deleting anything. Removal preserves the history; there is no action that scrubs a person out of the audit trail, by design.

Changing what someone can do

  • Workspace role — an Owner or Admin changes it on the Members screen.
  • Team role — changed on the team, by a team Owner or a workspace Admin/Owner.

Both take effect within seconds, on every page the person has open, because permission decisions are made on the server for every request.

Next