How to invite Clients into Connectworks
Connectworks users from professional firms can invite the people associated with their client entities (where an entity could be a trust, a company, or even an individual) to use Connectworks and work collaboratively on the entity's governance. When a person accepts their first invitation to use Connectworks, a Personal Workspace is created for them from which they can access the Workspaces of the entities they've been invited to join.
NB. Invitations to join Connectworks are sent via email. In order to be able to invite users into Connectworks, you must include their email address in their Connectworks profile.
If you have imported a company from the Companies Office, all directors & shareholders will have a profile automatically set up in Connectworks pre-populated with the publicly available information held at the Companies Office at the time of import. If the client is part of a trust already loaded in Connectworks they will also have an existing profile. It is best to check if the client has an existing profile before setting up a new one.
Invite in your Clients
1. Navigate to your firm's Clients>Contacts list.
2. Type the individual's name into the search bar. If this search reveals multiple copies of the client Merge all duplicate profiles prior to inviting in the client.
3. If the individual does not appear in your contacts search you will need to set up a new profile for them. Please see our articles here:
The individual I'm trying to invite is associated with a Company
The individual I'm trying to invite is associated with a Trust
4. Once you've located or created the profile for the person you want to invite, navigate to the entity workspace which you would like them to access. The individual's name will appear in the People & Employees tab within the Company's Workspace (for trusts this tab is called Parties).
5. Click the 'Invite' button next to the individual's name.
*If there is no email address recorded in the profile you will be asked to confirm the email address the invitation is sent to. Click 'OK', and the invitation will be sent.
6. The person will receive an email containing a link for them to finalise setting up their account.
7. If you wish to cancel the invitation you can select the Rescind button which now shows in place of the Invite button - this will automatically withdraw the invitation and deactivate the link emailed to the client. You may still choose to re-send the invitation at any time.
Companies' clients are invited in via the Admin tab. For Trusts invite clients in via the Parties tab.
After sending an invitation the person will receive an email containing a link for them to finalise setting up their account.
What invited trust clients can see & do
This article explains the ways in which the trustees, beneficiaries, trust advisors, and other parties associated with your client trusts can be invited to access their Trust Workspace and work collaboratively with your firm in Connectworks.
Non-professional users of Connectworks (ie. invited clients) cannot access/generate documents from precedents.
For information on the user roles and access rights for staff at your professional firm see our article here.
Contents
1. Accessing a trust as a trustee or associated party of the trust
2. What Trustees can see and do
3. What Beneficiaries can see and do
4. What other Associated Parties can see and do
5. What Trust Advisors can see and do
6. What Trust Administrators can see and do
7. Setting access rights when creating a Trustee or other Associated Party
8. Editing access rights for a Trustee or other Associated Party
Accessing a trust as a trustee or associated party of the trust
Under Unlinked subscription plans, trusts can only be accessed by members of the subscribing firm.
Where a client trust is subscribed under an Unlimited subscription, however, the subscribing firm can extend access to the trust to as many parties as they wish. Persons outside your firm who can be extended access to a trust fall into five categories:
Trustees
Beneficiaries
Associated Parties
Trust Advisors
Trust Administrators
What Trustees can see and do
By default, the Trustees of a trust you have invited into Connectworks can see and do everything your manager for the trust can see and do, apart from:
Trustees can create discussions in the Minute book, but cannot create minutes or resolutions
Trustees cannot download or merge precedents
Trustees cannot upload documents to the document repository
Trustees cannot add, remove, or edit the profiles for parties associated with the Trust
Trustees cannot edit the trust’s profile
As you will see below, however, the permissions for a particular trustee can be modified, allow Trustees to perform any action up to and including those available to your firm's trust manager.
What Beneficiaries can see and do
The beneficiary role does not come with any default user permissions. As such, individuals recorded as Beneficiaries by default cannot perform any actions on the Trust.
If invited into Connectworks, beneficiaries can access the trust, but are only able to view the trust profile and the list of parties associated with the Trust.
However if you wish to, the access rights and permissions for a particular beneficiary can be modified, to allow them to perform any action up to and including those available to your firm's trust manager.
What other Associated Parties can see and do
You can record individuals associated with a Trust in a range of constituent roles, including:
Settlor
Protector
Appointer (trustee and beneficiary)
Executor
These roles do not come with any default user permissions. As such, individuals recorded under these roles cannot by default perform any actions on the Trust. If invited into Connectworks, these users can access the trust, but are only able to view the trust profile and the list of parties associated with the Trust.
However, if you wish to, the access rights and permissions for a particular user in one of these roles can be modified, to allow them to perform any action up to and including those available to your firm's trust manager.
What Trust Advisors can see and do
You can record individuals associated with a Trust in a range of advisory roles, including:
Legal advisor or lawyer
Accounting advisor or accountant
Financial advisor
Advisor to the trustees (Advisory Trustee)
Other advisor
Treasurer
Secretary
By default, Legal, Accounting, and Other Advisors, can see and do everything your manager for the trust can see and do, apart from:
They can create discussions in the Minute book, but cannot create minutes or resolutions
They cannot download or merge precedents
They cannot upload documents to the document repository
They cannot add, remove, or edit the profiles for parties associated to the Trust
They cannot edit the trust’s profile
The roles Advisor to the trustees, Treasurer, and Secretary, do not come with any default user permissions. As such, individuals recorded under these roles cannot by default perform any actions on the Trust. If invited into Connectworks, these users can access the trust, but are only able to view the trust profile and the list of parties associated with the Trust.
However, if you wish to, the access rights and permissions for a particular user in one of these roles can be modified, to allow them to perform any action up to and including those available to your firm's trust manager.
What Trust Administrators can see and do
If you or the trustees wish, you can grant anyone associated with a trust with Administrator access. This gives the user full access to the trust, allowing them to see and do everything your firm's trust manager can, with the exception of generating precedents - this functionality is only available to professional firm staff accessing Connectworks via their Firm Workspace.
Setting access rights when creating a Trustee or other Associated Party
You can set the access rights for a Trustee, Administrator or Advisor when you create their profile, or edit them later as described below.
Editing access rights for a Trustee or other Associated Party
You can edit the access rights for persons associated with a trust from within the trust workspace. In particular, you can grant them the ability to create minutes and documents, manage relationships, and edit the trust profile.
In the Parties tab, just select edit for the party whose access rights you want to update, then assign their level of access in the access rights section of the edit form.
Note that greyed-out access rights cannot be removed. These are the rights automatically granted due to their assigned role in the trust.
What invited company clients can see & do
This article explains the ways in which the directors, employees, and other parties associated with your firm's client companies can be invited to access their Company's Workspace and work collaboratively with your firm in Connectworks.
Non-professional users of Connectworks (ie. invited clients) cannot access precedents.
For information on the user roles and access rights that staff at your professional firm can have read our article here.
Contents
1. Accessing a company as a director or employee of the Company
2. What Company Directors can see and do
3. What Company Administrators can see and do
4. What Company Advisors can see and do
5. Setting access rights when creating a Director, Administrator, or Advisor
6. Editing access rights for a Director, Administrator, or Advisor
Accessing a company as a director or employee of the Company
Under Connectworks Unlinked subscription plan, the full Company Workspace can only be accessed by members of the subscribing firm.
The subscribing firm may still choose to invite any director or associated party of an Unlinked company to register for a Connectworks account and access a view-only summary of the company's profile. These individuals cannot perform any actions within the profile without the subscribing firm upgrading the company to a higher access level subscription.
Where a client company is subscribed under an Unlimited subscription plan, the subscribing firm can extend access to as many of the companies associated parties as desired. These people fall into three categories:
Company Directors
Company Administrators
Company Advisors
What Company Directors can see and do
By default the after you have invited a Company Director into Connectworks on an Unlimited subscription they can see and do everything your firms own client managers can see and do, apart from:
Directors can create discussions in the Minute book, but cannot create minutes or resolutions.
Directors cannot download or merge precedents
Directors cannot add, remove, or edit the profiles for other parties associated to the Company
Directors cannot edit the Company’s profile
However, these permissions can be modified by assigning 'custom access' if required.
What Company Administrators can see and do
Employees of your client companies can be granted Administrator access to the company. On an Unlimited subscription, this gives the user full access to the company, allowing them to see and do everything your firm's client managers can, with the exception of generating precedents - this functionality is only available to professional firm staff accessing Connectworks via their Firm Workspace.
What Company Advisors can see and do
You can record individuals associated with a Company in a range of advisory roles, including:
Legal advisor or lawyer
Accounting advisor or accountant
Financial advisor
Advisor to the board
Other advisor
Treasurer
Secretary
After being invited into a company workspace by the subscribing firm, by default:
Legal, Accounting, and Other Advisors can see and do everything your manager for the company can see and do, apart from:
Create minutes or resolutions in the Minute Book
Download or merge precedents
Add, remove, or edit the profiles for parties associated with the Company
Edit the Company’s profile
Advisor to the board, Treasurer and Secretary roles ate not granted any access by default and must be assigned custom access rights.
Setting access rights when creating a Director, Administrator, or Advisor
You can set the access rights for a Director, Administrator or Advisor when you create their profile, or by editing their access rights from within the Company Workspace Admin tab.
Editing access rights for a Director, Administrator, or Advisor
You can edit the access rights for persons associated with a company from within the Company Workspace.
In particular, you can grant them the ability to:
create minutes and documents
manage relationships
edit the company profile.
In the People & Employees section of the Admin tab, just select edit for the party whose access rights you want to update, then assign their level of access in the access rights section of the edit form.
Note that greyed-out access rights cannot be removed. These are the rights automatically granted due to their assigned role in the company, such as being a Director.