Members and roles

Everyone in an organization or department has one of three roles. This page explains them and how membership is managed.

Roles

Role	Can
Owner	Everything below, plus transfer a member's entitlements. There is one owner, and the owner cannot be removed
Admin	Edit the name, picture and description; add and remove members; change roles; create and manage departments (in an organization)
Member	Use what the organization owns, switch to its account, and leave

Platform administrators can do everything an owner can, in any organization.

Role by role

Action	Owner	Admin	Member
Open the organization's page and its settings	Yes	Yes	Yes — settings are read-only
Use and switch to the organization's account	Yes	Yes	Yes
Change the name (1–60 characters), description (up to 300) and display picture	Yes	Yes	No
Add members, change a member between Admin and Member, remove members	Yes	Yes	No
See the Storage tab	Yes	Yes	No
Create departments and set their limits	Yes	Yes	No
Transfer a member's entitlements	Yes	No	No
Leave	No	Yes	Yes
Change the organization's plan and limits, or its owner	No — a platform administrator does this	No	No

In a department, the department's own owner and admins edit its name, picture, description and members. Its limits are set by the owner and admins of the parent organization, not by the department's admins.

The owner's role cannot be changed, and the owner cannot be removed or leave. To hand an organization or department to a new owner, ask a platform administrator. There is no button to delete an organization either — ask a platform administrator for that too.

Open the settings

1. Go to Instances → Workgroups.
2. Under Organizations & departments, select the gear on the one you want — or open it and select Settings.

The dialog has General, Members, Departments (organizations only) and Storage tabs. The Storage tab is shown only to the owner and admins. Members who are not admins can open the dialog but not change anything.

Tab	What is on it
General	Display picture (PNG, JPEG, WebP or GIF; it uploads as soon as you pick it), the name, the Description, the handle and owner, and Plan & limits. A department without its own picture uses its organization's
Members	Everyone in it with their role, the box for adding people, and controls for each person. In an organization, each member shows a badge for every department they are in
Departments	Each department with its handle and member count, a Manage button that opens its own settings, and Add department
Storage	The shared home volume and any extra volumes, with their sizes. Sizes are remembered; the refresh button measures them again

There is no Save button. Changes to the name and description save automatically a moment after you stop typing, and the field flashes green when they are saved.

Add a member

1. Open Settings → Members.
2. Type a name or username in the Name or username box and pick the person.
3. Choose Member or Admin.
4. Select Add.

Shown on labs.selfmade.ninja, the Selfmade Ninja Academy platform. On your own platform you will see your own domain and data.

The person must already have an account — they need to have signed in once.

Adding to a department also adds to the organization

Adding someone to a department enrolls them in its organization as well. You do not need to add them twice.

Who can add whom to a department

Because adding someone to a department also makes them a member of the organization, the rule depends on whether they are in the organization yet:

The person is…	Who can add them to the department
Already a member of the organization	The department's owner or admins, or the organization's owner or admins
Not yet in the organization	Only the organization's owner or admins (or a platform administrator)

A department admin who tries the second case sees Only the organization's owner/admins can enroll a new member into the organization. Ask an organization admin to add the person, or add someone who is already a member.

Messages you might see

Message	Why
No user found for that email.	The person has never signed in, so they have no account yet
Already a member.	They are already in it — change their role on their row instead
The owner cannot be removed — transfer ownership first.	Owners cannot be removed; a platform administrator changes the owner

Change a role or remove someone

In the member list, change a person's role between Admin and Member, or remove them with the remove button.

• Removing someone from an organization also removes them from all of its departments.
• If they own a department, you are asked to hand that department to someone else first. Pick the new owner and type the confirmation shown to continue.
• Their access to the organization's labs ends immediately. Anything they own personally is not affected — see Moving resources.

When the person owns a department

Removing a department owner from the organization opens a Transfer ownership dialog instead of removing them:

1. In New department owner, pick who takes the department over. If that person is not in the organization yet, they are enrolled automatically.
2. Type the confirmation shown — TRANSFER followed by the leaving person's name — and select Transfer & continue.
3. The department changes owner, the leaving person's access grants inside the organization are revoked, and then they are removed.

Only the organization's owner (or a platform administrator) can complete this transfer. An admin who tries it is refused — ask the owner to remove that person.

If they own more than one department, the removal stops after the first hand-off with Remove failed after transfer. Select remove again to hand over the next department.

Leave

A member who is not the owner sees a Leave button on their own row in Settings → Members. The owner cannot leave; ownership must be moved by a platform administrator first.

Do it with an AI assistant

You can also do this by asking an AI assistant connected to your account — see Connect an AI assistant to set one up.

Ask	What the assistant does
“Add priya@example.com to acme as a member”	org_add_member
“Add these five people to acme”	org_add_members
“Make ravi an admin”	org_set_member_role
“Remove ravi from acme”	org_remove_member

Membership is broad

A member can start, stop and redeploy every lab the organization owns and spend its shared limits. Ownership cannot be handed over this way.

Next steps

• Acting as an organization — working in the shared account
• Departments and limits — splitting an organization up
• Moving resources — when someone leaves