Organise every team and give each user the right level of access Unlimited teams, clear responsibilities and controlled approvals

Create as many teams as your organisation needs, add any number of staff to each one and decide who can schedule, approve and view workforce information.

Every employee has one primary team and can join unlimited secondary teams, keeping cross-team scheduling flexible while paid leave costing and approval responsibilities stay clearly assigned.

Included for £1 per user per month

Build a flexible organisation without giving everybody the same access

FlowRota separates team membership from responsibility. Employees can work across departments, venues or functions, while admins and managers receive the access needed for their role and ordinary employees see only their own workforce records.

Start your 30-day free trial Read the permissions guide

Flexible team membership with firm permission boundaries

Organise complex staffing arrangements without making leave ownership, operational approvals or access to personal records unclear.

Create unlimited teams

Represent every department, function, site or operational group.

Add unlimited staff

Each team can contain as many employees as the organisation needs.

Schedule across teams

Give employees one primary team and unlimited secondary teams.

Keep leave ownership clear

Cost paid leave to the primary team and route approval there.

Limit access by role

Separate organisation-wide admin, team manager and employee views.

Control self-approval

Decide whether managers can act on their own workforce records.

Model the teams you actually operate

FlowRota can reflect a simple single-team business or a larger organisation where employees and managers work across several groups.

Unlimited teams and staff

Create an unlimited number of teams, with no limit on the number of staff who can belong to each one.

Teams can represent

Departments such as Sales or Warehouse
Different venues or operating sites
Job functions or specialist groups
Separate rotas within the same organisation
Any other meaningful scheduling boundary

Multiple team memberships

An employee can belong to their primary team and as many secondary teams as required.

This supports

Employees who cover more than one department
Staff who work at several locations
Shared workers available to different managers
Cross-team scheduling without duplicate profiles
One employee view containing all assigned work

Managers can also be team members

A manager can appear as an ordinary member in a team they manage, and managers can themselves have managers.

Why it helps

Include working managers in the same rota
Support several levels of oversight
Keep reporting lines connected to team structure
Apply self-management rules when roles overlap
Scale from flat teams to a management hierarchy

Use one primary team for leave responsibility and secondary teams for flexibility

The distinction keeps paid leave ownership stable even when the employee regularly works for several teams.

Comparison of primary and secondary teams in FlowRota
Responsibility	Primary team	Secondary teams
Membership	Every employee has one	An employee can have as many as required
Paid leave cost	Paid annual leave and paid custom leave are costed here	Paid leave is not costed to these teams
Leave authority	Its managers approve, decline, amend or add leave and absence periods	Its managers cannot approve the employee’s leave
Shift scheduling	Managers can schedule the employee in the team	Managers can schedule the employee in each secondary team
Operational approvals	Managers can handle authorised team workflows	Managers can handle swaps, clock cards and timesheets for their team

One profile can work across the organisation. Secondary membership expands where the employee can be scheduled; it does not move paid leave cost or leave approval away from their primary team.

Give admins, managers and employees access that matches their role

FlowRota keeps organisation-wide control, team management and individual employee access distinct.

Administrators

Admins can access and manage all FlowRota functionality for everyone in the organisation.

Admin access includes

Creating and configuring teams
Assigning managers and team members
Managing records across every team
Setting permission and self-approval rules
Acting where no individual manager has authority

Best for: trusted users responsible for FlowRota across the whole business.

Managers

Managers can schedule staff and handle the approvals available to them for the teams they manage.

Manager access can include

Building and publishing team rotas
Creating and amending team shifts
Approving swaps, clock cards and timesheets
Managing leave when it is the employee’s primary team
Reviewing the team information needed to manage work

Boundary: managers receive management tools, not unrestricted admin control.

Employees

Users without admin or manager access see their own workforce information and do not see manager functionality.

Employees can see their own

Shifts and working hours
Leave and absence records
Pay information available in FlowRota
Absence score and team ranking
Requests and records connected to their profile

Boundary: employees cannot open manager scheduling or approval screens.

Summary of administrator, manager and employee permissions
Action	Admin	Primary-team manager	Secondary-team manager	Employee
Configure organisation and permissions	Yes	No	No	No
Schedule staff in a managed team	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Approve employee leave	Yes	Yes	No	No
Manage team swaps, clock cards and timesheets	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
View personal employee records	Everyone	Managed team	Managed team	Own records only

Route each approval to the managers responsible for it

Leave follows the employee’s primary team, while day-to-day shift workflows can be handled by managers of the team where the work takes place.

Leave and absence follow the primary team

A primary-team manager or administrator can approve, decline, amend or add the employee’s leave and absence periods.

This keeps clear

Who owns the leave decision
Which team bears the paid annual-leave cost
Which team bears paid custom-leave cost
Who can change the employee’s leave record
Who handles leave when an employee works across teams

Explore the manager leave workflow and employee leave requests .

Operational approvals follow the working team

Managers of a secondary team can still run the work assigned there, even though they do not own the employee’s leave.

They can manage

Shifts scheduled within their team
Shift-swap requests for team work
Clock cards created from team shifts
Employee timesheets for the team
Other authorised manager workflows

See how permissions connect with shift swaps and employee clock-ins .

Decide whether working managers may manage their own records

A manager may also appear as an employee in a team they oversee. FlowRota lets administrators decide when that overlap should permit self-management and when another person must provide oversight.

Own leave and absence

If a manager manages their own primary team, an administrator can decide whether they may approve, decline, amend or add their own leave and absence periods.

Important boundary

The setting relates to the manager’s primary team
Leave authority does not transfer through secondary teams
It can be disabled to require independent oversight
An administrator can still manage the record
The organisation chooses the appropriate control

Own shifts, swaps and timesheets

A separate permission controls self-management of operational records within teams the manager both manages and belongs to.

It can cover

Adding, amending or deleting their own shifts
Managing timesheets they added for themselves
Approving or denying their own shift swaps
Approving or declining their own shift amendments
Requests to shorten work using a TOIL balance

Own clock cards

Administrators can separately decide whether a manager may approve, amend or decline their own clock card.

This control applies when

The clock card belongs to the manager themselves
The manager oversees the team for the clocked shift
The employee membership is primary or secondary
The organisation has enabled the permission
The clock-in and clock-out record needs review

Self-management is a deliberate permission, not an assumption. Read the FlowRota self-approve permissions guide for the full setup rules.

Give employees one clear view of their own working record

Ordinary employees do not need manager screens to understand their schedule, time away and hours. Their view stays personal even when they belong to several teams.

Personal access without management visibility

Non-managers can see their own shifts, hours, leave, absence, pay and absence rank. Work from primary and secondary teams remains connected to the same user without exposing scheduling or approval tools.

Employees can use FlowRota to

Review shifts across all their teams
See their own scheduled and worked hours
Follow their own leave and absence records
Review their own available pay information
See their own absence score and rank

Permission boundaries

No access to manager scheduling tools
No access to other employees’ private records
No approval controls unless the user is also a manager

Keep a growing organisation flexible without losing accountability

Clear team and permission rules help everyone understand where work belongs, who can approve it and which information each user should see.

Schedule across departments

Add employees to several teams without creating duplicate user profiles.

Keep leave ownership stable

Use the primary team for paid leave cost and the authority to approve it.

Delegate daily management

Let secondary-team managers schedule work and handle its operational approvals.

Protect oversight

Decide explicitly whether managers can edit or approve records about themselves.

Explore the workflows connected to teams and permissions

Team membership determines where staff can be scheduled and which managers can act on the records created there.

Staff scheduling

Build rotas across teams with availability, live warnings, open shifts and swaps.

Explore staff scheduling →

Detailed shifts

Assign work to employees within distinct teams, roles and locations.

Explore shifts →

Leave management

Review paid leave cost, allowance, team limits and employee requests.

Explore leave management →

Shift swaps

Let team members exchange work under automatic or manager approval.

Explore shift swaps →

Team and location reports

Review hours, pay, leave, absence and spend across the organisation.

Explore reports →

Push and email notifications

Keep employees and managers informed about requests and approvals.

Explore notifications →

Introducing FlowRota

See how teams, roles and permissions connect with the wider workforce platform.

Read the introduction →

Why small businesses need a rota app

Explore how one system can stay useful as the workforce and team structure grow.

Read the rota-app guide →

Frequently asked questions about teams and permissions

What are teams in FlowRota?

Teams organise the employees, managers, shifts and approval responsibilities that belong together in FlowRota.

How many teams and staff can a business add?

A business can create an unlimited number of teams, and each team can contain an unlimited number of staff.

Can an employee belong to more than one team?

Yes. Every employee has one primary team and can belong to as many secondary teams as required.

What is the difference between a primary and secondary team?

The primary team owns paid annual leave and paid custom-leave costing and determines which team managers can approve the employee’s leave. Secondary teams allow the employee to be scheduled and managed elsewhere without transferring those leave responsibilities.

Which team is paid leave costed against?

Paid annual leave and paid custom leave are costed against the employee’s primary team.

Who can approve an employee’s leave?

Leave can be approved by a manager of the employee’s primary team or by a FlowRota administrator. Managers of secondary teams cannot approve that employee’s leave.

What can managers of secondary teams do?

They can schedule the employee in that team and manage team workflows such as shift swaps, clock cards and timesheets, subject to the organisation’s settings, but they cannot approve the employee’s leave.

What can a FlowRota administrator do?

An administrator can access and manage all FlowRota functionality for everyone in the organisation.

What can a FlowRota manager do?

Managers can schedule staff and approve the records and requests they are authorised to manage for their teams. They do not receive unrestricted administrator access.

What can a non-manager employee see?

Employees without admin or manager access see their own rota information, including their shifts, hours, leave, absence, pay and absence rank. They do not see manager functionality.

Can a manager approve their own leave?

Only when the manager manages their own primary team and an administrator has enabled the relevant self-approval permission. Otherwise another authorised primary-team manager or administrator must handle it.

Can managers manage their own shifts, swaps and timesheets?

Administrators can decide whether managers who are also members of a team may add, amend or delete their own shifts, manage their own timesheets, approve or deny their own swaps, and approve or decline their own shift amendments.

Can a manager approve their own clock card?

Administrators can decide whether a manager may approve, amend or decline their own clock card when it belongs to a team they manage, whether that team is primary or secondary.

How much does FlowRota cost?

FlowRota costs £1 per user per month after a 30-day free trial. No credit card is required to start the trial. Visit the pricing page for full details.

Give every team the structure and access it needs

Create unlimited teams, schedule employees across them and keep admin, manager and employee permissions clear. The trial is free for 30 days, no credit card is required, and continued access costs £1 per user per month.

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