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Invite a user ​

This is the everyday way to add someone to GCM — a new pastor, a treasurer, a youth leader, an outside consultant. You enter their details, pick which role(s) they should start with, and the platform handles the welcome email and first-login flow.

TIP

This article is the deep version of Invite your team under Getting Started. If you've already read that and just need a refresher on the field-by-field meaning, you're in the right place.

Open the create-user dialog ​

From Users & Roles, click the Create user button in the top right.

Create user dialog

If your plan is at its user limit you'll see a banner at the top of the page and the button will be disabled. Open Billing to upgrade or suspend an inactive user first.

Fill in the user ​

Full name ​

What the welcome email is addressed to and what shows up in audit logs. Use the person's real name — not a username or a role title like Treasurer. Role titles belong to roles, not users.

Email ​

Must be a working address. It becomes the sign-in identifier and the destination for the password-set link. If this email already has a GCM account at another church, we'll match by email and grant access to your workspace too — they switch between churches from the sidebar.

WARNING

GCM uses email as the unique identifier across the platform. You can't have two accounts at the same church with the same email, and you can't change a user's email after creation without going through a profile edit.

Password ​

You can set an initial password yourself (useful when the recipient won't have email access during onboarding) or leave it blank — the platform generates one and the recipient sets their own on first sign-in via the link in the welcome email.

The password is hashed by Supabase Auth before it touches our database. We never see the plaintext, even at creation time.

Roles ​

Pick one or more roles from the chip selector. Every system role (Admin, Shepherd, Leader, Member) and every custom role you've created shows up here. Click a chip to toggle.

If you skip this step, the user is created with no roles — they can sign in but every protected page returns a permission-denied banner. This is occasionally useful (e.g. provisioning the account before deciding what scope they need) but you should usually pick at least one.

TIP

A user can have multiple roles. The platform unions the permissions, so a user who is both Treasurer (custom: giving access) and Shepherd (members + attendance) sees all of both. There is no "deny" — you can't subtract a permission with a second role.

Unit assignment ​

Optional. If your church uses org units (branches, centers, cells), pick the unit this person oversees. The role's permissions are then restricted to that unit and any descendants — a shepherd assigned to East Branch → Anderson Center sees members in Anderson Center plus its child cells, but not Wilson Center or West Branch.

Leave this blank for org-wide access (typical for admins and lead pastors).

See Scoped permissions for the full mechanics.

Save and what happens next ​

Click Create. Three things happen:

  1. A row is added to the profiles table with the user's name, email, photo (optional), and active flag.
  2. The role(s) and unit assignment are written to user_role_assignments_v2 and user_unit_assignments_v2.
  3. Supabase Auth creates the auth user and queues the welcome email.

The recipient receives a message from noreply@geniuschurchmanager.com titled You've been invited to [your church]. The link opens the password-set screen.

If they don't see the email after a few minutes, check their spam folder. If it's lost, you can resend from their profile row — click the user, then Resend invitation. The link is valid for 7 days.

Editing after creation ​

Click any user row to edit. You can change:

  • Name, email, phone, photo — straightforward profile fields.
  • Password — admins can force-reset by typing a new password in the edit dialog. The user is signed out of all sessions and must use the new password to sign back in.
  • Active toggle — flip off to suspend without deleting. Suspended users keep their roles and assignments but can't sign in. Flip back on whenever you're ready.

The roles and unit assignments live on separate dialogs (the Roles and Units buttons in the action column) — see Default roles explained and Scoped permissions for those.

Bulk inviting ​

GCM doesn't ship a CSV invite tool yet. For onboarding a large team, repeat the create-user flow for each person — it's quick because the form remembers the last role and unit you picked.

If you need to onboard >20 users, contact support and we'll script the inserts directly. We do this carefully and only with a signed change request.

Common questions ​

Can a user belong to multiple churches? Yes. We match by email at sign-in — if the account already exists with the same address, we add this workspace to their account and they pick from a switcher.

Do invited users count toward my plan limit? Yes, from the moment you create them, even before they accept. Suspended users don't count. Delete or suspend before inviting if you're near the cap.

What if they never accept? The profile stays in the pending state. Roles and assignments are already in place. Resend the invite or delete the profile if they never join.