CRM Basics
Who can see and do what in the CRM
How CRM access is decided, what the CRM permissions actually gate, and why a rep sees one tribe while head office sees them all.
Last updated September 2, 2026
Two things decide what someone sees in the CRM: which tribes they belong to, and which permissions their role holds. The first matters far more than most people expect.
Tribe membership comes first
A user works the CRM of the tribes they are a member of. Add someone to a second tribe and they see both; remove them and that tribe's contacts, deals and tasks disappear from their view. Someone with organisation-level access sees every tribe at once.
THE FIRST THING TO CHECK
Nine times out of ten, "I cannot see the CRM" or "these contacts are missing" is tribe membership, not a permission. Check which tribes the user is in before touching their role.
The CRM permissions
| Permission | What it is for |
|---|---|
| View CRM | Seeing the CRM screens. |
| Edit CRM | Creating and changing CRM records. |
| Manage CRM | The CRM Settings area — stages, statuses, fields, team members. |
| Export CRM | The Export button on the contacts list. Held separately because an export leaves the building. |
Each exists in an organisation form and a tribe form. The tribe form applies only to the tribes the user belongs to; the organisation form applies network-wide.
Setting it up
- Give reps a role with View and Edit, and add them to their own tribe only.
- Give a tribe manager the same role, plus the tribes they oversee.
- Keep Manage CRM to the few people who own the settings — a stage renamed by someone experimenting changes every tribe's reporting.
- Give Export CRM deliberately, and to as few people as the job allows.
THE CRM IS NOT A PLACE TO HIDE RECORDS
Everyone in a tribe can see that tribe's contacts, companies and deals — there is no per-record privacy, and a rep is not walled off from another rep's accounts. If some records genuinely must not be seen by a group of users, keep them in a separate tribe.