Adding and managing Guest Users

In Forecast, it is possible to invite guest users into your Forecast account so that they can review the progress of a project or add deliverables. 

This article covers:

• Guests overview
• Adding Guest users
• Signing up as a Guest user

How Guests work

In Forecast, it is possible to invite guest users onto your company's Forecast account. Guest users are users that have limited access to the platform and have to be invited and subsequently fall under a client's profile. Guest users do not take regular user seats and can be invited for free.

A guest user can view the progress of a project that is currently being worked on for their company. The way this happens is by granting access to guest users to the projects associated with their company. 

Understanding Guests user permissions

Guest users have limited permissions in Forecast, as they are not able to navigate or view the entire account, they can only view and access the projects that they are assigned to.

Guests users have the following access and permissions:

• Access to assigned projects
• Edit task estimates
• Add/remove tasks assignees
• Edit the role of the task
• Adjust the start and end date of a task
• Modify tasks' labels
• Set the task as repeating
• Add comments and tag people
• Mark the task as a high priority
• Add a subtask section
• Add/delete a task 
• Make bulk task changes

Editing Guest User permissions

An Administrator can restrict the access of a guest user in projects further from the admin panel's Client tab.

To edit guest user permissions

1. Click on Admin on the top bar.
2. Select Clients from the dropdown.
3. In the Client's tab, click on the Client Permissions button on the right of the screen.
4. This will bring up the Edit client permissions module. This module includes three options:
   
   

   Permission	Overview
   Show all tasks in assigned projects	Enabling this option will show all tasks in the project that a guest user is assigned. Disabling it means that the guest user will be able to see only the tasks they are assigned as a follower.
   Hide time entries	Enabling this option will hide the time entries of tasks from guest users.
   Hide Estimates	Enabling this option will hide the time estimates of tasks from guest users.
   Hide assignee and role	With this option assignee and role are displayed as empty for guest users, unless they are the one assigned to the task.
   Limit guest user actions	Enabling this limits guest users to only create tasks, edit task name, edit task descriptions, add comments and attach files to task

5. Click on the Save button once the appropriate settings have been chosen.

Adding Guest Users

The only way to invite a guest user into a Forecast account is to invite the guest user from the client's profile. To learn more about client profiles please view our article Adding and managing Client profiles.

To add a guest user to Forecast

1. Click on Admin on the top bar.
2. Select Clients from the dropdown.
3. Select the Client profile that the guest user should be associated with.
4. Once in the client profile, scroll to the lowest section name All Guest Users. 
5. Click on the Add Guest User button.
6. Fill in the fields available. Those fields are:
   1. Full Name: Enter the name of the guest user. 
   2. Email: Enter the email address of the guest user. This is the most critical field as the email is used to invite the guest user onto the platform. 
   3. Phone (optional): Enter the guest user's phone number if necessary. 
   4. Projects: Select which projects the guest user will be able to view once they are invited and can use the platform. If no projects are selected then the guest user will not be able to view any projects.
7. Once the fields are filled then click on the Add Person button.
8. An invitation is sent to the guest user's email with a link that the guest user can click to start the sign-in process. 

Signing up as a Guest User

Once the sign-up procedure from the admin's side ends, the guest user will be met with a welcoming email and a link to sign-up for their Forecast profile. Follow the steps below to complete the sign-up process.

1. Click on the Get Started! button from the welcome email.
2.  This will redirect the guest user to the Create your account page.
3. Fill in the name, job title, and enter a password for the account. 
4. Click on the Create Profile button to complete the process.

If the admins of the account have given access to the guest user to different projects and tasks then it will be possible to view them immediately.