Onboarding staff into CaseWare Cloud

Onboarding of staff into CaseWare Cloud

When you're ready to provide staff with accounts in Cloud, you can begin onboarding procedures. Generally, the procedures are the same for all organization sizes: 

1. Create groups based on functional roles and access rights.

2. Create accounts for each staff member.

3. Assign roles to each group or staff member to grant them access to Cloud.

Note: For organizations with 1 to 10 people, it's generally easier to provide users and groups with system-wide roles. This grants all staff members with access to everything. Where appropriate, you can create private entities or items to limit access.

Create user groups

Before you begin to add staff or contacts, you can get started on your organization's framework by creating groups. Groups in Cloud are useful because you can control security settings and file access for multiple users at once.

For example, you could create separate staff groups for accountants and managers or partners. This would enable staff of both seniority level to share files and collaborate without having to change permissions at the level of individual users.

To create a new group:


1. Ensure that you have the Staff Admin role or equivalent privileges.

2. From the Cloud Menu, select Groups.

3. Select New, then choose Staff Group or Contacts Group. The New Group dialog opens.



4. Enter a Name and Description for your group.

5. From the sidebar, select Members. Choose the users you want to add to this group.

6. If you have the Admin role or equivalent permissions, you can also assign System-Wide Roles.

7. Select Save.

You have successfully created a staff group and you have assigned your staff members to it.


Once your staff members are set up on Cloud, you can give them access to client workspaces. In Cloud, these workspaces are called entities. For more information about granting access to client entities, see Setting staff access levels.


CaseWare Cloud offers two methods for adding staff members or contacts to your organization: importing a staff directory using a .csv file or delimited block of text, or adding staff individually in Cloud.


If your organization has fewer than 50 staff members, we recommend creating each staff profile individually.

After your staff members and contacts are added to Cloud, you will need to configure their system-wide, entity-wide and file-specific roles as appropriate.


Create user accounts

You can add Staff or Contact users from the Staff or Contacts page. The procedure for both user types is the same.

To add an individual user:

1. Ensure that you have the Staff Admin role or equivalent rights.

2. From the Cloud menu, select Staff or Contacts.

3. Select New and, under Add, select Staff or Contacts.



4. Enter the appropriate name and contact information.

Note: If you are adding a contact and you do not want to create an account for them, leave the Email field blank.

5. If you want to set the user’s password, select the Password pane, select Set, and enter the new password. Otherwise, the user will set their password.

6. Select Save.

Assigning user roles

If your organization comprises a few partners who all have equal access to client information, you can implement a very simple security policy. You can grant all staff members access to all entities by giving them the Owner role. This policy is the simplest to manage, but you can only use it if all users have equal access to confidential client information.

If your organization comprises one or two partners and a few associates who support your work, you can make a slightly more complex policy. The partners should have all system-wide roles:

- Settings Admin

- Staff Admin

- Entities Admin

Your associates should have the Entity Access role. This will let them see all entities that you create, but they will only be able to see content under the entities that a partner shares with them. This means that whenever a partner adds content to an entity, they will choose which associates have access to it.

Assign system-wide roles

There are some security roles that you may want to apply to all content. For example, partners may need to have the ability to view all of the entities for your organization, and to edit or delete these entities on demand.

You can grant this access by assigning system-wide security roles to users or groups.

To assign system-wide roles to a user or group:

1. Ensure that you have the Staff Admin role or equivalent privileges.

2. From the Cloud menu, select Groups or Staff.

3. Select the user or group you want to edit the roles for, then select the Edit button.

4. Select the System-Wide Roles tab and select the appropriate roles.



5. Select Save.

Assign client-wide roles

In contrast to granting system-wide access, there may be some staff who should not be able to see everything in Cloud. You may grant a manager the ability to manage all content for a specific client, or you may want to only assign staff members to specific engagements so that they know that all activities on their Cloud timeline are relevant for their work assignments.

You can grant this access by assigning client-wide access to users or groups.

To assign entity roles to a user or group:

The steps below describe the process for assigning an entity role to a staff member. You can assign contacts or groups to entities in the same way.

1. Ensure that you have the Owner role or equivalent privileges for the entity.

2. From the Cloud menu, select Staff.

3. Select the user you want to grant the role to, then select Ellipsis | Assign to Entities.



4. In the Assign to Entities dialog, select an entity, then select the roles arrow on the right side of the row. Choose the role to grant to this user.



5. Select Share.

Assign roles on selected content

If the team members working on an engagement do not need to see each others’ documents or activities, you can assign security roles to your users for individual files.

First, you need to grant your user the Entity Access role for the entity where these individual files will be added. This role permits users to see the entity in Cloud, but doesn’t grant any other access to the content under that entity.

To grant the Entity Access role:

1. Ensure that you have the Owner role or equivalent privileges to the entity.

2. From the Cloud menu, select Groups or Staff.

3. Select the user or group you want to edit the roles for, then select Ellipsis | Assign to Entities.



4. Select the entities you want the user to be able to see, then select Assign Roles to (#) and the Entity Access role. Any roles that users already have due to previous settings appear under Inherited.



5. Select Share.

Now your user has entity access for the required entity, and you can share individual files.


To assign roles on files or activities to a user or group:

1. Ensure that you have the Owner role or equivalent rights to the file or activity.

2. Select the files or activities you want to assign roles for, then select Share.



3. The Share icon is displayed after you select a file.

4. Select the users or groups you want to have access to the file or activity. Select Assign Roles to (#) and the appropriate roles.
Any roles that users already have due to previous settings appear under Inherited.



5. Select Share.

You can control access to individual files in this way, giving your staff or contacts access to only those files that they need to see for an engagement.

Assign user types

There is a workflow feature in Cloud that you can use to categorize entities, profiles, and files. For example, you might set up a workflow for your staff members called Staff status with stages such as new, probation, full time, and temporary leave.

You may have already created this workflow when you were setting up your organizational standards. Once a staff member workflow is in place, you can set the status for your new users.

To set the type of user:

1. Ensure that you have the Staff Admin role or equivalent rights.

2. From the Cloud menu, select Staff or Contacts.

3. Select the user whose workflow stage you want to change.

4. In the user’s menu, select the current workflow, then select the new workflow option.



Welcome page

When your users log in for the first time, a Welcome page will open with links to key information about Cloud and how to use it. The Welcome page contains information to get your users up and running faster, with customized content for administrators, staff members and contacts.



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