Getting Started as Owner¶
Available to: Owner
This guide is for users with the Owner role. Owners have full access to all records and features within their company.
The Owner role represents the highest level of authority within a company in Hardhat Flow. Owners have unrestricted access to every record — bids, jobs, invoices, payments, and users — and are the only role that can take certain irreversible actions. This role is designed for business owners, principals, and executives who need full visibility and final decision-making authority.
First Steps After Login¶
When you first log in as an Owner, start by orienting yourself to your company's current state:
- Review the Dashboard — The dashboard gives you a snapshot of active bids, jobs in progress, and outstanding invoices. Use this as your daily starting point.
- Set up your team — Go to Settings → Team and invite your Project Managers, Accounting staff, Supervisors, and Badge Workers. Provide each invitee's full profile (name, email, phone, role); then share your tenant's login URL with them so they can sign up at Auth0 with the same email address.
- Configure company and notifications — Open Settings in the sidebar (below Team). Update company information, email notification preferences, and review upcoming text notification options.
- Review any existing bids — If bids have already been created, check the Bids list for any in Bid Awaiting PO status that are waiting for your approval.
You are the only person who can approve bids.
Until you approve a bid, no job is created and no field work can begin. Make it a habit to check for bids awaiting your action each day.
What Only Owners Can Do¶
Several actions in Hardhat Flow are restricted exclusively to the Owner role:
| Action | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Approve a bid | Triggers automatic job creation |
| Reject a bid | Permanently declines the bid; no job is created |
| Cancel a bid | Withdraws a bid at any time, regardless of status |
| Cancel a job | Stops active work and closes out the job |
| Edit any record in any status | Other roles cannot edit approved or closed records |
| Create and manage user accounts | Controls who has access to your company |
| Create and edit invoices | Along with the Accounting role |
Rejections and cancellations cannot be undone.
Hardhat Flow uses soft deletes — records are never permanently destroyed — but rejected and cancelled records cannot be returned to an active state. Take care before rejecting or cancelling.
Daily Workflow¶
A typical day for an Owner in Hardhat Flow follows this pattern:
- Open the Dashboard and scan for flagged items (blocked or priority)
- Check the Bids list for any in Bid Awaiting PO that need approval or rejection
- Review any new activity on active jobs
- Approve incoming bids as clients confirm — jobs are created automatically on approval
- Monitor Jobs for any that are blocked or flagged as priority
- Review updates posted by Supervisors and Badge Workers
- Handle any escalated issues from Project Managers
- Check Invoices for any that are overdue or partially paid
- Review the Activity Feed on any jobs that had issues flagged during the day
Key Pages¶
| Page | What you do here |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | High-level status of bids, jobs, and invoices |
| Bids | Review, approve, reject, and cancel bids |
| Jobs | Monitor all active jobs, assign workers, update statuses |
| Invoices | Create invoices, track payments, view workflow completion |
| Settings → Team | Invite, manage, and deactivate team members (tenant roles only — Platform Admin accounts are hidden here) |
| Settings | Company profile, email notification preferences, and text notification options (coming soon) |
| Activity Feed | Full audit log for any bid or job |
Managing Users¶
As an Owner, you control who can access your company's Hardhat Flow account from Settings → Team.
To add a user:
- Go to Settings → Team in the navigation
- Click Invite User
- Enter their full profile (first name, last name, email, phone) and select a role: Project Manager, Supervisor, Accounting, or Badge Worker
- Click Invite — the row is created in your tenant immediately and shows as Awaiting first login
- Share your tenant's login URL with the invitee. When they sign up at Auth0 using the same email address, the row is automatically linked to their Auth0 account on first login
Passwords are not stored in Hardhat Flow.
Authentication is handled by Auth0. Users log in with their Auth0 credentials. Hardhat Flow never stores or manages passwords directly.
Invitations do not expire.
A pre-provisioned row stays valid until the invitee logs in or you remove it from the Team page.
You can change any non-Owner user's role inline from the Team page, deactivate them with the Active toggle, or remove them with the trash icon. You cannot promote a team member to Owner from this page — that change must be performed by a Platform Admin.
Platform Admin support accounts are not listed on the Team page. If someone needs platform-level access, a Platform Admin handles that outside this list.
Document Editor¶
As an Owner you can customize the content of both bid and invoice documents before downloading the PDF.
| Document | Access |
|---|---|
| Bid documents | Edit, save, reset, download PDF |
| Invoice documents | Edit, save, reset, download PDF |
To open the editor, navigate to a bid detail page and click Edit Bid Proposal, or an invoice detail page and click Edit Document. The editor supports rich text formatting, tables, image uploads, and placeholder tokens that resolve to live project data at PDF render time.
See Document Editor for full details.