People
ActivityPulse has four related concepts for the people in your organization: Teammates, Users, Teams, and Direct Reports. They are managed under the People menu in the sidebar. This page defines each one, shows how they relate, and points to the page where each is managed in detail.
The four concepts
Teammate
A teammate is a person whose activity is tracked across the connected data sources. A teammate is identified by a display name and (optionally) an email address, and has one external ID per data source — for example a GitLab username, a Jira account ID, or an MS365 mailbox — that tells ActivityPulse which account in each tool belongs to this person.
A teammate does not log in to ActivityPulse. Tracking-only is a valid configuration: a contractor or partner can be a teammate with no user account.
Managed under People → Teammates. See Teammates and Teams for details on adding teammates, configuring external IDs, and disabling individual data sources for a particular person.
Team
A team is a named group of teammates. Teams are used to scope dashboards, activity feeds, summaries, and email reports — for example, “show me Engineering’s activity for the last week” or “email a weekly summary of the Platform team to the manager”.
A teammate can belong to multiple teams. Teams contain teammates, not users — there is no concept of “adding a user to a team”.
Managed under People → Teams. See Teammates and Teams for creating and renaming teams and managing membership.
User
A user is an account that can log in to ActivityPulse. Every user has one of four roles that controls what they can do and see:
- Owner — full administrative control
- Admin — configuration, integrations, user and team management
- Manager — team-scoped read access plus direct-report management
- Viewer — self-only data access by default, optionally extended by team grants
A user does not have to be a teammate. A pure user with no linked teammate is appropriate for an engineering director or executive who needs visibility but is not being tracked themselves.
Managed under People → Users. See Roles and Access Control for what each role can do, and Configuring ActivityPulse → User Management for inviting and adding users.
Direct report
A direct report is a teammate-to-teammate reporting link. Managers use it to focus their default view on the people they manage; Admins and Owners use it to maintain the broader org structure (and to keep summaries and manager-oriented views accurate).
Because the link is between teammates, it works whether or not those teammates have an ActivityPulse user account — useful for setting up the reporting structure before everyone has signed in.
Managers manage their own list under People → My Direct Reports. Admins and Owners manage any teammate’s reports under People → Direct Reports. See Direct Reports for both views.
How they relate
User (logs in, has a role)
│ optional 1:1 link by email
▼
Teammate ──┬─► Team (many-to-many)
└─► Teammate (direct-report link)
| Relationship | Cardinality | Created by |
|---|---|---|
| User ↔ Teammate | 0..1 to 0..1, linked by email | Automatic when emails match on add/invite/teammate-create; manual via ⋮ → Manage teammate link |
| Teammate ↔ Team | many-to-many | Admins on the Teammates or Teams page |
| Teammate → Manager (direct report) | many-to-one | Manager on My Direct Reports; Admin/Owner on Direct Reports |
| User → Role | one-to-one (Owner/Admin/Manager/Viewer) | Admin or Owner on the Users page |
The User-to-Teammate link is the piece most often misunderstood: it is optional, by email, and created automatically whenever a user and a teammate with the same email both exist in the org. The link is what ties a logged-in user back to “their own activity” — which matters especially for the Viewer role.
When to create which
A few common scenarios:
- New hire who needs to be tracked and use the app — Create a teammate (or invite them as a user, which can create both at once with the Add teammate with the same email checkbox). Configure their external IDs so activity from GitLab, Jira, and so on is attributed to them. Assign their user role.
- Contractor whose activity should be tracked but who won’t log in — Create a teammate only. No user account, no role. Disable the data sources they don’t use via the per-source sync toggle.
- Engineering director who needs visibility but isn’t tracked themselves — Invite a user with the Manager or Admin role. No teammate is required, though one can be linked later if the director wants their own activity to appear in their view.
- Setting up the reporting structure before everyone has signed in — Create teammates first, then add direct-report links between them under People → Direct Reports (Admin/Owner view). User accounts can be added later as people are invited.
The Viewer special case
A Viewer sees only their own activity by default, which means they must be linked to a teammate record — otherwise there is no “their own activity” to show. ActivityPulse links Viewers automatically whenever a teammate with the same email exists in the organization, including at invite time for pending invitations. If a Viewer’s email doesn’t match any teammate, or matches more than one ambiguously, link them manually from People → Users via ⋮ → Manage teammate link.
A Viewer’s visibility can be extended beyond self-only by granting them team access from the same ⋮ → Manage team access menu on People → Users. The set is additive: a linked Viewer with team grants sees their own activity plus the granted teams’ teammates. Self-only is the default, not a hard limit.
A Viewer with no link and no team grants cannot access the dashboard. See Roles and Access Control → Viewer and Configuring ActivityPulse → Linking users to teammates.
Where to manage each
| In-app location | What you manage | Detailed docs |
|---|---|---|
| People → Users | User accounts, roles, invitations, teammate links | User Management, Roles and Access Control |
| People → Teammates | Teammate records, external IDs, per-source sync | Teammates and Teams |
| People → Teams | Teams and their membership | Teammates and Teams |
| People → My Direct Reports | Your own direct reports (Managers) | My Direct Reports |
| People → Direct Reports | Any teammate’s direct reports (Admin/Owner) | Direct Reports |