There are two different jobs that often get lumped together: getting your staff into the admin side of Deskie, and getting your members onboarded. They work differently. This article walks through both, plus the multi-step onboarding flow your members see, exactly as the product runs it today.
Giving staff admin access
Staff access in Deskie is granted by changing someone's workspace role, not by sending a separate staff invitation. The roles that can use the admin side are Owner and Admin. For the full breakdown of what each role can do, see Roles and permissions.
To make someone an admin:
- The person needs to already exist in your workspace. If they are not there yet, add them as a member first (covered below), or have them already be part of the workspace.
- Open Settings and go to the Staff (Roles) section.
- Use Add Admin, search for the person by name or email, and select them.
- Confirm. Their workspace role is updated to Admin, which gives them admin access.
The picker shows active members of your workspace, including existing Owners and Admins. People who already have admin-level access appear but cannot be selected again, since they are already at or above the Admin role.
A few guardrails are enforced by the system:
- You cannot change the role of a workspace Owner down to Admin or Member. If you need to move ownership, that has to be handled as an ownership transfer first.
- Managers (location-level admins) cannot change workspace roles at all. The Staff (Roles) area is reserved for people who can manage the workspace.
Removing admin access works the same way in reverse: it changes the person's role back to Member. They remain in the workspace as a regular member; they are not deleted.
Adding members
Members are the people who use your space. You add them from the admin side, on the Members page, using Add Member. When you create a member you can capture their personal details (first name, last name, email, phone), business details (business name, email, phone), internal notes, a profile photo, team membership, and which location or locations they belong to.
When you save a new member, Deskie:
- Creates their user account (or, if someone with that email already exists, links the existing account into your workspace). If the email is already a member of your workspace, the create is rejected so you do not get duplicates.
- Adds them to the workspace with the Member role and creates their member profile, marked active.
- Records the member's primary location when you assign one. This is the location they are scoped to, which controls which managers and location-scoped admins can see them.
- Records any team memberships and additional location roles you assigned.
There is also a bulk import path used when migrating members in. That route can carry over existing billing details (Stripe customer, card brand, last four, and expiry) so imported members do not have to re-enter a card. Both single and bulk creation send the same welcome email described below.
For everything you can do with a member after they exist (editing, billing, pausing, and so on), see Managing members.
The welcome email and onboarding link
After a member is created, Deskie sends a welcome email containing a personal onboarding link. The link points to your workspace's onboarding page for that specific member.
Two settings control this email, configured alongside your membership agreement:
- Welcome email enabled. If welcome emails are turned off for your workspace, no email is sent when you add a member. You can still hand them the onboarding link another way, or turn the email back on.
- Custom welcome content. If you have set custom welcome email text, that text is used. Otherwise Deskie uses its default template.
If a member loses the email or never finishes, you can resend the onboarding email from their member record. It regenerates the same onboarding link and re-applies your current welcome email settings.
What the member completes during onboarding
The onboarding link opens a guided, multi-step flow branded with your workspace logo and background. The member's existing details are pre-filled where Deskie already has them. The full flow has these steps:
- Welcome. A short intro to your space.
- Personal information. First name, last name, phone, and email. Phone must be at least 10 digits and the email must be valid. Saving this updates the member's name, email, and phone.
- Additional Info. Appears only when your workspace has custom member fields flagged to show during onboarding. The member answers those questions in one step; fields you marked required must be filled before continuing, and answers save as the member moves on, so coming back to the step shows what they entered. See Custom fields for how to flag a field.
- Set password. The member chooses a password for their account. It must be at least 8 characters and include an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, and a number. This creates their login credentials.
- Billing information. The card step (see the next section for when it appears).
- Membership agreement. The member reads your agreement and signs it. The signature is captured and stored, with the date.
- Completion. A confirmation screen. Clicking Finish finalizes onboarding and sends the member to log in.
Deskie considers a member's onboarding complete once they have signed the membership agreement. That signature is what flips the member's onboarding status to done, which is why the member list and member record show whether someone has finished.
If a member who has already completed onboarding opens the link again, they are sent to the login page rather than back through the flow.
How the card step works
When the billing step is shown, the member enters a card directly into a secure Stripe card field. Behind the scenes Deskie creates a Stripe customer for the member if one does not exist yet, collects the card through Stripe, and saves it as the member's default payment method for future charges. Only the card brand, last four digits, and expiry are stored on the member record; the full card details live with Stripe. This step requires that your workspace has Stripe connected. See Connecting Stripe.
The card step is automatically handled in these cases:
- A payment method is already on file. If the member already has a saved card (locally or in Stripe), the step shows a confirmation that a payment method is on file and no card is requested again.
- Card collection is turned off for the workspace. If your workspace has the "skip payment method during onboarding" setting enabled, the card step is skipped entirely. The flow then shows as five steps instead of six.
- A team pays for the member. If the member belongs to exactly one team, and that team is set to both default its payments to the team and skip member card onboarding, the card step is skipped and the member sees a note that their team covers their membership. This only applies to single-team members; members on more than one team are still asked for a card so they remain billable. See Teams.
What happens when onboarding finishes
When the member clicks Finish on the completion step, Deskie wraps up the account:
- The member's email is marked as verified and their profile is confirmed active.
- If your workspace has the Kisi door-access integration connected and the member does not already have a Kisi user, Deskie creates one for them so their access can be provisioned. If Kisi is not connected, this is simply skipped. Door access is covered in Door access overview.
From this point the member can sign in to their member account and use whatever you have made available to them, such as booking resources, buying passes, and viewing invoices.
Members who sign up themselves
If you have published a public website with sign-up enabled, prospective members can create an account and check out on their own rather than being added by staff. That path is its own flow and is covered in Public sign-up and checkout. The staff-driven creation and onboarding described above is the route to use when you are adding members directly.