Course 13 · The owner's first hour

You just became the owner. The first hour you spend here sets how the whole workspace runs.

By the end of this lesson you will explain both roles plainly. A member does the work: uploads, benchmarks, negotiations. An owner does that and holds the keys: people, teams, approvals, security, billing.

Right now the workspace holds one person, you, one owner. Notice what only you can see: this members page, teams, deal approvals, the security policy. A member signing in never finds these. That separation is deliberate, so the keys cannot be handed out by accident.

Bringing people in is the point here. Invite one at a time and set each person's role as you go, or paste a batch of addresses under one role. Every invitation expires in seven days, and a resend restarts the clock. Assign the role now; change it inline later.

Domain capture is the alternative to chasing invitations. Let anyone on your email domain request to join, and you approve them from a queue, picking each person's role at approval. Decide this now.

By the end of this lesson you will know who to invite first. Start with the people who run deals, procurement and the contract owners, because a workspace proves itself on real work, not a full roster. Bring finance and legal next. Send each invitation with a line about why, so the first email sets the tone.

By the end of this lesson you will grant confidential work to a group, not a list. A team is an access unit. Grant a restricted contract once, and joining is the access, leaving is the revoke.

Name teams the way the company already organizes: procurement, finance, legal. Set them up before the first sensitive document arrives, not after. Each team card shows its people and how many confidential grants it holds.

There is a companion to this page worth knowing. Team activity shows what each member actually does: who has signed in, which features they use, and which nobody has touched. Read it monthly to spot who has not started, and generate a written adoption plan from the same numbers.

By the end of this lesson you will set up sign-off that mirrors how your organization approves. Deal approvals is a chain that must clear a deal before signature. It is off by default.

The principle is simple. A negotiator can take a deal to the edge of signature, but the signature waits until the named approvers have cleared it. Nothing changes, only that one gate is added before it closes.

Turn the chain on and choose whether every approver must clear it, or one is enough. Add up to ten approvers. Match the chain to the approval your teams already run, so it records a step you take anyway.

Once it is live, every deal that reaches signature carries its chain: who has cleared it, who is pending. The approval is documented, so when someone asks who signed off, the answer is on the record.

The requests list shows every sign-off negotiators have sent, and how many approvers cleared each. Two questions. One, what can an owner see that a member cannot? Two, when does a deal actually get signed under approvals?

Now you. Invite your first three teammates, each with a role. Give it ten minutes. Next is Course 14, security governance.