Assign roles and permissions to your team members for specific clients by filling out and uploading the Roles Workbook.
Why it matters: Manually assigning roles to each team member for each client would be tedious and error-prone. The Roles Workbook lets you set up your entire permission structure at once, so team members have the right access when they start working.
Table of Contents
Set Up Roles and Team Members
Before you can assign roles in the workbook, roles must exist in Canopy and team members must be invited.
Create roles in Canopy:
Click the blue circle with your initials in the top right.
Select Settings > Team Organization > Roles.
Click Create Role (blue hyperlink on the top right).
Set up each role you need (e.g., "Senior CPA", "Staff Accountant", "Client Coordinator").
Invite team members:
Go to Settings > Team Organization > Team Members.
Invite all team members whose emails you'll be adding to the Roles Workbook.
Invitations don't need to be accepted — they just need to be sent so Canopy recognizes the email addresses.
Download and Prepare Your Workbook
Download the workbook ("Canopy_Universal_Template.xlsm") from the email sent by your Implementation Specialist or Data Migration Specialist.
Enable macros in Excel:
Find the downloaded workbook in your file explorer.
Right-click the file and select Preferences.
Scroll to the bottom and find the Security section.
Select Unblock and click Save.
Open the workbook in Excel. Below the ribbon, you may see a prompt to enable macros — select Enable.
Download your Client List from Canopy:
Go to Clients > Client List.
Remove all active filters.
Click the three-dot menu next to Add Client.
Select Export filtered list.
You'll use the client display names from this export in the workbook.
Fill in the Roles Workbook
Add rows to the workbook for each assignment you need to create:
Click Add/Paste Rows in the Excel ribbon.
Add at least as many rows as role assignments you have (rows can be added in groups of 1,000).
Fill in Column A — Client Display Name:
Copy and paste client names directly from your Canopy export.
Names must match exactly.
Fill in Column B — Team Member Email:
Enter the email address of the team member you're assigning roles to.
Fill in Column C — Roles:
Click the grey Add Role(s) button.
Select the roles you want to assign to this team member for this client.
If assigning multiple roles at once, separate them with a comma.
You can also copy and paste roles directly from Canopy into the cell.
Your worksheet should look like the below example:
Upload Your Workbook
Use the secure upload link sent by your Implementation Specialist or Data Migration Specialist to upload the completed Roles Workbook to Canopy.
Your Data Migration Specialist will handle the import and notify you when it's complete.
Summary
This article covered how to create roles in Canopy, invite team members, download the Roles Workbook, and fill in client-to-role assignments. Once uploaded, your team members will have the appropriate permissions for each client.
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