Bringing someone new onto your team in Xota is a two-step job:
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Add them as a team member record so you can put them on the schedule.
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Invite them as a user so they can log into the mobile app and see what they're working on.
You can do both in a couple of minutes.
🎥 Watch the walkthrough:
Why it's two steps
A team member is the person — their name, job title, employment details, holiday entitlement, who they report to. This is the record you schedule work against.
A user is the login — the email and password they use to sign into Xota on their phone or on the web. One person can sit on the rota without ever logging in (common for subcontractors), and every user is tied to a team member, contact, or admin record.
Keeping the two separate means you can put someone on the schedule on day one and decide later whether to give them app access.
Step 1 — Add the team member record
From the sidebar, click HR. You'll land on Team Members. Hit Add Team Member in the top-right.
The only fields you need to get someone onto the schedule are:
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First Name (required)
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Surname
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Email — needed if you want to invite them as a user
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Job Title — what shows under their name on the schedule (e.g. Operative, Plumber, Site Manager)
Holiday Tracking Type defaults to Hours, which is the right choice for most teams.
Everything else — phone, address, date of birth, National Insurance number, employment dates, paid breaks, which teams they're in — can be filled in later. You can come back any time and edit.
Hit Create Team Member and they're on the rota.
Step 2 — Invite them as a user
Adding them to HR gets them on the schedule, but they can't log in yet. To fix that:
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Go to Settings → People.
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Click the Team Members tab — this tells the invite flow you're adding a Team Member specifically.
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Hit Invite User.
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Pick the team member from the dropdown. Their email flows through automatically, and the role is pre-set to Team Member.
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Hit Send Invitation.
They'll receive an email with a link, set their own password, download the mobile app, and they're in.
The three roles
When you invite someone, you're picking one of three roles:
| Role | What they see |
|---|---|
| Admin (or Owner) | Everything — all clients, projects, bookings, the whole schedule, settings. |
| Team Member | Their own bookings only — a mobile-friendly view of today and the next 7 days, with the ability to mark bookings complete and capture sign-off. |
| Client | Their own projects and bookings only, as a read-only portal. |
Pick the right role up front and Xota handles the rest.
Managing pending invitations
Anyone you've invited but who hasn't accepted yet appears in the Pending Invitations section underneath the users table.
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To cancel an invitation — maybe you invited the wrong person, or they're not starting after all — hit Cancel in the Actions column.
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To resend, cancel the old invitation and send a fresh one.
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Pending invitations expire automatically after a set period.
Next up
Head to Adding your first company to add the client you're working for.