People, roles and departments

Add your team, give each person the right sign-in, and scope what they see with departments, categories, and locations.

Everyone on your team signs in with a phone number and a PIN — but what they see depends on their role. Getting roles right is most of the setup: a barista should see their outlet’s stock and nothing else; the purchase manager needs the whole console. This page covers adding people, what each role can do, and the three scoping tools — departments, categories, and locations.

New to the terms here (persona, PR, console)? See the Glossary.

The four kinds of sign-in

• Owner — everything: the console plus the owner-only surfaces (purchase order approvals, org profile, approval threshold, expiry horizons, new-outlet setup).
• Manager (warehouse manager, or the org-wide manager) — the day-to-day console: stock, ordering, receiving, vendors, reports, and people admin.
• Outlet staff — the mobile app, scoped to their own outlet only: they order, receive, count, and log wastage there, and never see the console. An outlet manager gets the same app plus approval of their outlet’s purchase requests.
• Kitchen — the central-kitchen production console (see Kitchen production). A kitchen account must be assigned to a central kitchen, or production data can’t load.

Note: there is also an org-wide admin marker that works across every Maska module. An admin sees and can do everything, in every module, regardless of the module roles on their account.

Add a person

1. Go to Settings → Users & Roles and tap New.
2. Enter their full name and phone number.
3. Set a 4-digit PIN. Share it with them — they’ll be asked to set their own on first login.
4. Under Roles & locations, add one or more role rows. Each location-scoped role needs a location of the matching kind:
   • Warehouse manager → a warehouse
   • Outlet manager or Staff (Outlet) → an outlet
   • Kitchen (Central Kitchen) → a central kitchen
   • Manager (org-wide) → no location
5. For outlet staff, pick their departments (below) so they only see their own items.
6. Save. The person can sign in straight away.

To reset a forgotten PIN, open the person from the list and type a new one in Reset PIN (leave it blank to keep the old one). To remove someone, use the archive control on their row — archiving disables their sign-in but keeps their history, and you can restore them later.

Who sees what

The big gates, in people terms:

• Owner-only: approving purchase orders (the Approvals tab), the org profile, the PO Approval Threshold, Expiry horizons, and the new-outlet stock setup wizard.
• Owners and managers: Users & Roles, Locations, Departments, Categories, imports, and the whole console.
• Outlet staff: the mobile app for their own outlet — never the console, and never other outlets’ stock.
• Kitchen: only the kitchen console — none of the procurement tabs.

Departments

Departments scope items and staff so people only order and count what is theirs — the bar team sees bar stock, the bakery sees bakery stock.

1. Go to Settings → Departments and create a department (name, optional code, an emoji if you like).
2. Open it to assign items and staff.

A staff member assigned to a department sees that department’s items in their ordering and counting screens. Items with no department are visible to all staff, and admins always have access to every department.

Categories

Categories are the everyday grouping you see on stock lists and filters — Dairy, Produce, Packaging. Manage them under Settings → Categories: create, rename, and set their display order. Every item belongs to one category (departments, by contrast, are about who can touch the item).

Outlets and locations

Settings → Locations lists your warehouse, central kitchen, and outlets. When adding, you can link an existing outlet (one already set up elsewhere in Maska) or create a new location from scratch.

A brand-new outlet needs opening stock. Creating one sends you (owners only) into the two-step setup wizard:

1. Select items & par levels — choose what this outlet stocks and set its reorder points. You can copy the list from an existing outlet.
2. Record opening stock — enter the quantities currently on hand. Skip any item you have none of.

Once saved, the outlet is live: its staff can sign in, order, and receive.