Inviting and Managing Users
Study access is granted per study, by invitation. Adding someone sends them an email invitation and gives them a role on your study only — it does not touch their access anywhere else.
Where: Settings → Users
Users and sites are live study data, not study configuration, so you can manage them at any time — including in production. The "Study configuration is locked in production" notice you may see on other settings pages applies only to forms, timepoints, statuses, workflows and study settings.
Who can manage users
| You are | You can |
|---|---|
| Admin or Sponsor | Invite anyone, in any role, on any site; change any user's role and sites; deactivate anyone |
| CRA | Invite uploaders only, onto your own sites; manage uploaders who sit entirely within your sites |
| Any other role | Nothing — the Users page is not available |
See Roles and Permissions for what each role can do once they are in, and What a CRA can and cannot do for the CRA limits.
Invite someone
- Go to Settings → Users and click Add User (top right).
- Fill in the row:
- Email — the address the invitation is sent to. This becomes their sign-in username.
- Name — optional.
- Role — see choosing a role below.
- Sites — only appears for Uploader and CRA. Other roles get the whole study.
- To invite more than one person at once, click Add User inside the form to add another row. Each row is its own person, role, and site list.
- Click Add Users to Study.
You get one confirmation per person — Invite sent to <email>. If a row fails, it is
reported separately with the reason, and the rows that succeeded are still sent. Fix the
failed row and submit again.
The new person appears in the Users table straight away, marked Pending in the Accepted Invite column until they accept.
Choosing a role
Grant the narrowest role that lets someone do their job:
- They send imaging and nothing else → Uploader
- They read studies and write reports → Reader
- They monitor sites and bring uploaders on → CRA
- They need oversight of the study, including access management → Sponsor
- They run the study → Admin
- They only handle invoices → Billing
A person can hold different roles on different studies. To change what someone can do on this study, change their role rather than inviting them a second time.
Site assignment
Uploader and CRA are scoped to sites — they only see and act on the sites you select, and at least one is required. Every other role covers the whole study; their Sites column shows All and the site selector does not appear.
If a site is missing from the list, add it first under Settings → Sites.
What the invited person receives
They get the standard Brainstorme invitation email, which takes them to the portal to set a password and sign in. From there:
- They should register a passkey if they will e-sign reports — see Signing in with a Passkey.
- If they already have a Brainstorme account, the invitation adds this study to the account they already have. They sign in as usual.
- If they used the old portal and have never signed in to the new one, point them at Moving to the New System first.
Pending invitations
Until someone accepts, their row is marked Pending. Open the ⋮ menu at the end of the row for:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Resend Email | Sends the same invitation email again. Safe to repeat — it never creates a second account. |
| Invite Link (copy) | Copies the person's personal invitation link to your clipboard, so you can send it to them yourself — for example when the email is being caught by their hospital's spam filter. |
| Change Name | Corrects the name shown for the invitation. |
| Cancel Invite | Withdraws the invitation. The link stops working. |
A pending invitation's role cannot be changed — the Role control is greyed out until they accept. If you picked the wrong role, Cancel Invite and invite them again with the right one.
Ask them to check spam and any quarantine folder, and confirm the address in the table is the one they actually use. Then either Resend Email, or copy the Invite Link and send it to them directly — the link works the same as the button in the email.
Managing an existing user
Once someone has accepted, you manage them from their row.
Change a role
Pick the new role from the Role dropdown in their row. It saves immediately. The change takes effect on their next sign-in — ask them to sign out and back in if they are mid-session.
The Role dropdown is greyed out on your own row (you cannot change your own role), on pending invitations, and — for a CRA — on anyone who is not an uploader within their sites.
If you move someone to Uploader or CRA, check their Sites afterwards — those roles only see the sites they are assigned. See Add or remove sites.
Add or remove sites
For Uploaders and CRAs:
- See their sites — hover over the flag chip in the Sites column. It shows the site number when they have one site, or the count (for example 3 sites) when they have several.
- Remove a site — hover the chip and click the × next to the site. It is removed straight away (Site removed from user).
- Add a site — hover the chip and click Add Site, or open the ⋮ menu and choose Add Site to User. Pick one or more sites and save.
Admins and Sponsors always cover every site, so their chip shows All and has nothing to add or remove.
Everything else in the ⋮ menu
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| View More | Shows the full account record — useful when support asks for details. |
| Change Name | Updates the name shown for them in the portal. |
| Send Password Reset | Emails them a link to set a new password. The link expires, so ask them to use it soon. |
| Send OTP | Emails them a one-time sign-in, so they can get in without their password — handy when they are locked out and need access now. |
| Add Site to User | See Add or remove sites. |
| Deactivate | Removes them from the study. |
Remove someone from the study
Open the ⋮ menu and choose Deactivate, then confirm in the Remove from Study dialog. This revokes their access to this study entirely, across every site at once. Their history — uploads, reports, signatures — stays in place and in the audit log.
Every change on this page — invitations, role and site changes, and removals — is recorded in the audit log with who made it and when.
What a CRA can and cannot do
A CRA is a site-scoped manager, so the platform holds them to their own sites:
- They may invite uploaders, and no other role — not admins, sponsors, readers, billing, or another CRA.
- Every invite they send must name at least one site, and every site must be one of theirs.
- They may add one of their own sites to an uploader, and change or deactivate only a user whose sites are all within their own. A user who spans a site they do not cover is out of reach, and the menu does not offer Deactivate for them.
These limits are enforced by the platform, not just hidden in the interface — an action outside a CRA's reach is refused.
Troubleshooting
"You can only invite users to your own sites" — you are a CRA and the row named a site you are not assigned to, or named no site at all. Pick one of your own sites.
The invitation never arrived — see Pending invitations: check spam, confirm the address, then Resend Email or send them the copied Invite Link.
I can't change their role — they have not accepted yet (cancel and re-invite instead), it is your own account, or you are a CRA and they are outside your reach.
They sign in but see nothing — they are probably in the wrong study, or their role does not include the screen they are looking for. Check Verifying your access.
They are locked out — use Send Password Reset, or Send OTP for a one-time sign-in. If they have a passkey, they can also sign in with it.