Teams and organisations

A team is a named group of people in flowss with a shared home for their projects. You create it, invite colleagues by email or with a join link, give each person a role, and assign cloud projects to it so that everyone on the roster can open them. This page covers everything on the Teams page at /teams: who can create a team and on which plan, the three team roles and what each can do, every way to invite people and withdraw an invitation, what an invitee sees before joining, how team membership turns into access to team projects, the AI workspace planner, sharing Sketch components with a team, what happens when the owner's plan changes, and every message you might meet along the way.

At a glance

Teams, organisations and workspaces

You will see a few words for the same thing. On the Teams page and in the Studio it is a team. Some parts of the product call it a workspace (for example the Sketch canvas's Workspace component shelf and its Share selection to workspace button), and the pricing page lists "Team spaces with member roles". Behind the scenes a team is an organisation, which is why this page carries both names. They all mean the same group of people with the same roster and the same projects.

A team is not the same as a shared project. A shared (cloud) project has its own member list, with Owner, Editor, Commenter and Viewer roles, and you can share a project with someone without any team at all; see Sharing and permissions. A team is a longer-lived group you manage once, and every project you assign to it becomes available to the whole roster automatically.

A team is also not a classroom. Classrooms (cohorts) have instructors, students, assignments and grades, and work on every plan; see Classrooms, cohorts and assignments.

Where to find Teams

If you are not signed in, /teams shows an introduction to teams with Bring your team together and Start with your team buttons (both take you to sign in and bring you back), Explore team plans (opens pricing) and Explore the Studio. Once you are signed in, the same address shows the Teams page itself, headed Teams, with Classroom and Back to Studio links in its header.

Plans: who pays for a team

A team runs on its owner's plan. Whatever an admin or member is on, the owner's plan decides whether the team can invite and admit people. Paid plans are described in Plans and what they include.

This means a Plus owner can bring in colleagues who are on Free: they join, open the team's projects and work in them at their team role. It also means an admin on Free can invite people, as long as the owner is on Plus or higher.

Note: If you try to create a team on Free or Starter, you see: "Teams start on Plus. Your projects and everything in them stay exactly where they are on any plan — Plus is what adds the people: shared projects, invites and live sessions."

Note: While a plan is not yet on sale, its card on the pricing page shows a waitlist button (for example Join the Plus waitlist) instead of an upgrade button. See Plans and what they include for how waitlists work.

Roles and permissions

Every person on a team has exactly one team role. The person who creates the team is its owner, and stays its owner.

What each team role can do

On the Teams page, controls you cannot use are greyed out or hidden. A member sees "Only owners and admins can invite members." under the invite controls.

What a team role gives on team projects

A project that its owner has assigned to a team is open to everyone on that team. Your team role translates into a project role like this:

A few rules decide the final outcome:

• You always get the stronger of your team role and any role you were given on the project directly. If a team member was also invited to a project as an Editor, they edit it; the team never lowers what a project invitation gave.
• A team never makes anyone a project Owner. Renaming, deleting, moving the project between teams, inviting people to the project and managing its member list stay with the project's owner, whoever is on the team.
• Access is worked out every time, never copied. When someone leaves or is removed from the team, or when the project is taken out of the team, their team access ends at once.

For what Viewer, Commenter and Editor allow inside a project, see Sharing and permissions.

The Teams page, section by section

When you are signed in, the page is laid out top to bottom as follows. The first team in your list is selected automatically when the page loads.

Team invitation card

This appears at the top only when you arrive through an invitation. See Joining a team below.

The flowss Teams Agent (workspace planner)

A purple card titled flowss Teams Agent · Workspace planner with a "Works without setup" badge, meaning you do not need a team first. It has a goal field (placeholder 'Team goal — e.g. "Launch a payments service"'), a Plan with the flowss Teams Agent button (greyed out until you type a goal) and four one-tap goals: "Launch a payments service", "Migrate a monolith to microservices", "Design an onboarding flow" and "Plan a data warehouse". See Plan the work with AI.

Your teams

The left-hand column, headed Your teams, lists every team you belong to. Each row shows the team's initials, a crown if you are its owner, the team name and your role badge (Owner, Admin or Member). Click a row to open that team. With no teams the list reads "No teams yet — create one below." Under the list is a New team name field with a + button.

When you have no teams yet, the right-hand side shows a card headed Bring your team together with a Name your first team… field and a Create team button.

Team header

The selected team's name, your role badge in it, and its size ("1 member", "4 members").

Invite teammates

An email field (placeholder "teammate@company.com"), a role menu (Member or Admin), an Invite button and a Copy link button. The role menu applies to both buttons. After Copy link succeeds, the button reads Copied for a couple of seconds. For a member, all four controls are greyed out.

Roster

Headed Roster with a count. Each person shows their initials, a crown for the owner, their name (or their email address when they have no name, or "Member" when neither is known) and "(you)" beside your own entry. When a person has both a name and an email address, the address appears underneath the name. On the right:

• The owner sees a role menu (Member / Admin) for everyone except the owner; everyone else sees a role badge.
• Owners and admins see a bin icon ("Remove member") on every row except the owner's.

Live invite links

Owners and admins see this section, with a count, whenever the team has at least one invitation that still works. It explains: "Anyone holding one of these URLs can join this team. Withdraw a link you shared by mistake, or one that has been passed on." Each row shows:

Invitations are listed newest first. Expired and withdrawn invitations are not listed, because they no longer work. An email invitation that has already been accepted stays listed until it expires; it cannot be used again, so withdrawing it changes nothing.

Team projects

Headed Team projects. Every project assigned to the team appears here as a link, most recently updated first; clicking one opens it in the Studio. With no projects you see: "No projects under this team yet. In the Studio, open Collaborate to share a workspace, then assign it to this team — or use the flowss Teams Agent above to kick off your first one."

Messages

Confirmations appear in a blue box and errors in a red box at the bottom of the page. A message stays until a later action replaces or clears it, so a confirmation and an error can sit there together; the newest action is the one that matters. The Troubleshooting table explains each error.

Create a team

1. Make sure you are signed in on a Plus, Ultra or Enterprise plan.
2. Open /teams.
3. Type a name into Name your first team… (shown when you have no teams yet) or into New team name under your team list.
4. Press Enter, or click Create team (or the + button).
5. The team appears in Your teams, opens on the right, and you are its Owner.

Team names can be up to 120 characters; anything longer is cut off. A team is never billed separately; it lives on your subscription. You can create as many teams as you need.

Invite people

Only owners and admins can invite, and the team owner must be on Plus or higher.

Invite by email

1. Open the team on the Teams page.
2. In Invite teammates, type the person's email address.
3. Choose Member or Admin in the role menu.
4. Press Enter or click Invite.
5. You see: "Invited name@example.com — we've emailed them a link to join, and copied it to your clipboard. They'll appear on the roster once they accept."

The person receives an email headed "You've been invited to a flowss team", saying that someone invited them to collaborate on a flowss team, with an Accept invite button. The email does not name the team or you; the team's name is shown to them on the join card before they accept. The same link is on your clipboard, so you can also send it through chat if the email is slow to arrive.

Nobody is ever added to a team without accepting, even if they already have a flowss account, and the reply never tells you whether the address has an account. You are not emailed when someone accepts; reload the Teams page and they appear in Roster.

An email invitation:

• Works only for the person signed in with that email address (matched without regard to capitals).
• Works once. After it is accepted it cannot be used again.
• Replaces any earlier unused invitation to the same address for this team, so only the newest role offer can be accepted.
• Shows in Live invite links under the person's address until it is withdrawn or expires (even after it has been accepted).

Share a join link

1. Open the team.
2. Choose Member or Admin in the role menu next to the email field.
3. Click Copy link. A new join link at that role is copied to your clipboard and the button shows Copied.
4. Paste the link wherever you like: a chat, a document, an email.

A shared link admits anyone who is signed in and opens it, as many times as it is used, at the role it was made with, until it expires or is withdrawn. Each click on Copy link makes a new, separate link; they all appear in Live invite links as Shared link. Join links have the form /teams?invite= followed by a long code.

Warning: A link made while the role menu says Admin makes everyone who uses it an admin, with the power to invite and remove people. Copy admin links sparingly and withdraw them once the right people have joined.

How the two kinds of invitation compare

Invitation limits

To protect recipients and the service's email reputation, invitation emails are metered per day (the count resets at midnight UTC):

Every press of Invite counts, including one that is then refused (for example because the person is already on the team or the address is malformed). When you reach a limit you see "Too many invitations from here today. Share the team link instead, or try again tomorrow." Copy link is not metered, so it is the way to keep inviting.

Note: The same message can appear before you reach either limit if the service is briefly unable to count invitations; in that case nothing was sent. Try again a little later, or use Copy link.

Joining a team

Invitations are never accepted automatically. Opening a link only shows you what you have been invited to; you decide.

1. Open the invitation link from the email or from the person who invited you.
2. If you are not signed in, you see the Teams introduction page. Choose Bring your team together (or Start with your team) to sign in or create an account. Your invitation travels with you and is waiting when you come back.
3. A card titled "Join team name as a member?" (or "as an admin?") appears at the top of the Teams page. It reads: "Joining shares your name and email address with everyone on this team. Only join teams you recognise — nothing happens until you choose."
4. Click Join team to join (it reads Joining… while it works), or Not now to decline.
5. On joining you see "You've joined team name." and the team opens. On declining you see "Invite dismissed — you have not joined that team."

If you are already on the team, the card instead says "You're already on" followed by the team's name, and "This invite would not change anything — you're a member there." (or admin, or owner), with an Open team button. Opening a link never changes the role you already have.

The invitation code is removed from your browser's address bar as soon as the page has read it, so it is not left in your history. If you click Not now and later change your mind, open the original link again; it still works if it has not expired, been used or been withdrawn.

Note: An email invitation only opens for the address it was sent to. If you have more than one flowss account, sign in with that address before opening the link.

Change someone's role

Only the team owner can change roles.

1. Open the team and find the person in Roster.
2. Choose Member or Admin from the menu beside their name. The change is saved straight away; there is no confirmation step and no confirmation message, the menu simply shows the new role once the roster reloads.
3. If the change is refused, the menu returns to the person's current role and a red message explains why.

What happens to invitation links when someone is made a member:

• Any invitations that person created as an admin are withdrawn, because members cannot invite.
• If they were an admin, every admin-role shared link for the team is withdrawn too, so they cannot leave and rejoin as an admin through a link they could see. Member-role shared links keep working.

The owner's own role cannot be changed, and the menu offers no way to make someone else the owner.

Remove people and leave a team

Remove a member or admin

Owners and admins can remove anyone except the owner. Admins can remove other admins.

1. Open the team and find the person in Roster.
2. Click the bin icon ("Remove member") on their row. There is no confirmation step, so check the name first.
3. You see: "Removed. The team's shared invite links were withdrawn so they can't rejoin through one — use Copy link to share a fresh one."

Removing someone makes sure they cannot walk straight back in:

• Every shared link for the team is withdrawn, because there is no way to know which links the removed person holds.
• Any unused email invitation addressed to them is withdrawn.
• Every invitation they created is withdrawn, including email invitations they sent to other people.
• Email invitations that someone else sent to other people keep working.

Their access to the team's projects ends immediately. If they were also invited to a project directly, that project membership is separate; remove them from the project as well (see Sharing and permissions).

The reverse also applies. If a project owner removes someone from a team project's member list in the Collaborate panel while that person is still on the team, the owner sees "Removed from the member list — but they still have viewer access through the team" (or "editor access" for a team owner or admin), followed by the team's name and "Remove them from that team, or take the project out of the team, to end it."

After removing someone, use Copy link to make a fresh link for anyone else still waiting to join.

Leave a team

Withdraw an invitation

1. Open the team. You must be an owner or admin.
2. In Live invite links, find the row by its email address or by the last six characters of the link.
3. Click the bin icon ("Withdraw this invite link").
4. You see: "Invite link withdrawn — it no longer works for anyone holding it."

Anyone who opens a withdrawn link is told it has been revoked and to ask for a new one. A withdrawn email invitation can be replaced simply by inviting the address again.

Put a project in a team

Team projects are cloud projects that their owner has assigned to the team. Only the project's owner can assign it, and only to a team they belong to (any role, including Member).

1. Open the project in the Studio. If it is not a cloud project yet, open Collaborate and click Share this workspace as a live project first (see Sharing and permissions).
2. In the Collaborate panel, find Team: under the project name. It appears only if you belong to at least one team.
3. Choose the team from the menu. Its tooltip reminds you: "Everyone on the team can view this project; team owners and admins can edit it".
4. The project now appears under Team projects on the Teams page and in every team member's Library.

To take a project out of a team, choose — None — in the same menu. Team members who were not invited to the project directly lose access immediately.

If the Team: menu is greyed out, you are not the project's owner. If it jumps back to its previous value, the change was refused: you are not a member of the team you picked, or you are not the project's owner.

Team projects in your Library and project allowance

Team projects show in your Library with your own cloud projects; the Cloud filter chip shows only cloud work. Each card reads the studio, "cloud" and how long ago it was updated, and projects you do not own add your role, for example "· viewer" or "· editor". Clicking one opens it in the Studio.

On Free, you can keep 3 saved projects of your own. A project you own that sits in a team whose owner is on Plus or higher does not use one of those slots: the team's plan carries it. If the team owner's plan drops below Plus, your projects in that team count toward your own allowance again. Nothing is deleted; you just cannot create new projects past your limit until you are back under it.

Comments and live sessions on team projects

On a team project, new comments are allowed when the commenter, the project's owner or the team (through its owner) is on Plus or higher, so Free members of a Plus team can comment. Reading, resolving and deleting comments are never blocked by a plan. See Comments and review. Live sessions are seated on the host's plan (up to 3 people on Plus, uncapped on Ultra) and guests join on any plan; see Live collaboration.

Plan the work with AI

The flowss Teams Agent, the workspace planner, turns a one-line goal into a starter blueprint. It drafts a mindmap (or flowchart) of the four to eight diagrams and workstreams your team should build, grouped by area, with each node labelled by its diagram type (for example "C4 container", "sequence: checkout" or "ER: payments schema"), and lets the AI pick whichever Studio engine renders that best. Results vary with the goal you type, so treat the blueprint as a first draft.

1. On the Teams page, type a goal into the flowss Teams Agent's goal field, or click one of the four suggested goals (clicking a suggestion fills the field and starts planning immediately).
2. Press Enter or click Plan with the flowss Teams Agent. The button reads Planning… while it works.
3. You see "Blueprint ready — opening it in the Studio…" and the Studio opens with the blueprint as a new figure.
4. Refine it in the Studio, then share it with Collaborate and assign it to your team (see Put a project in a team).

The flowss Teams Agent does not save anything to the team by itself; it hands you a diagram to start from. It works before you have created a team.

Each plan is one standard AI call: one AI point from your monthly allowance on Plus and above (Plus includes 200 points a month, Ultra and Enterprise 600), or free of points when you use your own AI key (available from Starter). Points are charged only when the call succeeds. On Free there is no AI, and the flowss Teams Agent shows the explanation the AI service returns. See AI points and limits and Bring your own AI key.

Share Sketch components with your team

The Sketch canvas has a Workspace shelf of reusable components stored in the cloud. It holds the components shared with any of your teams (each tile names its team) and your own personal cloud copies (labelled Personal). It sits beside your personal on-device components.

To share a component:

1. In Sketch, select the shapes you want to reuse.
2. In the Workspace shelf, click Share selection to workspace.
3. Under Share with…, pick the team.
4. In the naming panel (headed "Name it for" and the team's name), edit the suggested name and press Enter or click Share. Escape, Cancel or the X stops.
5. You see a confirmation such as: Shared "Login form" with Platform Team.

You can also start sharing from the Sketch command palette with Share selection to workspace. The selection is captured again at the moment you press Share, so what is shared is what is selected then; if nothing is selected any more you see "The selection went away — select something and try again".

Click a tile to place it at the centre of your view, or drag it onto the canvas. Hovering a tile shows its name, its team (or "personal cloud copy") and, for someone else's component, who shared it. On your own components, hovering also shows a pencil (Rename component) and an X: deleting takes two clicks (the second confirms "for the whole workspace" on a team component) and removes it for the whole team. With more than six components a search box appears ("Search N components…"). A component can hold up to 400 elements and 200 KB, and its name up to 80 characters. See Sketch for the rest of the canvas.

If you are on Free, Starter or Plus, sharing to a team is refused with "Shared workspace libraries are part of Ultra — your personal library stays available on every plan." If you belong to no team, Sketch says "You're not in a team yet — create one from your account menu first"; the account menu has no team entry, so create one at /teams instead.

When the owner's plan changes

Because a team runs on its owner's plan, a downgrade below Plus changes what the team can do:

Admins who try to invite see: "This team's plan doesn't include inviting people right now. Ask the team's owner to upgrade to Plus — one subscription covers the whole team." Someone opening a link sees: "This team's plan no longer includes shared workspaces, so the invite can't be accepted right now. Ask the team's owner to upgrade, then open the link again."

Your data and your account

• Joining a team shares your name and email address with everyone on it, including plain members. The join card says so before you accept.
• Your account data export includes the teams you belong to and your role in each, the teams you own, and team invitations sent to your address or by you. See Account settings and your data.
• If you own a team that has other people on it, deleting your account is refused, because deleting the owner would delete the team, its roster, its invitations and its shared components for everyone else. The account page explains "Transfer ownership of the shared work (or remove the other members), then delete your account." and lists each blocking item, for example "· team Platform Team — 3 other members". The Teams page has no way to hand a team to someone else, so remove the other members first; a team with only you on it is deleted along with your account. For help, contact us.
• More on how team data is protected: Security at flowss and Privacy and your data.

Tips

• Prefer Invite for named colleagues: the link only works for them and only once. Use Copy link for a group, then withdraw it when everyone is in.
• Keep the role menu on Member unless you mean to hand out admin powers; it applies to both Invite and Copy link.
• Removing someone withdraws every shared link. Make a fresh one with Copy link straight afterwards if others are still joining.
• Give owners and admins editing rights on team projects by role; give one member edit rights on one project by inviting them to that project as an Editor.
• Owners and admins can invite and remove people, so protect those accounts with two-step verification in your account's security settings (see Account settings and your data).
• Start a new workstream with the flowss Teams Agent, then share the result and assign it to the team so everyone starts from the same map.
• In the Studio, press ⌘K / Ctrl+K and run Manage Teams to jump here.

Limits and known constraints

• Creating a team needs Plus, Ultra or Enterprise. Inviting and joining need the team owner to be on one of those plans.
• There is no rename or delete control for a team on the Teams page. The owner cannot leave or be removed. For a rename or a team you no longer need, contact us.
• The role menu offers only Member and Admin. There is no way on the Teams page to make someone else the owner.
• Members cannot remove themselves; an owner or admin must remove them.
• Role changes and removals take effect immediately, with no confirmation and no undo. To reverse a removal, invite the person again.
• Email addresses containing an underscore (_) or a percent sign (%) are refused by Invite with "Enter a valid email address." Use Copy link for those colleagues.
• Invitations expire after 30 days. The full link is shown only once, when it is copied; afterwards only its last six characters appear.
• The inviter is not notified when an invitation is accepted, and the roster does not refresh by itself; reload the page.
• Team roles grant Viewer or Editor on team projects, never Owner or Commenter. Project management stays with each project's owner.
• Organisation-wide single sign-on (SAML 2.0, Google or Microsoft SSO) and SCIM provisioning are not available yet; they are listed for Enterprise "at GA" on the pricing page. Each person can still sign in individually with email, GitHub or Google (see Creating an account and signing in).- Sharing components with a team in Sketch is part of Ultra and Enterprise, and each component is limited to 400 elements and 200 KB.

Troubleshooting

For anything not covered here, see Troubleshooting and FAQ or Reliability, status and support. To plan a larger team rollout, use the Teams, education and everything else option on the contact page.

Related pages

• Sharing and permissions: project members, project roles and project invitations
• Comments and review
• Live collaboration
• Classrooms, cohorts and assignments
• Your library
• Plans and what they include
• AI points and limits
• Sketch
• Core concepts and glossary
• Account settings and your data