How Program Roles and Delegated Access Work
How to delegate incentive program management to specific people using manager, finance, and committee roles, without granting workspace-wide admin access.
Who can use this feature
Requires Super Admin or Create Programs admin permissions.
Not every incentive program needs to be run by a workspace admin. PraisePal lets you add workspace users to individual programs with specific roles, so the people closest to the activity can manage it directly.
What program membership is
Program membership is a per-program access layer. When you add someone as a member of a program, they gain access to that program's admin detail page — settings, claims or nominations, budget, and recipients — without needing workspace-wide admin permissions.
This is separate from workspace roles and permission groups. A user can be a normal workspace member (no admin access at all) and still manage a specific program if they've been added to it.
Why it exists
Centralised program management works at small scale, but becomes a bottleneck as organisations run more programs. A People Ops admin shouldn't need to review every certification claim when the L&D team lead knows better what qualifies. A finance partner shouldn't need to ask for budget reports when they could check the ledger directly. And a nomination program's selection committee shouldn't need workspace admin access just to review nominees and pick winners.
Program membership solves this by letting admins hand off operational responsibility for individual programs, while keeping workspace-level controls (user management, billing, recognition rules) restricted to the people who should have them.
How it works
Three roles
Each program member has one of three roles:
Managers have full operational control over the program. Finance members get visibility for auditing without the ability to change anything. Committee members have a focused role specific to nomination programs — they review who has been nominated and select winners, but cannot access settings, budget, audience, or member management.
Access hierarchy
Program access follows a clear precedence:
Workspace bypass — Users with the Global or Create Programs workspace permission can access every program automatically. They don't need to be added as members.
Program membership — Users added as a Manager, Finance, or Committee member can access only the programs they've been assigned to.
No access — Everyone else sees programs only from the employee side (eligible programs, submitting claims or nominations).
Adding and removing members
Anyone with manager-level access to a program can manage its membership from the Members tab on the program detail page. Click Add member, choose a workspace user, select a role, and confirm. Removing a member works the same way — find them in the list and click Remove.
You cannot remove yourself from a program. Another manager or workspace admin needs to do it.
Finance member restrictions
Finance members have two specific limitations worth knowing:
No draft access — Finance members cannot see a program while it's still in draft. They gain access once the program is published (claim or nomination programs) or executed (one-off programs). This prevents premature visibility into programs that haven't been finalised.
Read-only — Finance members can view the claims pipeline and budget ledger but cannot approve claims, reject claims, top up the budget, or change settings.
Committee member restrictions
Committee members are specific to nomination programs and have a narrowly scoped role:
No draft access — Like finance members, committee members cannot see a program while it's still in draft. They gain access once the program is published.
Nominations tab only — Committee members see only the Nominations tab on the program detail page. They cannot access the Settings, Budget, Audience, or Members tabs.
Winner selection only when closed — Committee members can review nominees at any time (while the program is active, closed, or completed), but can only select winners after the nomination window has closed.
Required for publishing — At least one committee member must be added before a nomination program can be published.
The "My Programs" view
Program members who aren't workspace admins access their assigned programs through Incentives in the main navigation. A My Programs button appears at the top of the page, switching to a grid of programs they manage, have finance access to, or serve as committee on. Each card shows the program name, their role, and status.
Tapping a card opens the admin detail view for that program — scoped to the tabs their role permits.
Common misconceptions
"Program members become workspace admins." They don't. Program membership grants access to specific programs only. The user's workspace role, permission group, and admin access remain unchanged.
"Finance members can approve claims." They can view claims and the budget ledger, but cannot take any action — approval, rejection, top-ups, and settings changes are manager-only.
"Committee members can see all program settings." They can't. Committee members only see the Nominations tab. Settings, budget, audience, and member management are not visible to them.
"Committee members can select winners at any time." Winner selection is only available after the nomination window has closed. While the program is active, committee members can review nominees but cannot select winners.
"You need to be a program member to manage programs." Not if you have the Global or Create Programs workspace permission — those bypass program membership entirely.
"Removing a member deletes their past actions." It doesn't. Claims they approved, winners they selected (as committee), budget top-ups they initiated (as managers), and other actions are preserved in the audit trail. Removing a member only revokes future access.