How Program Roles and Delegated Access Work

How to delegate incentive program management to specific people using manager and finance 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, 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.

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

Two roles

Each program member has one of two roles:

Role	What they can do
Manager	Edit settings, choose the audience, review claims, top up the budget, execute (one-off) or publish (claim), and add or remove other program members
Finance	View the claims list and budget ledger — read-only, no operational actions

Managers have full operational control over the program. Finance members get visibility for auditing without the ability to change anything.

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 or Finance 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).

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 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.

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 or have finance access to. Each card shows the program name, their role, status, and — for claim programs — the number of pending claims.

Tapping a card opens the full admin detail view for that program.

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.
"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, budget top-ups they initiated (as managers), and other actions are preserved in the audit trail. Removing a member only revokes future access.