Roles and permissions

Who this is for: everyone Applies to: all platforms (Android, iOS, web)

What this page covers

Groupset is built around roles: each person on a team holds a role that decides what they can see and do. This page explains the team roles — owner and team admin (two names for the team's leaders), coach, athlete, and parent — what each one can and can't do, and how roles are granted, including how a parent can ask to become a coach. If you meet a word you don't know here, look it up in the glossary.

One person can hold more than one role on a team. For example, a coach whose own child rides on the same team is both a coach and a parent, and can act in either role.

The roles at a glance

Role	Who they are	What they can do	What they can't do
Owner	A team's senior leader — teams have an owner, an admin, or both	Everything a team admin can (see the next row)	Nothing extra: an owner has exactly the same powers as a team admin
Team admin	The person who runs the team	Manage the roster and member details; set team fees and discounts; control team settings; edit the team's information; set the join passcode; review and decide on coaches' reports, requests, and coach petitions; verify coaches' NICA licenses; export the roster as a file	Can't be assigned as a group's coach unless they also hold the coach role — but admins can still take attendance, file incident reports, and file group change requests
Coach	Leads scheduled practices and races	Run the practices and events the team admin schedules; take attendance and manage check-ins; file incident reports and coach notes; request group changes; read Coach Insights and the performance dashboard (any assigned coach, any license level); help keep the team's basic information current; replace an athlete's profile photo	Can't create or edit events, practices, or groups (those are team-admin actions); can't change team fees, communication settings, or the join passcode; can't approve other coaches' reports or coach petitions; can't remove an athlete's profile photo (replace only)
Athlete	A rider on the team	Have attendance taken by staff; set their own RSVPs; sync their Strava rides; view their own performance and their own attendance; set their own profile photo	Can't see other athletes' private details, medical records, or reports
Parent	A guardian of one or more athletes	Register their child (and invite a co-parent); pay team fees; manage consents and emergency contacts; view their child's information and attendance; check their child in and out of races on race day; manage their child's profile photo; ask to become a coach	Can't manage another family's athlete; can't check their child into everyday practices (only race-day check-in)

A note on wording: owner and team admin are two names for the same level of control — an owner can do everything an admin can, and everything an admin can do, an owner can too. See the glossary.

How roles are granted

Joining with a passcode. When you join a team, you pick the role that fits you — athlete, parent, or coach. Joining as a coach requires a current NICA license (Level 1, 2, or 3, with its expiration date) saved on your account.
Creating a team. Whoever creates a team is made its admin. The first person to join a brand-new, empty team becomes its admin as well.
A parent asking to coach. A parent can petition to coach from their own profile by sending a coach promotion request: they self-report their NICA license level and its expiration date, add an optional note, and can name the group they'd like to coach. A team admin reviews the request and approves or denies it — a denial comes with a reason, and a waiting request can be withdrawn. You can ask again later either way. Approval adds the parent as a coach and assigns them a training group. The admin verifies the license against NICA's own records by hand; Groupset never checks it automatically.
Correcting a license. Team admins can update a coach's license level and expiration if the record is wrong or has changed.

Team leaders (owner and team admin)

The team admin is the person who runs the team day to day (an owner has exactly the same powers). In plain terms, the admin:

Manages the roster — opens any member's record, edits member details, and can mark a member inactive or active again.
Sets the money — decides the team fee (or a grade-based fee schedule) and any discount codes.
Runs the settings — team information, communication settings, and the join passcode families use to find and join the team (leave the passcode blank to remove the requirement).
Runs the chat channels — creates team chat channels and manages their members, descriptions, and archives.
Reviews coaches' work — the reports and requests coaches submit (for example, a request to move an athlete to another group) land in a review queue, and only the team admin can approve them or send them back. Coach petitions (parents asking to become coaches) arrive in the same queue.
Verifies licenses — checks a new coach's NICA license against NICA's own records, and can correct a coach's license details.
Prepares athletes for practice — only a team admin can invite an athlete to the pit zone (and only once that athlete's team fee is paid) and mark an athlete practice-ready.
Exports — can download the roster as a spreadsheet file.

Coach

Coaches are the people on the ground at practice and race day. Coaches run the practices and events the team admin has scheduled. Coaches:

Run the scheduled practices and races and take attendance.
Check athletes into their training groups and see the readiness badge that tells them who is cleared to ride.
File incident reports and write private coach notes about athletes.
Submit group change requests when an athlete should move groups.
Get Coach Insights — a weekly "Weekly Actions" report for each group they coach, refreshed automatically. The actions are worked from the Group tab (the coach's bottom tab, with the next practice, athletes, celebrations, and volunteers); the full report is one tap away.
View the performance dashboard for their riders — every assigned coach can open it, whatever their license level. Viewing medical information is a separate gate that still needs Level 2 or higher.
Can help keep the team's basic information (name, season, colors, registration window) current.
Can replace an athlete's profile photo — for example, to fix a blurry picture — but can't remove it.

Creating and editing events, practices, and groups stays with the team admin — a coach who needs an event or practice added or changed asks the team admin. Coaches also can't change team fees, communication settings, or the join passcode, or approve other coaches' reports or coach petitions. Creating team chat channels is a team-admin (or owner) action — coaches are members of the channels that already exist, and can use role mentions in their own training-group channels. See Team chat.

Coaches see attendance and reports for the groups they coach, not automatically the whole team.

Athlete

Athletes are riders on the team. In the app, an athlete can:

Have their attendance taken by coaches and team admins at practices (athletes don't check themselves in).
Be checked in on race day (a parent can do this for them). Social events don't have check-in — RSVPs cover those.
Connect Strava so rides sync in automatically, or log a ride by hand.
View their own attendance (the "My Attendance" screen), their attendance streaks, and their own performance — including time-trial results, personal records, and where they rank in their group.
Set their own profile photo.

An athlete generally sees their own data, not other riders' private information.

Parent

Parents look after one or more athletes on the team. A parent can:

Register their athlete (the team must be accepting new members — see faq.md). The registration flow covers your child's details and photo, medical information and emergency contacts, and the three consent agreements, and ends with payment.
Invite another parent or guardian as a co-parent, so both can manage the child.
Pay team fees and apply promo codes, from the Pending payments screen.
Manage the three consent types: team policies, liability waiver, and photo release — plus emergency contacts.
View their child's information, attendance, and attendance record.
Check their child in and out of races on race day. Race-day check-in is the one attendance action parents can take directly; everyday practice check-ins are handled by team staff (a coach or team admin).
Manage their child's profile photo.
Pause their child's own login from the child's Athlete Account Access card (deactivate or reactivate it) — this blocks sign-in only and never deletes the athlete's record.
Ask to become a coach (see "How roles are granted" above).

Parents see their own children only, never other families' athletes.

Consents and medical information

Athlete records include signed consents and medical details. The three consent types are team policies, liability waiver, and photo release; parents sign them during registration and can update them later for their child. Team admins can customize the wording for their team in Team Settings → Consents. Medical information is sensitive: coaches can only view it with a NICA license level of Level 2 or higher, and team admins manage it through the roster. See concepts.md and the glossary.

Notes and limits

Roles can be combined: the same person may be a coach and a parent, or an admin and a parent. What a person can do at any moment depends on the role they're acting in.
Owner and admin are equals: everything this page says a team admin can do, an owner can do too.
Only team admins (and owners) can perform the pit-zone invite and the practice-ready flag — both are part of running the team, not everyday coaching.
Coaches can't approve coach petitions or other coaches' reports, no matter how senior — those decisions belong to the team's admin or owner.
Profile photos: an athlete with their own login sets their own; a parent manages their child's; a coach can replace a photo but not remove it; team admins and owners can replace or remove.
The exact wording shown on screen for each role may vary slightly by team; the abilities above are what the role unlocks.

Glossary — plain-English definitions of every role and feature term
Core concepts — the readiness ladder, payment statuses, and more explained in full
FAQ — answers to common new-user questions
Welcome to Groupset — where to start

More in: Create your account and Register an athlete (getting started); Teams and organizations, Becoming a coach, Attendance, and Medical and consents (guides).