Headcount Planning has two separate layers of access, and it helps to keep them apart:

• Period permissions — set when you create a period (or edited later). They decide who can manage and approve the whole plan: Owner, Editor, Viewer.
• Collaborator permissions — set inside a team's Employee sheet. They let a planner delegate a sub-team to a manager, scoped only to the people that manager already manages.

This article explains both, how they interact, and the existing Factorial permissions they depend on.

Period permissions (Owner / Editor / Viewer)

Period permissions are assigned in Step 3 – Permissions of the period creation wizard, and can be revised afterwards from the period.

• Owner — the person who created the plan.
• Editor — can edit period details and approve or reject requests.
• Viewer — can see the period, but can't edit or approve anything.

To assign them:

1. In the Permissions step (or the period's permissions panel), use the Select employee dropdown to add a person.
2. Choose their level from the permission dropdown (Editor / Viewer).
3. To remove someone, use Revoke.

Collaborator permissions (delegating a sub-team)

A Headcount Planner who doesn't want to plan an entire branch can delegate parts of it to the managers below them. This is done per team in the Employee sheet, using Manage collaborators.

To add a collaborator:

1. Open the period and go to the Employee sheet tab.
2. Click Manage collaborators to open the side panel.
3. Use the Select employee dropdown to find a manager, then assign a level:
   • Editor — can view and edit headcount for the employees they manage, but can't plan for teams above their visibility.
   • Viewer — can see the plan for the employees they manage, but can't make changes.
4. To remove access, use Revoke.

How the two layers interact

• Viewer and Editor period permissions give full visibility of the plan.
• Delegating hands over control. Once you add a collaborator to manage a sub-team, you lose edit access to that sub-team immediately. You can only see that sub-team's plan again after the collaborator submits it. You can regain control by revoking their Editor permission.
• Planners see only their own team. Within a period, a Headcount Planner can't see other teams' plans, only their own.

Permissions dependencies with settings

Headcount Planning roles don't grant access on their own — they build on a person's existing Factorial permissions. Someone can hold the right period or collaborator role and still be unable to act on the plan if they lack the underlying action permissions or data visibility described below. Grant these alongside the Headcount Planning role.

Planning permissions (period roles)

The actions behind the Owner / Editor / Viewer period roles are gated by two toggles in the user's access settings, under the Planning section:

• Create headcount planning periods — allows the user to create and manage planning periods.
• Approve headcount planning requests — allows the user to approve or reject planning requests.

Someone who only sets up periods needs Create headcount planning periods; an Owner who reviews also needs Approve headcount planning requests. Without the relevant toggle, the person can't perform that action even if they hold the period role.

Data visibility (period roles and collaborators)

Even with the action permissions above, a person needs to see the data the plan is built on: salaries, contract dates and the job catalog.

Salary data

For period roles, the person needs at least view access to salary data across the whole company to get full visibility on the plan.

For collaborators, the manager needs at least view access to salaries for their direct and indirect reports.

Contract start and end dates

Headcount Planning calculates each person's cost month by month, from the date their contract starts to the date it ends. To do this, the person needs both of these permissions in the Contracts section of their access settings:

• See start date — view the employee's start date.
• See end date — view the end date of the employee's contract.

Use the same scope as for salary data: For the whole company for period roles, and For direct and indirect reports for collaborators.

Job catalog

Both layers need these two job catalog permissions:

• See job catalog roles and levels — shows the roles and levels used to define each position.
• See job catalog salary ranges — shows the salary bands for each role, level and workplace.

With them, Headcount Planning automatically fills in the salary of a new request from the matching salary band, and checks that a manually entered salary falls within the band. Without them, the salary isn't auto-filled and can't be checked against the bands.