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, approve or reject requests.
- Viewer — can see the period, but can't edit or approve anything.
To assign them:
- In the Permissions step (or the period's permissions panel), use the Select employee dropdown to add a person.
- Choose their level from the permission dropdown (Owner / Editor / Viewer).
- To remove someone, use Revoke.
The person who creates a period is automatically set as Owner and can't be removed or downgraded. Make sure the right person creates the period.
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:
- Open the period and go to the Employee sheet tab.
- Click Manage collaborators to open the side panel.
- 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.
- To remove access, use Revoke.
How the two layers interact
- Viewer and editing in period permissions gives 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 back by revoking editor permissions.
- 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 to the underlying data 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 can't see the salary and job-catalog data behind it. Grant the access below alongside the HCP role.
| Permission layer | Salary data access needed | Job catalog access needed |
|---|---|---|
| Period roles (Owner / Editor / Viewer) | View salary data across the whole company | Job catalog viewer |
| Collaborators (Editor / Viewer) | View salaries for their direct and indirect reports | Job catalog viewer |
For period roles, the person needs at least view access to Salary data across the 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.
Both layers also need Job catalog viewer permission.
Without salary-data visibility and Job catalog viewer permission, a person can be assigned an HCP role but won't be able to see costs or act on requests.
Admin override. A user with Admin permissions overrides all of the conditions above. They're automatically granted Editor permission with full visibility at the period level, regardless of their salary-data or job-catalog settings.
Rule of thumb: use period permissions to decide who runs and approves the plan; use collaborators to decide who fills in the numbers for each part of the org; and make sure each person also has the salary and job catalog access the data depends on.