Who this is for: New ChangePlan admins (Company Admins, also called System Administrators)
This guide explains what the admin role covers, what lives in each Settings tab, and the user management tasks you'll do day-to-day. It assumes you've already used ChangePlan as a regular user; if you're brand new, start with Welcome to ChangePlan.
What a ChangePlan admin can do
As an admin you hold the highest level of access in your organisation's ChangePlan instance. Only admins can:
- See all initiatives and portfolios across the organisation, including hidden ones that no other user can see
- Create hidden initiatives and portfolios
- Open Settings, which is hidden from all other user types
- Add new users and remove leavers
- Create and delete portfolios (Full Access users cannot do this)
- Change system-wide configuration, including turning AI features on or off
- Edit any initiative or activity
- See when each user last logged in, which is useful for auditing platform usage
Admins cannot do these from within the platform; contact support instead:
- Add or remove another admin
- Delete all data or export all data
Action | Admin user | Full Access user | Read-only user |
Open Settings | Yes | No | No |
Add / remove users | Yes | No | No |
Create portfolios | Yes | No | No |
Create initiatives | Yes | Yes | No |
Edit any initiative | Yes | Only if granted access | No |
View all initiatives | Yes | Only if granted access | Only if granted access |
View all reports | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Delete individuals from the company | Yes | No | No |
Change org chart / system configuration | Yes | No | No |
Create / see hidden initiatives and portfolios | Yes | No | No |
Add or remove other admins | No (contact support) | No | No |
Delete all data or export all data | No (contact support) | No | No |
How many admins?
We recommend no more than 1–2 admins, because admin changes can affect your whole organisation's instance. Admins receive separate, deeper training beyond the standard user guides. Always check with your team before changing critical settings.
Add or remove an admin
Only ChangePlan can add or remove an admin.
- Email support@changeplan.co, or use Feedback/Support at the bottom of the left menu.
- Say which person should be added or removed as an admin.
ChangePlan usually actions this within a few hours.
Open Settings
After you log in you see the same Initiatives page as other users. Your admin tools are in Settings.
- Click Settings in the left menu. Only admins see this option.
- Use the tabs across the top: General settings, Users, Initiative, Impacts, Org chart, Key dates, Assessment, SSO setup and Integrations. Scroll right if you can't see them all.
Full Access and Read-only users don't see Settings. If they go directly to the Settings URL, they are sent back to the Initiatives page.
Hide an initiative
- Open the initiative.
- In the initiative's left menu, click Initiative setup > Edit initiative.
- Set Status to Hidden.
Hidden initiatives are only visible to admins.
The Settings tabs
Most tabs were set up by the ChangePlan team during onboarding, so you won't need to change them often.
General settings
Organisation-wide display options and field names.
- Organisational logo: upload via URL. Appears in system emails and PDF and PowerPoint exports.
- Date format: dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy.
- Email sender display name: the name on system emails sent to your stakeholders (for example, pulse check emails).
- AI features: turn AI suggestions on or off for your organisation.
- Initiative hierarchy field names: rename the Portfolio and Hashtags fields. Hashtags is multi-select and can be renamed to match your terminology (for example "Function" or "Theme"); we recommend keeping "Hashtags" because it reflects the multi-select nature of the field.
- Hashtags fields: turn on or off and manage the tag values available on initiatives.
- Initiative types: turn on or off and manage the initiative type options. This field may appear as "Project type" in some parts of the app.
- Activity burden heatmap sensitivity: set the hour thresholds at which the heatmap changes colour, for both average hours and total hours (Yellow / Orange / Red / Purple).
- Custom Individuals Fields: add up to 3 custom fields on individual audience records (for example "Representation" or "Worker Station").
- Change effort assessment heatmap axes titles: rename the X and Y axes on the change effort scatter chart (default: Readiness Risk / Change Magnitude).
Users
Add, remove and manage licensed users.
The ChangePlan Licenses summary at the top shows used, available and total counts for both Full and Read-only licenses. ChangePlan usually provides the same number of Read-only licenses as Full licenses, but your instance may differ. See Manage users below for the steps.
Initiative
Fields used in every initiative.
- Checklist: the deliverables in every initiative's checklist (default: 10 items, such as stakeholder analysis, change canvas and communications planning). Add, edit, delete or reorder. Adding an item adds it to every existing initiative; deleting one removes it, with its dates, progress and notes, from all of them.
- Change Phases: the 5 stages of the stakeholder change journey shown on the activity Kanban view. Rename to match your methodology (default: Awareness, Eagerness, Know-How, Understanding, Sustainment).
- Custom activity types: add intervention types under Communication, Learning or Custom.
- Risk categories: the categories available in the change risk assessment.
- Custom Groups: the "Allow Full Access users to manage Custom Groups" toggle. Off by default; turn it on to let Full Access users manage custom groups without an admin.
Impacts
Impact types, magnitude definitions and heatmap colour logic.
- Impact types: the categories of change impact (default: Customers, Organizational, Structural, Technological, Environment), each with editable helper text.
- Impact magnitude helper text: what High, Medium and Low mean for your organisation (shown as hover text).
- Heatmap colour logic: choose Dominance Rule or Weighted impacts score.
- Impact Weighting: points for Low (fixed at 1), Medium and High.
- Aggregated view colour thresholds: green/orange/red thresholds for each org level (Level 1–5), so heatmaps aren't skewed at higher levels.
Avoid changing heatmap settings often, because it makes historical report comparisons unreliable. Use Restore Defaults if needed.
Org chart
Your organisational structure.
- Org chart tiers: rename the levels of your org chart (default: Org Level 1 to Org Level 5).
- Org chart browser: a multi-column view of your hierarchy. Click a group to see its child groups. Use + at the bottom of a column to add a group at that level.
- Update Org Chart (top right): upload a full org chart with the XLS template. ChangePlan flags differences and asks you how to handle deleted groups and reallocate project data.
- Delete All Individuals (bottom right): removes all individual audience members. Licensed users are not affected. This cannot be undone.
Child group inheritance: a new child group added under an existing org group inherits all of the parent's initiative, impact and activity data, unless the parent was only partially added to those items.
For large or frequently changing organisations, contact your ChangePlan Customer Success contact before an org chart upload; it's easy to create duplicate records or mapping errors.
Key dates
Dates and blackout periods that appear on every user's timeline.
To add a key date:
- Click + ADD.
- Enter a Description. This is the label on timelines, so use it to explain why a period is blacked out.
- Set the Start date and End date.
- Turn on Blackout period? if users should be warned when they schedule an activity in this range. This only warns; it doesn't block scheduling.
- Save.
Assessment
The questions in pulse checks and change effort assessments, and the sections of the Change Canvas.
Pulse checks
- Readiness questions: one question per change phase. Phase names are configurable and follow the stakeholder's change journey.
- Adoption questions: 3 questions on adoption criteria (default: Uptake, Proficiency, Usage outcome). Configurable.
Change effort
- Export All Assessment XLS: downloads all assessment data for your organisation.
- Questions: 12 questions on scale of change and stakeholder readiness. Click a question to edit its answers in the right-hand panel; each answer can be given a point value.
- Assessment result text: the explanation shown with the change effort result.
Change canvas
- Turn sections on or off and rename them. Default sections include Vision, Benefits, Implementation approach, What's changing?, What will teams do differently?, Change Approach, Change Governance and Change Success.
SSO setup and Integrations
These tabs show your Single Sign-On and integration configuration for reference. Contact support before changing them; we'll connect you with the ChangePlan tech team.
Manage users
User management is your core admin responsibility.
License type | What they can do |
Full | Create and edit initiatives; view activities and reports for initiatives they have access to |
Read-only | View initiatives, activities and reports they've been given access to |
Add a user
- Click Settings in the left menu, then open the Users tab.
- Click + ADD.
- Enter First Name, Last Name and Email Address. Each email address can only be used for one account.
- Choose the User Type: Full or Read-only.
- Assign Portfolio Access and/or Initiative Access. Tick the checkbox next to each portfolio or initiative; choosing a level from the dropdown alone doesn't save the permission.
- Click Save.
The new user receives an email invitation to log in and set their password. The user list also shows when each user last logged in.
Access levels
Portfolio access applies to every initiative in the portfolio:
- Full Access: read, and add other users to the portfolio
- Editor: read and write
- Viewer: read-only
Initiative access applies to one initiative:
- Full Access / Change Manager: read, write and add other users
- Editor / Contributor: read and write
- Viewer: read-only
Portfolio access overrides initiative access, but only upwards: Full Access on a portfolio overrides Viewer access on an initiative inside it, while higher initiative-level access still holds. When in doubt, assign access at initiative level only.
You can also assign initiative access from inside an initiative: Initiative setup > Edit initiative > Initiative Access at the bottom of the page.
Remove a user
- In the Users tab, click the user.
- Click Delete User and confirm.
This removes the person's login only. Initiatives, activities and other content they created stay in ChangePlan, and their license can be given to someone else. Consider whether disabling their SSO/Microsoft account achieves the same goal while preserving the audit trail.
Troubleshooting
"I can't log in after a platform update." ChangePlan is hosted on AWS. A server migration can change the app's registration so your enterprise app allowlist blocks it. Ask your IT team to re-add ChangePlan to the approved list.
"A user can't see an initiative." Check that you ticked the checkbox next to the initiative or portfolio when assigning access, not just chose a level from the dropdown.
"Portfolio access is overriding initiative access." This is by design, but only upwards. For fine-grained control, assign access at initiative level only.
"The org chart or stakeholder list is out of date." Use the XLS template for bulk updates, but contact your Customer Success contact first. For ongoing accuracy, ask your IT team about the SFTP integration for automatic HR system syncing.
"The heatmaps are all green (or all red)." Go to Settings > Impacts and adjust the Impact Weighting or the aggregated view colour thresholds. Use Restore Defaults if needed.
"What happened to a deleted user's work?" Their login is removed but everything they created remains. Check audit trail requirements with your Customer Success contact if needed for governance.
"I need to raise a support ticket." Use Feedback/Support at the bottom of the left menu (available to all users). It creates a ticket and sends you a confirmation email with a ticket number. For org chart uploads and data setup, contact your named Customer Success contact.
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Still stuck?
Email support@changeplan.co with a screenshot of what you see, and we'll help.
Last updated: 21 October 2026