Team and roles
One instance is one team. There is no tenant juggling: the people on your instance are your organization, with a shared name and logo — in the app header, in the map toolbar and in the browser window title.
The name and logo appear in three places at once:
- the app header (Projects, Tasks, Archive, Notifications),
- the map toolbar, top left — until you upload a logo, the killBottleneck mark stands there instead (one or the other; two logos side by side would compete),
- the browser window title, as "Your company killBottleneck" — with several windows open you can tell yours apart at a glance in the taskbar.
Publicly shared maps are the exception
Anyone you send a public map link to sees the killBottleneck mark, not your logo. That is deliberate: a public map faces the outside world, it is not an internal screen.
The three roles
| Role | What it means |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Manages the instance: users, roles, organization settings (name, logo, instance-wide default skin). The first account to register becomes one automatically. |
| Manager | May invite new people into the organization — always as members only. Sees other people's projects exactly like a member does. |
| Member | Their own projects and those they are invited to. They can create projects and invite colleagues into them as well — the role makes no difference there. |
On top of the role, a user can carry the AI manager flag — they receive automation requests and maintain the AI agent registry. The flag is independent of the role: an administrator and an ordinary member can both hold it.
The second such flag is Structure manager — typically an HR person. They draw the org structure, appoint people to positions and set deputies; on top of that they may invite new people (always as members) and reset their passwords. In Organization settings they see just two boxes: the list of people and the structure. They cannot change roles or grant flags, and they cannot delete or archive the structure — that stays with the administrator. When nobody holds the flag, the administrator covers it, as before.
Getting people in
- They register themselves. If the instance is reachable from the internet, set a registration key first — every registration then requires it.
- You invite them — from Administration, or straight from the Tasks page. With SMTP configured the invitation is e-mailed with a link to set a password; without SMTP you are shown a temporary password to hand over, exactly once.
- Google sign-in can be added on top — see Configuration.
Sharing maps
A map starts private. The owner and a named co-manager may share it (a colleague with the Edit level from the list below — whoever hands out work can arrange access too). Team access and the public link are the owner's alone. The share dialog offers three widening circles:
- Specific colleagues, by e-mail — with View, Collaborate or Edit rights. Access is tied to the e-mail address, so it works even before the colleague registers: they see the map once they sign up with the same address. Someone without an account gets (with a mail server configured) an e-mail invitation explaining how to sign up — or, where self sign-up is closed, advice to ask for an account. It is sent only once per address and project; without a mail server the dialog offers a sign-up link to copy.
- The whole organization — every team member sees the map (View or Edit).
- A public link — see Public maps.
What each per-map level can do:
| View | Collaborate | Edit | Owner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| See the map, comment | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Change status of their own goals (as assignee) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Add/edit/move nodes, assign work | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Change an existing deadline | propose on their own step | propose only | only as its assigner | ✓ |
| Remove a node carrying a deadline | — | — | only as its assigner | ✓ |
| Share the map with more people | — | — | ✓ (named level only, not team access) | ✓ |
| Team access, public link, archive, delete the map | — | — | — | ✓ |
The row "change status of their own goals" applies to the View level too: whoever was given the work must be able to finish it. They can only flip that one goal — the one where they are named as the assignee; everything else stays read-only for them. The same holds when someone sees the map through team access. Nothing else comes with it: they still cannot edit the map, add goals, or change deadlines.
A deadline is an agreement with whoever assigned it. Anyone who cannot change it can propose a different date (with a reason) straight from the goal detail — the assigner gets a notification and approves by simply setting the new deadline, or declines.
Sharing also happens as a side effect where it saves you a round trip: assigning a goal or a task to someone without access offers to share the map with them as a collaborator in the same step, and a project created from a template with tasks is shared with the assignees automatically. Assigning to someone without access asks in as many words: "{e-mail} has no access to this map. Share the map with them as a collaborator (view map, work on own tasks) and assign them?"
Where shared maps show up
The home page sorts projects by your relationship to them: My projects (you created them), Where I take part (other people's projects shared with you or with a task or goal of yours) and Organization projects. The project card carries a badge — Private map, Shared with the whole organization, or Public map — so who can read it is visible at a glance.
Below the project name sits the main goal — the text of the apex node. A project name tends to be shorthand ("FMEA — kanban"), whereas the main goal is the sentence that says what it is about ("Halve the number of complaints coming from production"). When the two match, the line is left out — the same thing twice would just be noise.
Next
- Team setup (admin) — the step-by-step admin guide
- Public maps — the widest circle
- Configuration — registration key, Google, SMTP