Understanding Your Team Structure: Roles, Groups, and Sub-teams

Purpose: Sure Send gives you four ways to organize your team, and each one serves a different purpose. This article explains what they are, what they control, and when to use each one — so you can set up your team with confidence.

Before You Begin

You'll need Owner or Admin access to manage most team settings. Members can view these settings but can't make changes.

The Big Picture

If you've looked through your team settings, you've probably noticed several ways to organize your team — system roles, role types, groups, and sub-teams. They might look like they overlap, but each one answers a different question about your team.

Concept	The Question It Answers	What It Controls
System Roles	"What can this person do?"	Permissions — what each user can access and modify
Role Types	"What is this person's job?"	Organizational labels — your team's job titles
Groups	"How do leads get distributed?"	Lead routing — who receives new leads and how
Sub-teams	"Who can see which contracts?"	Contract access — shared visibility into deals

Think of it this way: System Roles control the locks on the doors. Role Types are name badges. Groups decide who gets the next lead. Sub-teams decide who can view a contract.

The rest of this article walks through each one in detail.

System Roles (Permissions)

System roles are the only thing that controls what a user can do in Sure Send. Every team member is assigned one of three roles: Owner, Admin, or Member.

The Three System Roles

Role	What They Can Do
Owner	Everything — full access to all settings, billing, credits, phone provider setup, and team management. Every team has one Owner.
Admin	Most settings — manage team members, stages, custom fields, integrations, imports, and forms. Cannot access billing or credits.
Member	Day-to-day work — manage their own contacts, use communication tools, and view settings. Cannot change team configuration.

The key distinction: Admins can configure the system. Members use the system. And only the Owner can manage billing and subscription settings.

Where to Set System Roles

When inviting a new team member:

1. Click Settings in the left navigation.
2. Under Team Settings, select My Team.
3. Click Invite.
4. In the invitation form, select the Team Role (Admin or Member).
5. Complete the remaining fields and click Send Invitation.

To change an existing team member's role:

1. Click Settings → My Team.
2. Find the team member in the Members list.
3. Click on their name to open their profile.
4. Update their Team Role and save.

Good to know: The Owner role cannot be reassigned through the UI. If you need to transfer ownership, contact Sure Send support.

Role Types (Organizational Labels)

Role types are customizable labels that describe what someone does on your team — like Sales Rep, Operations Manager, Team Lead, Agent, or Loan Officer. You can create as many as you need to match your team's structure.

What Role Types Do (and Don't Do)

Role types are labels only. They do not control permissions, access to features, or lead routing. A team member's system role (Owner, Admin, or Member) determines what they can do. Their role type just identifies their job on the team.

Every team member must have a role type assigned — it's a required field when inviting someone. Sure Send starts you with two defaults: "Admin" and "Member." You can rename these, create new ones, or organize them however makes sense for your team.

Where to Manage Role Types

1. Click Settings in the left navigation.
2. Under Team Settings, select My Team.
3. Select the Role Types tab on the right side of the page.
4. Click Add Role Type to create a new one, or click an existing role type to edit it.

To delete a role type, you'll be asked to reassign any team members who currently have that role type.

Who Can Manage Role Types

System Role	Access
Owner	Create, edit, delete
Admin	Create, edit, delete
Member	View only

Groups (Lead Distribution)

Groups are how you distribute new leads to your team. When a lead comes in, Sure Send uses your group settings to decide which team member receives it.

How Lead Distribution Works

Each group has a distribution method that determines how leads are assigned to its members:

Method	How It Works
Round-robin	Leads rotate through group members in order. Everyone gets an equal share.
First-to-claim	The lead is offered to the group, and the first member to claim it gets assigned.
Weighted distribution	Some members receive a higher proportion of leads than others based on assigned weights.

Groups also support advanced settings like response timeouts (auto-reassign if nobody responds), claim limits (cap how many leads a member can receive per day or week), and business hours (only assign leads during working hours).

Creating a Group

1. Click Settings in the left navigation.
2. Under Team Settings, select Groups & Ponds.
3. Click Create Group.
4. Enter a Group Name.
5. Select the User Type — Agent or Lender. (This is just a label that determines which section your group appears in on this page. It doesn't change how the group works — both types function identically.)
6. Choose a Distribution Method.
7. Add team members to the group.
8. Click Save.

Tip: You can create multiple groups for different lead sources. For example, an "Oceanfront Leads" group and a "Referral Leads" group — each with different members and distribution settings.

Who Can Manage Groups

System Role	Access
Owner	Create, edit, delete groups and manage members
Admin	Create, edit, delete groups and manage members
Member	Cannot manage groups

Sub-teams (Contract Access)

Sub-teams control who can see contracts. When a contract is assigned to a sub-team, every member of that sub-team can view that contract — even if they aren't personally assigned to it.

This is especially useful when multiple people need visibility into the same deals.

When to Use Sub-teams

Example: Your transaction coordinator needs to see all contracts the residential sales team is working on — not just the ones assigned to them directly. Add them to the "Residential Sales" sub-team. Any contract assigned to that sub-team is now visible to them.

Other common setups include sub-teams organized by office location, department, or deal type. Team members can belong to multiple sub-teams.

Creating a Sub-team

1. Click Settings in the left navigation.
2. Under Team Settings, select My Team.
3. Select the Subteams tab.
4. Click Add Subteam.
5. Enter a Name for the sub-team (e.g., "Dallas Office," "Commercial Team").
6. Click Save.
7. Add team members to the sub-team.

Assigning a Contract to a Sub-team

When creating or editing a contract, you'll see an option to assign it to a sub-team in the assignment section. The contract form includes explanatory text confirming that all sub-team members will be able to view the contract.

Who Can Manage Sub-teams

System Role	Access
Owner	Create, edit, delete sub-teams and manage members
Admin	Create, edit, delete sub-teams and manage members
Member	View only

Putting It All Together

Here's how all four concepts work together for a single team member:

You invite Sarah to your team as a Member (system role — she gets standard access to contacts, communication, and day-to-day features). You assign her the Agent role type (label — identifies her job on your team). You add her to the Oceanfront Leads group (lead distribution — she'll receive new oceanfront leads via round-robin). And you add her to the Residential Sales sub-team (contract access — she can see all contracts assigned to that sub-team).

Each layer works independently. Changing Sarah's role type doesn't affect her permissions. Removing her from a group doesn't affect her contract access. They're separate tools that work together to give you full control over your team's structure.

Quick Reference

Concept	What It Controls	Where to Set It	Who Can Manage It
System Role	Permissions (what users can access and modify)	Settings → My Team → Invite / Edit member	Owner, Admin
Role Type	Job title label (organizational)	Settings → My Team → Role Types tab	Owner, Admin (Members can view)
Group	Lead distribution (who receives new leads)	Settings → Groups & Ponds	Owner, Admin
Sub-team	Contract visibility (who can see which contracts)	Settings → My Team → Subteams tab	Owner, Admin (Members can view)