Concepts
This is a plain-language glossary of the main ideas in the CRM. Each section explains one concept. You do not need to learn the whole model before you start; use the definitions when deciding where a piece of information belongs.
The diagram is a simple mental model, not a strict folder hierarchy. Groups and objects are separate ideas: a view connects a group to one object, and the same record can appear in more than one group or view.
Organization
Plain meaning: The business, team, or company that the CRM account represents.
In the CRM: Some settings or general instructions may use organization when talking about the business area. The active working area in the product is called a workspace. Organization is a business concept, not an extra step you need to use every time you open a record.
Example: A small agency is the organization. Its sales team and client-success team work in the agency’s workspace.
Important distinction: Organization describes who the work belongs to. Workspace describes where the shared CRM work is stored.
Workspace
Plain meaning: The shared home for one business or team.
A workspace contains:
- members and their workspace roles;
- groups and views;
- objects, fields, and records;
- notes, interactions, reports, and optional connected features; and
- workspace settings such as language, currency, and member administration.
Example: Create one workspace for the company’s customer work. Keep prospects, proposals, and customers in the same workspace when the team needs one history of the relationship.
Important distinction: Data, members, and permissions are scoped to the current workspace. Before diagnosing missing information, check that you are in the right workspace.
Member
Plain meaning: A person who has been invited to and belongs to a workspace.
What a member has: A workspace role, such as Admin, Editor, Viewer, or Guest. The same person may also have a different role in each group they join.
Example: A founder may be an Admin of the workspace, while a contractor is a Viewer in the workspace and an Editor in one project group.
Important distinction: Being a workspace member does not automatically make someone a member of every private group. A workspace-visible group can be visible to workspace members, while group-specific actions still depend on group access.
Group
Plain meaning: A shared collaboration area for a team, process, audience, or project.
What a group contains: Members, group roles, visibility, views, and sometimes charts. A group is not limited to one object: it can show several kinds of records through different views.
Example: Create an Active Pipeline group for the sales team, a Proposal Review group for opportunities awaiting a decision, or a Customer Success group for onboarding and renewals.
Important distinction: A group organises collaboration; it does not make a second copy of a record. One record can belong to several groups, so the same company can be visible in both sales and customer success.
View
Plain meaning: A saved way of looking at one object inside a group.
A view controls: Its name, display style, filters, sorting, columns or cards, date settings where relevant, and display order. The main display styles are:
- Table: rows and columns for entering and checking details.
- Kanban: cards in columns, useful for stages such as New, Meeting, Proposal, and Won.
- Calendar: records placed on dates, useful for follow-ups, renewals, or delivery work.
Example: Use a table view to maintain complete contact details, a kanban view to review sales stages, and a calendar view to see upcoming next-action dates.
Important distinction: A view is a lens, not a new dataset. Changing a record in one view changes the same record seen in other views.
Object
Plain meaning: A category of thing that the business tracks repeatedly.
In the CRM: An object is represented by a table and has a set of fields. It defines what information each record of that type can hold.
Examples: People, companies, opportunities, projects, partners, or a custom type such as implementations.
When to create an object: Use an object when the item has its own fields, owner, status, or lifecycle and the team will track many items of that kind. Use a note for a one-off explanation instead of creating an object for every isolated detail.
Important distinction: An object describes the type of thing. It is not one individual customer or deal; that individual is a record.
Field
Plain meaning: One property or column that stores a particular fact about a record.
Examples: Name, email, phone, owner, sales stage, value, next-action date, source, or a link to another object. Fields can use different kinds of values, such as text, dates, numbers, choices, URLs, people, or relationships.
Example: In an opportunity object, Stage, Value, Owner, and Expected close date are fields. Each opportunity record has its own value for those fields.
Important distinction: Put a fact in a field when the team needs to filter, sort, group, report, or automate from it. Put the story behind a conversation in a note.
Record
Plain meaning: One individual item belonging to an object.
Examples: One person, one company, one opportunity, one project, or one partner.
A record can contain: Field values, notes, timeline activity, group membership, and links to related records. It can be shown in multiple views and groups without being duplicated.
Example: “Northwind Ltd” is one company record. “Alex Johnson” is one contact record linked to that company. A proposal for Northwind is a separate opportunity record linked to both.
Important distinction: A record is the item the team updates. A view only changes how the item is displayed.
Relationship
Plain meaning: A link between two records that belong together.
Common relationships: A company has contacts, an opportunity belongs to a company, or a project is connected to a customer. A relationship can connect records from different objects, and one record can have several related records.
Example: Link an opportunity to its company and decision maker. From the opportunity, the seller can open the company and contact records instead of searching for them again.
Important distinction: A relationship is not a duplicate record. It is a connection that lets the team navigate the sales story and keep shared information in one place.
Permission
Plain meaning: A rule that determines what a person may see or change.
The CRM checks two everyday permission levels:
- The workspace role controls broad access to the shared workspace.
- The group role controls what the person can do inside a particular group.
The matrices below reflect the current client permission guide and the server-side checks in the API. A check mark means the role is generally allowed; a dash means it is generally not allowed. A particular action can still depend on the target group, record, visibility, ownership, connection, or workspace status.
Workspace permission matrix
| Workspace action | Admin | Editor | Viewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access workspace APIs | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read workspace details | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| List workspace members | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read own workspace role | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Update workspace settings | ✓ | — | — |
| Delete the workspace | ✓ | — | — |
| Invite a member with a non-admin role | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Invite a member as Admin | ✓ | — | — |
| Update a member’s workspace role | ✓ | — | — |
| Remove another member | ✓ | — | — |
| Remove yourself from the workspace | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Leave the workspace | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read objects/tables | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Write objects/tables | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Read notes | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Write notes | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Manage notifications | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create a group | ✓ | ✓ | — |
Guest role: Guest is a supported workspace role, but the current in-product matrix does not include it as a column. Treat Guest access as limited and context-specific; do not assume that it has the same access as Viewer. Check the group and feature where access is needed.
Editors can invite non-admin members. Only Admins can invite another Admin, change workspace member roles, or remove another member. Any member can leave for themselves, except when doing so would remove the last workspace Admin.
The object/table rows describe workspace-level access. The group matrix controls access to records, views, and charts inside a group, so a Viewer may still read permitted group content even though the workspace-level table-writing rows are not available.
Group permission matrix
| Group action | Owner | Admin | Editor | Viewer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| View the group | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| List views in the group | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read a view | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| List group members | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Update group details | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Change group visibility | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Delete the group | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Add a group member | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Change a group member’s role | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Remove another non-owner member | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Remove yourself from the group | —* | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read views in the group | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create or change views | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Read records in the group | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create or change records | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Merge records | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Add or remove record-to-group links | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| View charts in the group | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Manage charts in the group | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
* The group owner cannot leave the group through the API or group controls. Ownership must be transferred first. The owner column is marked differently here because the server behavior is the authoritative rule, even though an older client permission summary may show self-removal as generally allowed.
Connected feature areas
The client permission guide also calls out three connected areas without assigning them separate role columns:
- Mailbox integrations: connect accounts, send messages, manage mailbox settings, and track opens and clicks.
- Assistant: start chats, ask about workspace data, and get help with supported tasks.
- Enrichment: turn unstructured content into records or enrich existing data.
These areas still depend on the workspace, group, record, connection, and feature permissions that apply to the specific action. A role check alone does not connect an account or grant access to private data.
Role names in plain language
Workspace roles
| Role | What it generally means |
|---|---|
| Admin | Manages the workspace, settings, members, invitations, and roles. |
| Editor | Works with shared workspace content and can perform permitted editing tasks, but does not manage all workspace administration. |
| Viewer | Read-only access where the workspace and group rules allow it. |
| Guest | Limited access for a person who needs only part of the workspace. Check the group access given rather than assuming full access. |
Group roles
| Role | What it generally means |
|---|---|
| Owner | Full control of the group. The owner cannot be removed from that group. |
| Admin | Can manage group members, views, settings, and group work. |
| Editor | Can work with records and messages in the group. |
| Viewer | Can view available group content without changing the group’s work. |
Important distinction: A person needs access at both levels for many actions. Workspace Admins have broader access for some group operations, but the normal sharing model is to add people to the group and give them the group role they need.
Visibility
Plain meaning: Who is allowed to see a group and the work shown in it.
The group visibility choices are:
- Private: only group members can see the group.
- Workspace: workspace members can see the group, but seeing it does not automatically give them editing rights.
Example: Make an active sales group workspace-visible when the whole company needs to check pipeline progress. Make a sensitive founder-led negotiation group private when only a small team should see it.
Important distinction: Visibility answers “who can see this?” Permission answers “what can this person do?” A workspace-visible group can still restrict editing to its members and group Editors, Admins, or Owner. Workspace Admins can have broader access for some server-side group operations, but visibility should still be configured deliberately.