A team that contributes, without breaking things
Volunteers, seasonal staff, partners, contractors — everyone gets access to what concerns them, with the right permission level. You delegate with confidence.
How do members, groups and roles work?
A member is a person attached to your place. Their role decides what they can see and do: browse, create a task, inspect a structure, administer. Groups gather several members so work can be assigned to a crew at once, without naming one person in particular.
- Replaces
- The shared account whose password everyone knows, and the volunteer list kept separately in another file.
- Where it happens
- Members, roles and groups are managed on the web; invitations and a member's role can also be handled from the phone, where everyone works.
See it in action, in two minutes
An email, a role, and the person is on the team
You enter the email, pick the role, the groups and, if needed, the activities the person will have access to. They get the invitation by email and in the app, accept it, and land in your place with exactly those accesses.
- Pending invitations stay visible: you can resend, edit or delete them
- Activity restriction limits a member to biking, hiking or cross-country skiing, for example
- One account can belong to several places
Your volunteers look, your editors move things forward, your admins administer
Three starting roles — Viewer, Editor, Admin — and as many custom roles as you like. Each role is set area by area (tasks, projects, structures, checklists, trails, members…) at three levels, none, view or edit, plus switches for time, amounts, export or planning.
- Viewer looks without changing anything, Editor creates and moves tasks forward, Admin configures the network and manages members
- Dependencies sort themselves out: granting a right adds the ones it needs
- A role change applies right away, on the web as on the phone
Assign a crew rather than a person
A group brings several members together — the Saturday work party, the North crew. A task or checklist assigned to the group lands in each member's planning, without singling anyone out.
- A colour per group, shown on the kanban cards
- A person can belong to several groups
- Groups can be picked right at invitation
A board for every person and every group
Planning opens a member's or a group's kanban. You drag existing tasks onto it from the side panel to assign them, or create a new one already assigned.
- The same status columns as everywhere else
- The task panel filters by folder, type or date
- Reserved for roles with the Planning switch
Every member's recent activity
A member's page brings together their role, groups, work role and activities. The Recent activity tab lays out, day by day, what they did: tasks created or assigned, structure reports, and the rest.
- A category filter to find a specific action
- A Timesheet tab for their week
- Removing a member cuts their access without erasing what they did
My planning, in your pocket
On the phone, each member finds their tasks and their groups' tasks in My planning, one status column at a time, and moves them forward with a swipe.
- Group tasks carry the group's name
- Readable offline once opened
- A new role applies without signing out
Frequently asked questions
Can volunteers and external partners take part in discussions?
Yes, if their role allows it. The Conversations right is granted as read (you read threads, without writing or reacting) or read and write. Note: there are no private conversations — anyone who can read conversations sees every thread in the place.
How many members can we invite?
As many as you want. There's no limit on the number of members in Sentinel — invite your entire team, your volunteers, your partners and your contractors with no extra per-user fees.
Can a member belong to multiple organizations?
Yes. A technician can work for two different clubs with the same Sentinel account. They switch between networks directly from the app, without having to log in again.
How do we manage seasonal volunteers?
Invite them with a limited role for the season, restricted to certain activities if needed. At the end, you remove them from their page ("Remove member"): they lose access, but what they did stays — tasks, photos, history.
What about external partners (municipality, contractor)?
Give them the Viewer role, and restrict their profile to the activities that concern them. They see what they need to see, without being able to change anything.
Can someone tick items without being able to manage checklists?
Yes. The "Checklists" role has four levels: no access, view, view with the right to tick, and full management. A seasonal volunteer can tick their round without being able to create, duplicate or delete a checklist. Managing templates is a separate permission, kept for administrators.
Can volunteers use Trail Sentinel alongside paid staff?
Yes, and it is a common setup. Roles and permissions decide what each person sees and can change: a seasonal volunteer can view and complete their tasks without reaching network administration. Stowe Trails Partnership, in Vermont, uses it for exactly that — easing communication between volunteers and staff around trail projects. Contact Nature goes one step further and shares access with certain active users who work directly alongside its teams in the field, on top of its employees and volunteers.
How it's done, step by step
The documentation articles covering this feature, written for the person who uses it.
- 01The Members section is your team. Invite by email, pick the role, and decide which activities the person can reach.W
- 02Gather members under a name and a colour, then assign a task to the group instead of naming someone.W
- 03A role bundles 24 interlinked permissions. Here's how to read one at a glance, change it without breaking something else, and avoid locking yourself out.W
- 04A kanban per member and per group to assign tasks in one gesture, and "My planning" to see your own.WM
The craft behind the tool
Guides from our blog on the work itself, built on agency and federation manuals.
All blog articles
A team that moves forward, a manager who breathes
Delegating means trusting the right tools. Sentinel gives you the right tools.