Retailers come in all shapes and sizes: from the family-owned shop in your local neighbourhood to the multi-stores expanding in cities across the world. However, this amazing diversity brings about different needs when it comes to employee settings. For example, some Retailers run their shop themselves or opt to share their login credentials with family members or trusted employees. If this applies to your shop, you can move on to the 1.3 Taxes and Labor article.
If you'd like to keep your login credentials confidential, configuring your employee settings involves:
- Adding employee roles
- Adding employees
- Setting login credentials
- Configuring Access settings
Configuring employee roles
The first step to configuring your employee settings is to define a well-structured set of employee roles in Settings > Employee Roles. Employee roles are used to group and limit your employees by levels of access in your Retail account. For example, you might want to disable access to the Reports section for your associates. Because multiple employees can be assigned to the same employee role, they also help you save time by not having to set or edit permissions for every individual employee.
Although Lightspeed Retail includes built-in roles such as Owner, Admin, Manager and Associate to help you get started, we encourage you to define the roles that make the most sense for your business. If you do, we also recommend giving these new employee roles meaningful names (e.g. Summer Intern or Floor Manager).
Should an employee need their own set of permissions, you can give them a Custom employee role and set their permissions from within their employee account. For more information on how to do so, please see Step 2 of this article.
For more detailed instructions, please see our Adding employee roles article.
Adding employees
Once you've defined your employee roles, you'll want to create new employees in Settings > Employee Setup. The number of employees that you can add to your Retail account depends on your Lightspeed Retail plan. If you've reached your employee limit and the + New Employee button no longer displays in Settings > Employee Setup, we recommend archiving an employee you don't plan on using often. If you need to keep all your current employees active, email your request to increase your employee limit to your Sales Account Manager directly or to the Sales department at sales@lightspeedhq.com. Alternatively, you can contact Support as they can coordinate a phone transfer or a callback request.
If you've assigned a Custom role to some of your employees, click Rights in the left menu to enable a customized set of permissions. As Custom roles are not listed under Settings > Employee Roles, you would need to modify the permissions of the Custom role in the same way should you need to in the future.
For more detailed instructions, please see our Adding employees article.
Setting login credentials
Next, you'll want to set login credentials for your new employees. Setting employee login credentials involves entering the below in the Sign In section of each employee account:
- Username
- Password
- Personal identification number (PIN)
To set an employee's login credentials:
- From the main menu, click Settings > Employee Setup.
- Click the employee you want to set the login credentials for.
- From the left menu, click Sign In.
- In the Login Name field, enter a valid email address. If the employee has external login access, this is the username they'll use to log in to your Retail account.
- In the New Password field, enter a password. If the employee has external login access, this is the password they'll use to log in to your Retail account.
- In the Re-type Password field, enter the same password again.
- Enable the Pin Active checkbox.
- In the Set New PIN field, enter the employee's PIN. This is the PIN they'll use to clock in and out and access your Retail account from the Lock screen.
- Click Save Changes.
Once you've entered login credentials for all your employees, whether they have External Login permission enabled in their employee role or not will determine their level of access.
| External login access |
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| PIN access |
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In case an employee accidentally closes the Lightspeed Retail session, we recommend having an employee with external login access available throughout your business day, whether on-site (e.g. a keyholder) or remotely (e.g. via TeamViewer). This way, your employees with only PIN access will always have access to your Retail account and be able serve customers during your shop's business hours.
Configuring Access settings
Lastly, under Settings > General Options, there are two Access settings you can configure:
- Auto Sign Out Delay
- Verify Pin Delay
The Auto Sign Out Delay setting controls how many minutes a Lightspeed Retail session stays open after an employee with external login access signs in. For example, if your keyholder has the External Login permission and the Auto Sign Out Delay setting is configured to 720 minutes, the Lightspeed session will automatically end 12 hours after the start of your keyholder's shift.
No matter who is responsible for starting the Lightspeed session at the beginning of the day, we recommend configuring the Auto Sign Out Delay setting to represent the entire duration of a typical business day at your shop. This is especially important if your employees only have PIN access since they don't have the permission to open a new Lightspeed Retail session on their own. By extending the Auto Sign Out Delay, your employees will always have access to your Retail account and be able to serve customers during your shop's business hours. As an owner, you'll also have peace of mind that your Retail account is secure and inaccessible to employees with PIN access after your shop's business hours.
The Verify PIN Delay setting controls how many minutes an employee has access to your Retail account after leaving it idle. By automatically locking out employees and requiring a PIN verification, your Retail account is secure and inaccessible should an associate walk away from the register without locking the screen.
To configure your Access settings:
- From the main menu, click Settings > General Options.
- In the Auto Sign Out Delay field, enter the total number of minutes in a typical business day at your shop (e.g 720 minutes for a 12 hour day).
- In the Verify Pin Delay field, enter the total number of minutes you want your Lightspeed Retail session to stay unlocked (e.g. 1-5 minutes).
- Click Save Changes.
Advanced
If you have a multi-store account, you may want to configure the Limit To Shop setting in the Details section of some employee accounts. This is helpful if some of your employees only work at one location or, if they travel, should only have access to one location at a time. By doing so, your employees will only be able to access the shop they're limited to and affect the inventory of that specific shop. For example, employees that are limited to a shop won't be able to switch between shops or enter their PIN at the Lock screen if the last shop selected was a different shop. When transferring items, they also won't be able to officially send items from another shop or add items to another shop's inventory.
To limit an employee to a shop:
- From the main menu, click Settings > Employee Setup.
- Click the employee that you want to limit to a shop.
- In the left menu, click Details.
- From the Limit To Shop drop-down, select the shop you want to limit the employee to.
- Click Save Changes.
