Every shop’s team looks different. One owner-operator. An owner plus a casual packer. A small team where one person handles packing and another handles returns. A bigger team where the manager wants to authorise refunds and nobody else does.
Packsie’s roles and permissions are designed to fit those shapes without making you build them from scratch. Sensible defaults out of the box, customisation when you want it, and — because WordPress roles are additive — Packsie’s roles layer onto whatever your staff already do.
What ships out of the box
A Packer role is created the first time Packsie activates. It has just enough permission to use the dashboard (manage_packing capability) and nothing else. No Plugins, no Posts, no Themes, no Users. Assign it to your warehouse staff and they’re ready to log in.
Administrator and Shop Manager are granted full Packsie access automatically, so you don’t have to configure anything before you log in for the first time.
Stack the Packer role on top of what your staff already do
WordPress roles are additive, so the Packer role layers on top of any other roles your staff already have. Useful for the way real teams work:
- Editor + Packer — your content person writes blogs and helps with packing during busy season. They keep their Editor capabilities and pick up the dashboard when they need it.
- Author + Packer — same idea, smaller scope.
- Customer + Packer — your packers can have their own customer accounts for testing orders, receiving staff perks, or buying through the shop normally.
- Administrator + Packer — for the owner who packs alongside the team. Full admin access, plus the streamlined frontend dashboard when you just want to grab the day’s orders without going into wp-admin.
You don’t replace anyone’s existing role. You add Packer on top.
What you can customise
In Packsie Settings > Permissions:
- Which WordPress roles see the packing dashboard — Administrator, Shop Manager, Packer by default. Add any custom roles you’ve created (Warehouse Lead, Casual Packer, whatever fits your team).
- Which roles see the returns dashboard — often the same as packing, but you can split them. Returns staff don’t have to be the same people as your packers.
- Which roles can authorise refunds — a separate switch per role. A packer might be allowed to receive a return and inspect it, but only a manager can press the button that releases the money. When a packer hits Refund, the action queues for a manager to approve instead of executing immediately.
- What each role sees in the customer interactions timeline — some shops want every staff member to see a customer’s full notes; others want packers to see only what’s relevant to packing. The visibility grid handles that per role and per interaction type.
How the layers fit together
Three permission layers, cascading:
1. WordPress role membership — what roles does this user have? 2. Dashboard access — has any of their roles been ticked on for the packing or returns dashboard? 3. Per-action permission — for specific actions like authorising a refund, has any of their roles been granted that switch?
Administrators and Shop Managers always have all three. Other roles read from the configured grid.
The refund authorisation split
Refunds are the one staff action that moves money. Splitting “process the return” from “authorise the refund” gives smaller shops a way to grow their team without giving every new hire the keys to the float. The packer marks the return received, notes condition, and recommends a refund. The owner clicks Approve later and the money moves. That’s the same workflow most retailers run informally — Packsie just makes the boundary explicit so it doesn’t depend on you remembering.
You can also collapse the two steps back into one for shops where the same person does both jobs. Tick the refund-authoriser permission for the inspector role and the queued step is skipped.
Pairs with role manager plugins you might already use
Packsie’s permission grid is scoped to the things Packsie does: dashboard access, refund authorisation, interaction visibility. If you’re already using Members, User Role Editor, or Capability Manager Enhanced for fine-grained permissions across other plugins, Packsie sits cleanly alongside them. The Packer role and Packsie capabilities stay where they are; layer additional capabilities through the role manager if you need them.
For shops that just want their packing team to log in safely without over-thinking it, the built-in grid covers the lot.
Why we built it this way
Hiring help should feel like growth, not a permissions audit. The defaults work for most shops out of the box; the customisation is there when your team’s shape doesn’t match the defaults; and the additive-roles design means the Packer role slots in alongside what your staff already do — no replacing, no rebuilding, no surprises. Less worrying about who can see what. More running your shop.