Roles vs. positions: what's the difference?

What's the difference between a role and a position?

BoardTools tracks two different things about every member, and it's worth keeping them straight:

• Role is what a member can do inside BoardTools — whether they can manage other members, run votes, edit board settings, and so on. Roles are Admin, Chair, Treasurer, Director, Staff liaison, and Observer.
• Position is the definition of a governance seat on your board — its title, the role it grants, and its term rules (length and, if your bylaws set one, a term limit) — for example Chair, Treasurer, or an At-Large Director position. A seat is one fillable slot of a position: a position with capacity for two directors has two seats, each held (or vacant) for a dated term.

Most of the time a member's position and role line up (your Treasurer holds the Treasurer role too). But they're tracked separately on purpose: your board's structure — its seats and who's serving on them, for how long — stays accurate even when who's assigned to a seat changes, or when someone's day-to-day permissions in the app need to differ from their governance title.

One place this really matters: whether a ballot counts. Whether a member can cast a vote comes from their seat (a position can be marked non-voting), never from their role — so, for example, a non-voting staff liaison can still hold an administrator role and run the meeting, without their own ballot being counted. See Votes & ballots for how that shows up on the roster.

You choose both at once when you add a member — the Add member panel puts the position and the role side by side, and picking a position fills in the role it grants (see Adding a member). Afterwards they're edited in two different places: the role on the member's Edit page, the seat on Seats & terms.

How do I set up seats and terms?

Open Members → Seats & terms to:

• Add a position — click Add position on the Positions table to open a dialog for its title, the board role it grants, its capacity, its term length, and (optionally) a term limit. The Counts toward ballots checkbox controls whether a member holding this position has a ballot counted in votes (leave it on for directors; turn it off for a non-voting position such as a corporate secretary). This is ballot eligibility only — it does not change what the member can do in the app, which is their role. Tick Officer position for a single-holder office such as Chair or Treasurer. The Positions table shows each position's seats, officer status, role, and voting status at a glance.
• Edit a position — open the row's ⋯ menu and choose Edit to change any of it after the fact: title, board role, capacity, display order, term length, term limit, officer status, description, or ballot eligibility. The dialog is prefilled with the position's current values, so you only need to change what's different. Every field is editable here — nothing about a position is locked in by the setup wizard.
• Reorder positions — open the row's ⋯ menu and choose Move up or Move down to change where a position sits in the list (Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, then your at-large directors, say). You can also type a Display order number directly in the Edit dialog.
• Delete a position — open the row's ⋯ menu and choose Delete. If a member currently holds the position, the confirmation names them and explains that their term is kept on record but unlinked from the position — deleting a position never erases a member's service history.
• Assign a term — click Assign term on the Terms table to open a dialog and put a member on a seat for a dated term. Once you pick a seat and a start date, the end date prefills from that seat's defined term length — you can still edit it for a partial term (e.g. filling a predecessor's vacancy) or leave it blank for an open-ended, current term.
• Edit a term — open the row's ⋯ menu on the Terms table and choose Edit term to correct its seat, start date, or end date after the fact (a mistyped date, or the wrong seat picked at assignment). The dialog is prefilled with the term's current values.
• End a term today — open the row's ⋯ menu and choose End term today for a member who has stopped serving mid-term (resigned, or was removed). This sets the end date to today so the seat immediately shows as open on Succession and can be assigned to a replacement — an open-ended term otherwise keeps a seat "filled" forever, since occupancy is based purely on term dates, not a member's status. "Today" is the date on your board's own configured timezone (set on its Settings page), not wherever the server happens to run — so a term you end on the evening of the 3rd is recorded as ending on the 3rd. You'll get the same offer — a checkbox to also end the current term — right from the member directory when you set someone's status to Resigned or Removed, so you don't need a separate trip here.
• Delete a term — open the row's ⋯ menu and choose Delete term. Use this only to correct a genuine data-entry mistake (a term that should never have been assigned) — to record that a real term ended, use End term today instead, which keeps the service on record.
• See Seats up this cycle — every seat whose current term ends within 90 days, plus any seat that's currently vacant, so you always know what needs filling or renewing next.

The member directory shows each member's current seat and term end in a Seat column, so you can scan who holds what without opening every profile. From a member's edit page, the "Manage this member's seat →" link jumps straight to this page pre-filtered to that member — a reminder that their role (what they can do in the app) and their seat (the position they hold) are set in two different places.

What does a position's capacity do?

Capacity is how many members can hold the same position at once — one for a Chair, four for an "At-Large Director" position with four seats, or blank for an uncapped position that can take as many members as you seat on it.

The Positions table's Seats column shows the live count against that cap ("3 of 4 filled", or "Uncapped · 3 filled"), with a Full badge once there's no room left. Capacity drives four things:

• Invitations and adding members. Inviting someone into a position, or adding them straight onto it, is refused once every seat is filled or reserved — an outstanding invitation holds a seat, so it counts too. If you see "That position is full — every seat is filled or already invited", either end a term to free a seat or open ⋯ → Edit on that position and raise its capacity.
• Succession. The Succession dashboard calls a position vacant or partially filled by comparing the members serving on it to its capacity.
• The roster's seat figures. Seats filled and Vacant seats above the roster count seats, so a capacity-4 position holding one member is one filled seat and three vacant — the same seats Succession lists as open now.
• Lowering it. Capacity can't be set below the number of members currently serving — BoardTools refuses the change and tells you how many seats are filled. End a term first (⋯ → End term today on the Terms table), then lower the cap. Clearing capacity (uncapped) is always allowed.

Succession & vacancy planning

Open Members → Succession for a board-level forecast of expiring terms, term-limited members, and open seats — everything that needs filling or renewing next, across the whole board. See Succession & vacancy planning for what each list means and how the forecast headline is counted.

How do I hand off a role?

From a member's Edit page, an eligible actor sees a Transfer role option: promote that member into a new role while stepping down into a new role yourself, both in the same action. Use it for things like a chair handing the seat to a director, or an administrator stepping down right after promoting their replacement.

BoardTools always keeps at least one administrator and never more than one chair — the transfer simply won't complete if it would leave the board without either.

Is a member told when their role changes?

Yes. Whenever an administrator changes someone's role — on the member's Edit page, or by handing a role over with Transfer role — that member gets a Role changed notice in their bell and a matching email. It names their old and new role in plain words (for example, "Your role on the board changed from Director to Board Admin / Secretary"), adds one sentence on what the new role can do, and links to Settings → Roles & permissions for the full picture.

Only the member whose role changed is told. If you change your own role — including stepping down as part of a transfer — nobody is notified, since you already know. The notice follows the Your membership row of the notification preferences, and the member's audit-trail entry records that they were notified.

Changing someone's position (their seat on Seats & terms) doesn't send this notice — it's about what they can do in the app, not their governance title. Seat and term changes have notices of their own — see the next section.

Is a member told when they're given a seat, or their term changes?

Yes. On Seats & terms, each of these tells the member in their bell and by email, linking to their profile:

• Assign term sends Seat assigned — for example, "You've been seated as Treasurer, Jan 1, 2027 – Dec 31, 2028".
• Edit term sends Term changed when the seat, start date, or end date actually changed, naming each change old → new ("End date: Dec 31, 2027 → Dec 31, 2028."). Moving the end date moves their Term ending reminders too, so they always hear about it. Saving with nothing changed sends nothing.
• End term today sends Term ended with the end date — unless the member has already left the board (resigned or removed), since the status change was the news.

Dates are the term's calendar days, exactly as recorded on your board's calendar. Whoever makes the change isn't told about it, and each change is sent once. Adding a brand-new member straight onto a seat doesn't send Seat assigned — their invitation (if you send one) is their first word from the board. All three follow the Your membership row of the notification preferences.

Will I be reminded before my term ends?

Yes. If your seat has a term end date, you'll get a Term ending notice 60 days before it ends and again at 14 days — for example, "Your term as Treasurer ends on Dec 31, 2026. Talk to the chair if you plan to stand again." The days are counted on your board's own calendar (its configured timezone), not the server's. You won't be reminded if you've already been re-appointed to the same seat (a later term is on record), if your term is open-ended, or if you're no longer serving on the board.

People who manage seats and terms (administrators and the chair) get one Terms ending soon roll-up a week instead of a note per director: it lists every term ending in the next 60 days that nobody has been re-appointed to yet, with a button to Seats & terms. A week with nothing ending sends nothing. Both follow the Your membership row of the notification preferences.