Manage every user on your site from one list

In short. Go to Users → All Users. The table lists every account on your site with their role. Click a role pill (Administrator, Editor, Author, Customer) to filter the list instantly. Search by name or email to find a specific person. Tick rows and use the Action For Selected dropdown to bulk-move accounts to Trash when someone leaves the team, or to restore them. Click any username or the Edit row action to open the full profile. Keep two Administrators at all times — trashing the last one locks you out.

On this page: Role guide · Good use cases · What NOT to use this for · How to audit and filter · Steps — Audit and filter · Steps — Bulk-manage · Tips

The Users screen is the one table where every person with an account on your site sits side by side. From here you can audit who has which role, filter down to a single role in one click, find any account by name or email, bulk-move accounts to Trash when someone leaves, and jump straight into a full edit of any profile. A pre-launch cleanup or a quarterly access review takes about five minutes.

Roles on this screen are about trust and site access — who can change your site, who can write content, and who is just a customer on the public side. Keeping the list tidy is one of the fastest ways to improve your site's security posture.

What is this for?

The Users list is your account-management command station. See everyone who can sign into your site in one place and handle everyday access tasks without clicking through page after page. You reach for it on launch day to clean up test accounts, whenever a teammate joins or leaves, and whenever you want a quick count of how many administrators and editors you have.

Adding a new team member is the most common job after viewing the list. Click + Add New, fill in the form, and save. The new user receives a welcome email and can sign in immediately with the role you chose.

Full walkthrough of the form: Add or edit a user.

Role guide — what each role can do

Roles are the core of access control on this list. Pick the right one when you create an account; promote later only when a user has earned more trust.

• Site Owner / Administrator — full control. Can change every setting on the site, manage users, and see ecommerce financials. Reserve for people you would trust with full site access. Two is healthy; five-plus is over-provisioning.
• Editor — can write, edit, and publish any content (pages, blog posts, products), including content others wrote. Cannot manage users or change site settings. The default for most in-house team members.
• Author — can write, edit, and publish their own content only. Best for guest writers and freelancers who should not touch published team content.
• Customer — public-side account. Can sign into the customer area, see their order history, update their own profile. Zero admin access.
• Subscriber — public-side account with basic privileges (signed-in commenting). Used rarely; most sites don't need this distinct from Customer.

When in doubt, pick the lower role. You can promote someone from Editor to Administrator in one click on the Edit User form.

Good use cases

The role pills across the top give you an at-a-glance audit of who can sign in. Each pill carries a live count. A healthy access audit looks like this:

Pre-launch cleanup. Type qa_test into the search box to narrow to test accounts, tick them, pick Move to Trash, and click Apply. A banner confirms the count moved.

After applying Move to Trash:

Other common jobs:

• Find and edit a specific account. Type a name, username, or email into the search box and click Search. Click the matching row's Edit action to open the full profile.
• Promote a teammate. Click the current-role pill to narrow the list, find the row, click Edit, change Role, save. Access updates on their next sign-in.
• Quarterly access audit. Click Administrator and count the rows — more than expected is a red flag. Repeat for Editor. Bulk-trash anyone who has left the team.
• Link to a public author profile. Each user has a public profile URL based on their username: https://yourdomain.com/profile/gracehopper. Paste it anywhere on your site.
• Deactivate a departed teammate. Tick the row, pick Move to Trash, click Apply. Their blog posts and authored content stay; only future sign-ins are blocked.

Role changes are per-user edits, not bulk actions. The bulk dropdown handles status changes (active / trash) but not role changes. Open each profile individually to change a role.

Empty state

A brand-new SGEN site shows an empty Users list with only your own admin account. Click + Add New to invite the first teammate or customer.

What NOT to use this for

• Password resets for customers. The public sign-in page has a "Forgot password" link that customers use themselves. This screen is for admin-side account management.
• Treating Trash as permanent delete. Moving a user to Trash only hides them from the Active list — the account still exists. Trash is reversible.
• Compliance exports. If you need to hand a privacy report to Legal, a database export is the right path. This screen is operational, not reporting.
• Bulk-trashing all Administrators. Trash admins one at a time and verify you still have a working admin account afterwards. Trashing the last one locks you out.
• Shared admin accounts. Each person who needs access should have their own row. Shared accounts break the audit trail.

How this connects to other features

• Add or edit a user — clicking + Add New opens the Create a User form; clicking any row's Edit opens the Edit User form. Both forms let you set name, role, email, phone, address, bio, and password. Full walkthrough: Add or edit a user.
• Your own profile — for updating your own display name, address, and password, see Edit your own profile. The Users list hides the Trash action on your own row so you cannot accidentally trash yourself.
• Public sign-in — a user's sign-in credentials are checked against this list on every login. Users in Trash cannot sign in while they are in Trash.
• Authorship across the site — the name and display name on this list surface on the public side wherever content authorship is shown: blog bylines, comment threads, form submitter attribution, and order records. Trashing a user does not remove their past content; it only prevents future sign-ins.
• Ecommerce customer records — customer-role users are linked to their order history. Trashing a customer does not delete past orders; orders still appear on the Orders screen with the customer's name attached.
• Site Settings → Email — the welcome email a new user receives uses the from-address configured under Email Settings. If that section is empty, the welcome email never sends; users still get created, but they receive no notification.
• Audit log — every trash, restore, and role change is logged under Site Tools. The log retains entries indefinitely and is the source of truth for "who did what, when".

Before you start

• You need Administrator or Site Owner access. Editors and Customers cannot see the Users screen — it does not appear in their navigation.
• Confirm you have a backup Administrator. If you plan to trash anyone with admin access, verify at least one other Administrator account remains on the site. Trashing the only admin locks you out of the admin panel; recovering requires database access or a developer.
• Understand that Trash is not Delete. Moving an account to Trash suspends sign-in access and hides the row from active views. The account and all its associated content remain in the database. Permanent deletion requires a developer.
• Multi-site note. Each site under your SGEN account has its own Users list. Changes on one site do not propagate to others. If you manage a fleet, you need to update each site's list separately when onboarding or off-boarding a teammate.
• Welcome emails require email settings. When you create a new user, SGEN can send them a welcome email automatically — but only if Settings → Email is configured. If it is not set up, users are still created; they just do not receive a notification.

Where to go

1. Sign in to your SGEN admin panel.
2. Open the left navigation.
3. Click Users. A sub-menu appears with All Users, Add New, and (if you have ecommerce) Customers.
4. Click All Users. The Users list loads with every active account in one table, sorted by creation date descending by default.
5. The role pills and search box appear at the top of the table. The + Add New button is in the upper-right corner.

How to audit, filter, and bulk-manage users

Steps — Audit and filter

1. Read the role pills

A row of colored pills sits at the top of the screen, one per role, each with a live count:

• All Users — every active account.
• Administrator — full admin access to your site.
• Editor — can write and publish content but cannot change site settings or manage users.
• Author — can write and publish their own content.
• Customer — a public-side account; no admin access.
• Subscriber — a public-side account with basic privileges (signed-in commenting, for example).
• Trash — accounts currently in the trash. Not active. Not able to sign in.

Glance across the counts. If you expect 2 admins and see 4, something is worth investigating.

2. Click a pill to narrow the list

Clicking any pill narrows the table to that single role. The pill turns red to show it is active, and the table refreshes. Click All Users to go back to the full list.

3. Search by name, username, or email

Type part of a name or email into the Search users.. box and click Search. Matches across username, first name, last name, and email all appear. The search respects the active role pill — if you clicked Editor first and then search for "grace", you only get Editors named Grace.

4. Jump to a user's edit page

Click the username (the text link in the first column) or click the Edit row action. The full Edit User page opens where you can change their name, role, phone, address, bio, and password. Full walkthrough: Add or edit a user.

5. Add a new user from the list

Click + Add New in the upper-right corner of the screen. The Create a User form opens in the same admin panel. Fill in username, name, email, role, and a temporary password, then click Save User. The user receives a welcome email if your email settings are configured, and their row appears on the Users list immediately. Their username cannot be changed after you save — choose it carefully.

Steps — Bulk-manage accounts

1. Check the accounts you want to act on

Every row has a checkbox. Tick the rows you want to include. Use the header checkbox to tick or clear every row on the current page at once.

Your own account's checkbox is either hidden or ignored — if you accidentally tick yourself, the bulk action skips your row and reports "Skipped: 1".

2. Pick an action from the dropdown

The Action For Selected dropdown sits just above the table. The three always-available actions are:

• Move to Publish — make selected accounts active (also used to restore from Trash).
• Move to Draft — pause selected accounts. Draft accounts cannot sign in.
• Move to Trash — remove selected accounts from the active list.

3. Click Apply

Click the Apply button next to the dropdown. A confirmation banner appears with the result: "Bulk action complete. Updated: X, Skipped: Y." The skip count includes rows that could not be moved (your own, or any protected row).

4. Restore accounts from Trash

Click the Trash pill to show only trashed accounts, tick the ones you want back, choose Move to Publish from the bulk dropdown, and click Apply. The accounts rejoin the active list.

What success looks like

• The table loads with every user visible as one row, and the role pill counts add up correctly. The sum of Administrator + Editor + Author + Customer + Subscriber pill counts equals the All Users count.
• Clicking any pill narrows the table immediately; the active pill turns red and the row count updates.
• Typing in the search box and clicking Search narrows the table to matching accounts across username, first name, last name, and email.
• Ticking rows and applying a bulk action shows "Bulk action complete. Updated: X, Skipped: Y." Trashed rows move out of the active list, and the Trash pill count rises by the number of rows you trashed.
• Clicking Edit on any row opens the Edit User form for that person without any error or redirect.

What to do if it does not work

• The screen is empty. You may be filtered to a role that has no accounts. Click All Users to reset. On a brand-new site with no teammates yet, the empty-state message above is expected — click + Add New.
• A bulk action reports "No users were updated. Skipped: X". You may have only ticked your own row, or picked an action that is disabled on the current tab.
• A teammate cannot sign in. Check if their row is on the Trash pill. If so, tick it and apply Move to Publish to restore them.
• You do not see the Trash action on your own row. Expected — you cannot trash yourself.
• The role pill counts do not add up. Pill counts include only active-status accounts. Trashed users count only under the Trash pill; drafted users appear under no pill (Draft is uncommon for users).
• Search returns nothing for a name you know exists. Search matches username, first name, last name, and email — not display name or bio. Try the email address, or part of the username.
• The page is slow to load. Sites with thousands of customer-role users can be slow on the All Users tab. Click into a smaller role pill (Administrator or Editor) to load a shorter list, or paginate with the links at the bottom.
• A trashed user is still showing in author bylines on the public site. Expected — trashing prevents future sign-ins but does not remove past content attribution. To strip a byline, reassign the post to a different author from the Pages or Blog screen.

Tips

• Audit Administrators monthly. A 60-second click on the Administrator pill at the start of every month catches any drift — departed contractors who were never revoked, accidental promotions, ghost accounts.
• Bulk-trash with a safety net. Before clicking Apply on a multi-row trash, note who is on the list. If you trash someone by mistake, the Trash pill plus Move to Publish restores them in two clicks.
• Use the search box as a filter. Typing yourdomain.com shows every account registered with that email domain — useful for seeing all your team members in one pass. Typing example.com narrows to customers. Combine with a role pill (click Editor first, then search) to narrow further.
• Pick memorable usernames. A username cannot be changed after you save it. Use a consistent scheme (firstlast, first.last) so future searches work and the same person is recognisable across different sites in your fleet.
• Keep two Administrators at all times. One can lock themselves out (forgotten password, lost device); two means you always have a working backup to restore access.
• Bookmark role-pill views. The URL changes with each pill click (?role=editor, ?status=trash). Bookmark the views you visit most to skip the navigation on busy days.
• Treat customers as the long tail. A small site might have 5–10 admin-side users but hundreds of customers. Audit customers by spot-checking a sample rather than reviewing every row individually — trust the pill count for the total, and scan for obvious anomalies like test or spam accounts.

FAQs

Q: Can I delete a user permanently? Not from this screen. The Delete Permanently action exists in the Trash tab's bulk dropdown but is intentionally disabled — clicking it returns "No users were updated." For real deletion, contact your site's developer. For most teams, leaving a user in Trash is fine.

Q: If I trash a user, what happens to their blog posts and comments? Content stays. The user's name remains attached as the byline, and comments stay in threads. Trashing only prevents future sign-ins; past order records also stay intact for customer-role users.

Q: Can a customer change their own role to Editor? No. Customers have no admin access and cannot see this screen. Only an Administrator or Site Owner can change roles, and only from the Edit User form.

Q: How many Administrators should my site have? Usually 2 or 3. One is too few (no backup if you lock yourself out); five-plus is more attack surface than most sites need.

Q: Will users in Trash receive emails sent through SGEN? In practice, trashed users do not receive site emails because most flows skip them. If you need someone reachable but locked out, change their role to Customer instead of trashing.

Q: Can I see a user's last sign-in time? Not on this list. The Created column shows when the account was made. Sign-in history is in the Audit log under Site Tools.

Q: What's the difference between Author and Editor? Author can write and publish only their own content. Editor can write and publish anything on the site, including content others authored. Pick Author for guest writers; pick Editor for in-house team members.

Q: Can I change my own role from this screen? No. If you demote yourself from Administrator, you lose admin access on your next page load and need another admin to restore you. Edit your own profile for name, password, and address only.

Cross-area considerations

• Users and Forms. When a signed-in user submits a form, the submission ties to their user record. Trashing the user keeps the submission but the submitter name reads "(Trashed user)" on the Submissions screen. Consider this before bulk-trashing customers — their past form submissions become harder to attribute.
• Users and Pages. Pages have an author. Trashing the author does not unpublish the page; the byline shows "(Trashed user)" on the public side. If a senior editor leaves, reassign their pages to another editor before trashing.
• Users and Ecommerce. Customer-role users are linked to their order history. Trashing a customer hides them from the active list but their orders still appear on the Orders screen with the customer's name attached. The customer cannot sign in to view their order history while in Trash.
• Users and Comments. Signed-in commenters are tied to their Users-list row. The display name you set on the Edit User form is what shows on every comment that user posts. Trashing the user does not remove their comments.
• Users and Notifications. Trashing a user does not remove them from notification recipient lists — review Settings → Notifications if a departed admin should stop receiving alerts.
• Users and SG-Builder Templates. Page and post templates store the user who created them. Trashing the creator does not delete the template, but the "created by" attribution falls back to a placeholder.
• Multi-site fleets. Each site has its own Users list. A user with the same email on two sites is two separate accounts — sign-in, role, and password are all per-site. Cross-site user sync is not built into SGEN; if a teammate needs access on three sites, create three separate Administrator accounts and manage each site's list individually.

Performance notes

• The Users list paginates at 20 rows per page by default. Sites with thousands of customers will see many pages — use the role pills to narrow before paging through, or use the pagination links at the bottom of the table to step through pages.
• Loading the list on the All Users view can be slow for sites with thousands of customer-role accounts. Click directly into a specific role pill (Administrator or Editor) when you only need that subset.
• Search results return quickly for sites under 1,000 users. Larger sites should expect a brief delay before matching rows appear.
• Bulk actions on more than 50 users at once may take a few seconds — the page does not block, but the success banner appears once the database has finished writing. For very large bulk actions, wait for the banner before navigating away.
• The pill counts are computed on every page load, so they always reflect the live state. On very large sites this can add a noticeable second to the initial load — but the count is always accurate when it appears.

Public author profiles

Each user on your site has a public author profile page at a predictable URL based on their username. If a content writer publishes blog posts, their byline links to this URL, and you can paste it anywhere else on your site. The URL pattern uses your own primary domain:

• https://yourdomain.com/profile/gracehopper
• https://yourdomain.com/profile/adalovelace

The profile URL is based on the Username column value — not the display name. This is one reason picking a memorable, consistent username scheme matters: the URL persists for as long as the account exists, and any external links to a profile page (from a team page, a bio, a partner site) will break if the account is ever recreated under a different username.

You cannot change a username after you save it. The display name (first name + last name) can be updated any time from the Edit User form without affecting the profile URL.

Maintenance schedule

A monthly Users-list audit keeps your site's access tight and the count of orphaned accounts low. Suggested cadence:

• Week 1 of each month — click Administrator. Confirm every name is still on the team and still needs admin access. Trash anyone who left. Confirm you have at least two Administrators.
• Week 2 of each month — click Editor. Same review — anyone gone? Anyone who should be promoted to Administrator because their responsibilities have grown?
• Week 3 of each month — click Customer. Spot-check a sample of rows for obvious test or spam accounts (test@, noreply@, qa.test). Bulk-trash any you find.
• Week 4 of each month — click Trash. Review what is there. Anything older than 90 days that nobody has restored can be escalated to your developer for permanent deletion if needed.
• Quarterly — review Author (typically guest writers and freelancers). Trash anyone whose contract ended; their published content stays intact and remains attributed to them.
• Annually — review the full account list for accounts that have not been active in over a year. Long-dormant accounts with elevated roles (Editor or Administrator) are an unnecessary security surface. Either confirm they are still needed or trash them.

For agencies managing client sites, the same cadence applies per client site. Maintain a master list of which team members have access to which sites, and schedule a quarterly fleet-wide access review — open each client site's Administrator pill in one sitting and trash anyone who should no longer be there.

Audit log

The Audit log (under Site Tools → Audit Log) captures every users-list lifecycle event:

• User created — records which admin created the account, at what time, and with which role assigned.
• User profile updated — records which fields changed (name, email, role, phone, bio) and who made the change.
• User role changed — records the old role and the new role, along with the acting admin and timestamp.
• User trashed — records who trashed the account and when.
• User restored from Trash — records who restored the account and when.
• Password reset — records whether the reset was admin-initiated or user-initiated (from the sign-in page).
• Sign-in attempt — records success and failed attempts (useful for spotting brute-force activity on a specific account).

Filter by the Users area when you need to investigate access changes. The log retains entries indefinitely on the live site and is the source of truth for "who did what, when" — useful for off-boarding reviews, confirming a contractor's access was revoked, and responding to compliance inquiries. If a teammate insists they were "deleted by mistake", the Audit log shows exactly when and by whom the action was taken.

Backup and export

• No CSV export from this screen. For a one-off export of all user records, your developer can run a database query. The Export option visible on some admin screens does not exist here.
• Customer-role users overlap with the Ecommerce Customers screen. That screen (under Ecommerce → Customers) does have CSV export of customer records — use it when you need a customer list for marketing or reporting.
• For GDPR Subject Access Requests, the Audit log plus a database-side export is the correct path. This screen is operational (sign-in and access management), not a reporting or compliance tool.
• Site backups include the users table. Backups taken under Site Tools → Backup capture the full users table. Restoring a backup restores every account — including any that were trashed or created after the backup was taken — to their state at backup time. Restore with care.
• Individual user records are visible on the Edit User page. For ad-hoc record keeping (a contractor's start date, their role at off-boarding), copy the relevant fields from there.

Migration from another platform

When moving user accounts from WordPress or another CMS:

• Export users from the source as CSV. Most platforms support this. You will need at minimum: username, first name, last name, email, and role.
• Map source roles to SGEN roles. The typical mapping:

• There is no bulk-import on the SGEN Users screen. Accounts are created one at a time via + Add New, or via a developer-run database script. For large migrations, engage your developer.
• Customers from an old ecommerce store can be imported via the Ecommerce Customers import path, which then surfaces here as Customer-role users.
• Passwords do not migrate as plaintext. Every imported user gets a fresh temporary password. Share it through a secure channel before first sign-in. Users can change their password after signing in from their own profile page.
• Profile photos and bios may need re-attachment. SGEN stores bios in the Edit User form's Bio field. Photos and other custom fields may need manual re-entry if the source platform stored them differently.

Next step

• Add or edit a user
• Edit your own profile