A line manager is the person someone reports to in HowNow, set in that person's Reports To field. Having at least one direct report gives you a Team page under Manage, regardless of your Access Level.
How it works
Being a line manager depends on the reporting line, not your access level. As soon as one person has you as their Reports To, Manage › Team appears in your sidebar, whether you're an Admin, Manager, Contributor or Read Only. If nobody reports to you, opening a link to a Team page shows "You don't have access to this page".
Reports To is set by an Admin or Manager, or synced from your HR system. Each person can report to one line manager.
Your Team page shows your direct reports. If any of them manage people, you can open their team from Indirect Reports, but no further down. For example, if Olivia reports to you and Chloe reports to Olivia, you can open Olivia's team and see Chloe. If Chloe manages someone, you can't open Chloe's team.
What you can do from Actions on the Team page depends on your access level:
Your access level | View your team | Assign Learning | Add Skills |
Admin or Manager | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Contributor | Yes | Yes | No |
Read Only | Yes | No | No |
Add Skills is also hidden if your workspace stops people from changing their own skills.
Log Learning appears for any line manager when logging learning is turned on for your workspace.
When a reporting line changes in HowNow, the person gets an in-app notification that their manager has been updated, and the new and previous managers are each told that someone has joined or left their team.