Documentation: A Guide for Delegates

A Guide for Delegates

Someone in your Lodge has trusted you with something. They've invited you to become a Delegate on The Working Tools, which means they'd like your help running things, and they want you to have your own way in to do it.

This guide explains what that means: what The Working Tools is, what your access lets you do, and how you can be a genuinely useful pair of hands to your Secretary and your Lodge. It's written to be read start to finish the first time, and then kept somewhere handy to dip back into.

Whether your unit calls itself a Lodge, a Chapter, a Preceptory or something else, the ideas here are the same. We'll say "Lodge" throughout for simplicity, and "Secretary" for whoever invited you, whether that's the Treasurer, the Director of Ceremonies, Scribe E, or any officer who's taken on the admin.

Part One: Getting Your Bearings

What is The Working Tools?

The Working Tools is the software your Lodge uses to run its everyday business in one place, instead of across a shoebox of spreadsheets, paper diaries and email chains. It was built by a UK-based Freemason who got tired of doing lodge admin the hard way, so it's shaped around how a Lodge actually works rather than how a generic membership database thinks it should.

In practice, it's where your Lodge keeps:

Members — the roster, contact details, ranks and offices, and history.
Events — meetings, festive boards, rehearsals and socials, with invitations and attendance.
The Treasurer's books — subscriptions, payments and the Lodge's financial picture.
Reports — attendance, membership and other summaries drawn from the above.
Documents — summonses, minutes, bylaws and any files the Lodge needs to store safely.
Tools — including an Emailer for reaching members.

Not every Delegate will see all of these, and that's the point of the next section.

What does it mean to be a Delegate?

Running a good Lodge is a team effort, but too often one person ends up carrying all the admin. Delegates exist to spread that load. A Delegate is simply someone the Lodge's account holder has invited to share access to the Lodge on The Working Tools.

A few things worth knowing straight away:

You don't need your own subscription. Your access is provided through the Lodge's account. It costs you nothing, and there's no limit on how many Delegates a Lodge can have, so you're not taking anyone else's place.
Your access is granted to you personally. You log in as yourself, with your own name and password. Nothing you do is anonymous, and nobody has to share a single shared login any more.
You'll see exactly what you've been given access to: no more, no less. Your Secretary chooses which parts of the system you can reach (more on this below). If an area isn't part of your role, it simply won't appear for you. This isn't about mistrust; it's about keeping things tidy and protecting members' data, so you only ever have to think about the bit that's yours.
It's per-Lodge. If the person who invited you runs more than one Lodge, being a Delegate for one doesn't automatically give you access to the others. Each is invited separately, and if you do help with more than one, you can switch between them easily (see Part Three).

Think of it like being handed the keys to one particular room in the building, rather than the master key. You can get in, do your job well, and lock up after yourself, without needing to worry about every other door.

Part Two: Getting Started

Accepting your invitation

When your Secretary adds you, The Working Tools sends you an email invitation with a link to accept. Clicking it connects you to the Lodge.

If you've never used The Working Tools before, accepting takes you straight into the Lodge when you log in; there's nothing else to set up.
If you already have a Working Tools account (perhaps you're a member elsewhere, or help another Lodge), this Lodge is simply added to your existing access. Sign in with your usual login and you'll find it there; your invitation email also includes a password-reset link in case you need it.

Logging in for the first time

You'll get into the system in one of two ways, depending on how your Secretary set you up:

A "Set Your Password" link. Your invitation email contains a secure link, valid for 7 days, that lets you choose your own password and takes you straight into your Lodge. Click it, pick a password you'll remember, and you're in. For your security, The Working Tools no longer sends passwords by email. If the link expires before you use it, ask your Secretary to invite you again, or use the "Forgotten password?" option on the sign-in page.
A password your Secretary set for you. If they've set one up on your behalf, it won't be in the email. Instead, they'll pass it to you directly, by phone, in person, or however suits. This is handy if you'd rather not set a password up yourself.

Either way, you can always change your password once you're in.

Setting your own password

You can set or change your password at any time from your Settings page (it's always available to you, whatever your access). For security, your password needs to be:

Between 8 and 30 characters, and
Include an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a number and a symbol.

A short phrase with a number and a symbol on the end tends to be both strong and memorable.

A note on that "Subscribe" prompt: because you're a Delegate rather than a paying account holder, you might spot a Subscribe option in the menu. You don't need it to do your job here, but it's not there by accident either. If you ever fancy running your own Lodge on The Working Tools, that's where you'd begin (see "Fancy a Lodge of Your Own?" below).

Part Three: Finding Your Way Around

The menu, and why yours might look different

Once you're in, the main menu is your map. Depending on the access you've been given, you'll see some or all of these:

Dashboard — your landing page and overview. Everyone sees this.
The Lodge — the Lodge's home page. Everyone sees this.
Events — meetings and functions.
Members — the membership roster.
Treasurer — subscriptions and finances.
Reports — attendance and membership summaries.
Documents — the Lodge's files.
Tools / Emailer — utilities and member emails.
Help & Support — always there when you need it.
Settings — your own account, always available.

If Events, Members, Treasurer, Reports, Documents or Tools aren't showing for you, it isn't a fault; it simply means that area isn't part of your role yet. If you think you need it, that's a two-minute change for your Secretary to make; just ask (see Part Five).

If you help more than one Lodge

If you're a Delegate for more than one Lodge, you don't need separate logins. Near the top of the screen you'll find a Lodge switcher listing your other Lodges; click one to move across to it. Your access is remembered separately for each Lodge, so what you can do in one has no bearing on another. Always glance at which Lodge you're in before you start making changes, as it's the easiest thing in the world to add an event to the wrong diary.

Part Four: Understanding Your Access

Your Secretary controls what you can do using something called a Permission Set, a named bundle of permissions they assign to you (for example, one they've called "Treasurer" or "Almoner"). There's also a built-in Full Access set that grants everything, which some Delegates are given.

Permissions are grouped by area. Here's what each one actually lets you do, so you know where you stand:

Members

View Members: see the roster and members' details.
Create and Edit Members: add new members and update existing records.
Delete Members: remove member records.

Events

View Events: see the diary and event details.
Create and Edit Events: add and amend meetings and functions, manage invitations and attendance.
Delete Events: remove events.

Treasurer

View Treasurer Area: see the Lodge's financial area.
Manage Treasurer Data: record and manage payments and financial information.

Reports

View Reports: open attendance, membership and other reports.

Documents

View Documents: open and download the Lodge's stored files.
Create and Edit Documents: upload and update documents.
Delete Documents: remove documents.

Tools

View Tools: access the Tools area.
Send Emails from Tools: email members through the Emailer.

Settings

Manage Delegate Users: invite and remove other Delegates.
Manage Roles and Permissions: create and edit Permission Sets.

You may have all of these, or just one or two. If in doubt about what you're able to do, the simplest test is to look at your menu; if the area shows, you have at least "view" access to it. Whatever your Permission Set, you can always reach your own Settings to manage your password and account details. That's yours no matter what.

Part Five: Being a Great Delegate

Having access is one thing; being genuinely helpful is another. A good Delegate takes real weight off the Secretary's shoulders. A few thoughts on doing it well:

Agree who does what. The quickest way to trip over each other is to assume. Have a five-minute chat with your Secretary about which jobs are yours (recording attendance after meetings, keeping member details current, chasing subscriptions, uploading the summons), so nothing falls between you and nothing gets done twice.

Keep things current, not perfect. The value of the system is that it's up to date. Marking attendance the evening after a meeting, or updating a member's new phone number the day you hear it, is worth far more than a big tidy-up once a year.

Treat members' data with care. You're looking at real people's contact details, and sometimes sensitive information. Only use it for Lodge business, keep your login to yourself, and log out on shared or public computers. If you're ever unsure whether you should be doing something with a member's data, ask first.

Your access is deliberately limited, and that's a good thing. If an area isn't showing for you, it's not an oversight. The Working Tools works on the principle of least necessary access: you're given the minimum you need for your role, and nothing more. That's not about trust; it's sound data protection. It keeps members' personal information seen only by those who genuinely need it, and it limits what could ever go wrong if a single account were lost or compromised. So there's no need to see a missing area as a barrier. If your role grows and you genuinely need more, just ask your Secretary (it's a quick change for them to make) rather than looking for a way around it.

Communicate the changes you make. If you delete an event, remove a member, or send an email to the whole Lodge, let your Secretary know. Not because you need permission, but because a Lodge runs best when the left hand knows what the right is doing.

Ask before you delete. Deletions in The Working Tools are usually immediate and can't be undone. Removing an event, for instance, also removes its attendance and any related records. When in doubt, check first.

Found a bug, or got an idea?

The Working Tools is built by someone who actually listens to the people using it, and as a Delegate you're often the one closest to where the work happens, so your feedback is worth a great deal. You'll find both of these under Help & Support in the menu (it's always available to you):

The Feature Board: if there's something you wish the software did, or a bit that could be smoother, submit it here. You and other users can vote on ideas, and the most popular rise to the top, so it genuinely helps shape what gets built next. A good number of the features in the system today started life as a member's suggestion.
Report a Bug: if something looks broken or isn't behaving the way you'd expect, send a quick bug report and it'll be investigated. You can follow the progress of anything you've raised under My Tickets.

Please don't assume someone else will have mentioned it. A two-minute bug report or a quick idea from you helps every Lodge on the platform, not just your own, and it's one of the most valuable ways a Delegate can contribute.

Make your emails yours

If you have Emailer access and you'll be sending emails on the Lodge's behalf, it's worth a minute in Settings → Defaults. There you can set your own Reply-To display name and an email signature, so members can see the message came from you and know who to reply to. It's a small touch that makes your correspondence feel personal rather than anonymous.

Part Six: Fancy a Lodge of Your Own?

Helping out as a Delegate is often how people discover just how much easier The Working Tools makes lodge life, and some go on to run their own Lodge on it, whether that's a Lodge you're an officer of or another organisation you're involved with.

If that thought appeals, here's the reassuring part: starting your own Lodge doesn't affect your Delegate role in the slightest. The two sit happily side by side. You'd take out your own subscription for the Lodge you run, keep every bit of the Delegate access you've been given here, and simply switch between them using the Lodge switcher near the top of the screen, exactly as described in Part Three. Nothing you do in one has any bearing on the other, and your existing login stays the same.

To get started, use the Subscribe option in your menu, or have a word with whoever looks after your Lodge here, and they'll happily point you in the right direction. There's no pressure and no rush; the door's simply open if you'd like it.

Part Seven: Getting Help

You're not on your own with any of this.

In the app: click Help & Support in the menu at any time; it's always available, whatever your access. As well as the Feature Board and bug reporting, it links to the full documentation and a direct line to the team by WhatsApp or email.
Your first port of call: your Secretary, or whoever invited you. They know how your particular Lodge likes to do things, and they can adjust your access in moments if you need it.
The documentation: The Working Tools has a full set of help guides online covering every area in more detail.

Being a Delegate is one of the quietest but most valuable roles in a modern Lodge. The Secretaries who share the load are the ones who don't burn out, and the members who step up to help are the ones who keep our Lodges thriving. Thank you for being one of them.

The Working Tools – made for the people who keep our Lodges running.