Available with any of the following subscriptions, except where noted:
🟢 Starter (up to the plan’s step limit) | 🔵 Builder | 🟣 Optimizer |
⚫ Enterprise
Building effective processes starts with understanding who’s responsible for what. Puzzle’s People Canvas gives you a visual way to map out contributors, assign functional roles, and clarify team structure across your workflows — whether or not someone is an active user in your Organization.
Designed for internal clarity, planning, and delegation, the People Canvas lets you build a complete picture of your team without managing user permissions. It’s ideal for planning around future hires, working with external collaborators, or visualizing internal roles that don't require login access.
If you do need to manage access or permissions, that’s handled separately through your Organization’s People tab. But if you want to understand and communicate who’s involved in your process, this is where the People Canvas shines.
🧩 What the People Canvas Is (and Isn’t)
The People Canvas is a visual layer for team planning, not a user management tool. It helps you track involvement and assign responsibilities, regardless of a person’s login status.
✅ What it does:
Create People Cards for anyone — no email or invite needed
Assign functional roles (e.g., “Project Manager”, “Ops Lead”)
Identify who is an Employee, Vendor, Contractor, Advisor, etc.
Create an organization chart with connectors to indicate the reporting structure
🚫 What it doesn’t do:
Does not grant access to your Organization or Workspaces
Does not manage user invites (handled via the Users tab in the Organization sidebar)
This makes it a flexible space to plan how people contribute to roles, delegate clearly, and manage team contributors without complicating access permissions.
🔑 Key Benefits Of Using People Canvas
🧠 Visualize Organizational Chart: Map out your reporting structure and indicate who reports to whom across the organization with connectors
🛠 Flexible Planning: Great for modeling org structure, cross-functional contributors, and planned hires.
📌 Non-disruptive Team Planning: Work with role mapping independently from permission management.
🛠 Step-by-Step: Using the People Canvas
1️⃣ Add and Name a Person
1️⃣ Add and Name a Person
✚ Click ➕ Add People in the top-left corner of the People Canvas to create a new Person Card.
Only a name is required—no email or login needed.
The name appears centered on the card for easy visibility.
2️⃣ Customize the Appearance of a Person Card
2️⃣ Customize the Appearance of a Person Card
Make each card more recognizable and personalized by updating its visuals:
🔍 Go to the People Canvas and select the card you'd like to update.
📷 In the right sidebar, click the initials circle at the top of the card to upload an image. If no photo is uploaded, a circular badge with the person’s initials will be shown automatically.
🏷️ Select Type (e.g., Employee, Contractor, Advisor, Board Member, Intern, Volunteer,. etc) in the sidebar, and a relationship tag will show in the bottom-right corner of the card.
3️⃣ Assign a Functional Role
3️⃣ Assign a Functional Role
👉 Use the right sidebar to assign a role from your Team Canvas (e.g., Project Manager, Ops Lead). This helps standardize role names and connects the person to step responsibilities and costing.
💡 Best Practices for Using the People Canvas
👥 Add contributors who matter — Capture team members, clients, or advisors that need visibility (but not access) to build alignment.
🧩 Use roles from the Team Canvas — Maintain consistency across planning and costing by sticking to shared role definitions.
🧹 Keep your team view clean — Archive People Cards no longer needed to reduce clutter.
📋 Model future roles early — Add placeholders for roles you plan to hire or onboard later.
🧭 Want to Invite Users Instead?
If someone needs to log into Puzzle and contribute directly, invite them via your Organization’s Users tab — where you can set their permission level (Owner, Admin, or Editor) and assign Workspace access.
✅ Conclusion
The People Canvas is where team planning meets process clarity. It helps you visualize contributors, delegate step ownership, and align your team around workflows — all without managing user access.
Use it to support cross-functional collaboration, organize internal and external roles, and streamline handoffs as your team scales. When paired with Puzzle’s Organization-based access model, you gain total clarity between who’s involved and who has access — giving your team a smarter way to operate!