Owners, caregivers, care recipients and view-only

Circle owner

The person who created the circle. The owner can invite people, cancel or resend invitations, and remove members, and is the only one who can:

• change the circle's details (Edit circle)
• delete the circle (Delete circle)
• choose who gets medication reminders
• make or remove a manager
• pay for Premium for the circle

Manager

A manager is a caregiver the owner has chosen to help run the circle. Managers can:

• invite people, and resend or cancel any pending invitation
• see the pending invitations
• remove caregivers from the circle (never the owner or another manager)
• put someone else on a care shift or take someone off one (see Plan who is on care shifts)

Managers cannot change the circle's details, delete the circle, choose who gets medication reminders, handle billing, or make other managers. A circle can have more than one manager.

To make someone a manager, the owner opens the circle, taps the person in the list of members (on the web, uses the menu on their row in Members), and chooses Make manager. To undo it, choose Remove as manager. The person stays in the circle as a caregiver.

Good to know:

• Managers are a Premium feature. It follows the owner's plan, so only the owner needs Premium. If the owner's Premium ends, every manager goes back to being a caregiver. Invitations they already sent stay valid. If the owner subscribes again, the owner has to choose managers again.
• The care recipient and view-only members cannot be managers.
• Seat limits are still the owner's. On the free plan the circle has room for the owner plus 1 caregiver, whoever sends the invitation.
• A manager sees the manager tools in CircleCare 1.3.0 or later, and on the website. Older app versions show a manager as a regular caregiver.

Caregiver

Family members and helpers. When you invite someone, this is the Family caregiver choice. Caregivers can see and update care information: medications, doses, appointments, tasks, notes, vitals, documents and emergency info. A caregiver can leave a circle at any time with Leave circle, at the bottom of Home.

Care recipient

The person being cared for. If they join with their own account, they get medication reminders and can confirm when they have taken a dose, and the family is notified. A circle has at most one care recipient. They do not count toward the free plan's caregiver limit. In a circle you create for yourself ("Myself"), you are both the owner and the care recipient.

View-only

A person with view-only access can see everything in the circle but cannot make changes. They see a "You have view-only access" notice, and the New button is dimmed. This happens when:

• a free circle has more caregivers than the free plan allows, for example after the owner's Premium ends. The caregiver who joined first keeps editing, and the others become view-only.
• the owner's Premium ended while they had more than one circle. The circles they did not keep become read-only for everyone.

When the owner upgrades again, editing comes back for everyone. Nothing is deleted. See What is free and what Premium adds.

Where this is enforced

These rules are checked on CircleCare's servers, not only in the app. Someone without permission cannot get around them by using a different device or the website.