Tech Tip: How to Manage Users and Teams in Onshape

Adding users and organizing teams is a key part of managing collaboration across engineers, manufacturers, contractors, and suppliers in Onshape. Because Onshape is a cloud-native CAD and data management platform, user management behaves very differently from traditional file-based CAD systems.

This Tech Tip walks through how user administration works in Onshape Standard, Professional, and Enterprise, and highlights the additional governance tools available in Enterprise accounts for larger organizations.

Skip to section:

• Standard
• Professional
• Enterprise

Understanding User and Team Management in Onshape

Traditional CAD and PDM environments often require IT to manage software installs, license servers, vault accounts, and network permissions separately. Onshape consolidates these concepts into a single identity and permission model. All user management, team setup, and access control live directly inside the Onshape account, with no installations, license files, or vault configuration.

What Users and Teams Enable Across Sharing, Release Management, Tasks, and Comments

Users and Teams in Onshape are not just for access control, they directly support the broader collaboration and governance workflows built into the platform. In Release Management, Onshape Tasks, and Document Comments, the structure of users and teams determines who can review, approve, track work, or contribute feedback.

This makes Onshape’s identity and permission model more integrated than file-based CAD and PDM systems, where user roles and collaborative tools are often disconnected.

Access Control

Access control in Onshape is built directly into the sharing and permission model, allowing administrators and designers to manage who can view, edit, comment, or participate in release processes without relying on external IT systems.

Individual users can be granted permissions on a Document or Project, but Teams provides a more scalable approach by applying the same access rules to entire groups, such as mechanical engineering, quality, manufacturing, or external suppliers.

When a Team is granted access, all members instantly receive the appropriate permissions, and updates to team membership automatically propagate across all shared resources – no need to reshare or adjust Document permissions manually.

In Enterprise, this extends further through Aliases and Project-level permissions, enabling tightly governed access zones, export control, and workflow-driven visibility. Together, Users and Teams form the foundation of Onshape’s secure, role-based access model, ensuring consistent and predictable control over product data across the entire organization.

Comments

Comments in Onshape serve as threaded, real-time discussions within Documents. Users and Teams expand comment functionality in several ways:

• Mentioning Individuals: Use @username to bring users or entire groups into a discussion. This notifies them instantly in the browser, mobile apps, and email.
• Examples: A quality engineer asks a question about a tolerance; a design engineer wants clarification on a model change; or a supplier prompts a contractor to review feedback

Tasks

Tasks in Onshape are deeply tied to the user model. Tasks can be created inside Documents or the global Tasks panel.

Users and Teams enable:

• Assigning Tasks to Individuals or Teams
• Tasks can target a specific user, or an entire team, when any team member can perform the work.
• Example: Assign the “Create drawing” task to the Mechanical Engineering team instead of an individual.

Tracking Work Across Roles

Managers can filter by user or team to identify bottlenecks or incomplete work.

Teams make task assignment flexible across functions, especially when responsibilities rotate between sprints or project phases.

What Does Each Onshape Subscription Tier Offer for User and Team Management?

The capabilities available for adding users and managing teams vary depending on your subscription tier.

Standard vs Professional vs Enterprise

Onshape Standard

Onshape Standard is a single-user subscription designed for individuals and hobbyist work. It does not include multi-user administration, seat provisioning, or team management.

Collaboration is still possible by sharing individual Documents directly with other Onshape users. However, Standard does not offer administrative tools for adding users under a single organization.

User management is therefore not applicable to Onshape Standard.

Onshape Professional

Onshape Professional introduces multi-user administration within a modern cloud environment, making it a significant upgrade over traditional file-based CAD systems where user control is fragmented across CAD installs, floating license servers, and PDM vault logins.

Adding Users in Onshape Professional

Administrators add users from the Company Users page. An email is sent to the new user automatically. New users do not install software or activate license files. They simply log in and begin working.

Teams in Onshape Professional

Teams allow administrators to group users and manage permissions more efficiently. Instead of repeatedly sharing Documents with individuals, Teams can be used as permission targets, making collaboration simpler and more consistent.

This replaces the folder-based access schemes common in legacy systems and gives engineering admins direct control without relying on IT-managed network permissions.

Onshape Enterprise

Onshape Enterprise expands user and team administration with advanced identity, governance, and access control features. Enterprise is tailored for larger organizations, distributed teams, and companies that need auditability, release control, and supplier collaboration.

User Types in Onshape Enterprise

Enterprise supports multiple user categories that scale across disciplines and external contributors. These include:

• Full Users
• Light Users
• Full Guests
• Light Guests

Guests are not a separate user type. Instead, they are Full or Light Users assigned to a restricted access scope inside Project boundaries.

Adding Users in Onshape Enterprise

Administrators can onboard users via:

• Manual addition
• CSV upload

Enterprise also supports Single Sign-On (SSO) using SAML identity providers such as:

• Okta
• Microsoft Azure AD
• OneLogin
• Ping Identity
• Google Workspace SAML

Onshape does not implement SCIM. Automated provisioning is configured within the identity provider.

Teams in Onshape Enterprise

Enterprise Teams extend permission management with support for large-scale organizational structures, program segmentation, departmental grouping, and supplier control. Teams integrate directly with Release Management, Project Permissions, and analytics.

Aliases in Onshape Enterprise

Aliases offer stable names for the review or approval roles, even though the people inside them change.

Example Alias names that map well to agile process:

• “Sprint Reviewers”
• “Story QA”
• “Supplier Check”
• “Regulatory Touchpoint”

These remain constant across sprints, while the membership behind the Alias can change freely. Members can be users or teams.

Enterprise User Type

Scalable User Management

Onshape centralizes user administration, identity, and permissions into a single cloud-native system. Standard is designed for individuals and does not include user or team management. Professional introduces multi-user administration and Teams for small and mid-sized companies. Enterprise expands these capabilities with multiple user types, guest access, Aliases, SSO enforcement, advanced controls, and analytics suited for larger engineering organizations.

Choosing the right tier ensures your user management structure scales with your organization and supports secure, efficient collaboration across engineering and the extended supply chain.