Lesson 3 of 7 · 12 min

Organising your firm into pods

Group people into pods to see combined workload, target help, and set coverage.

Lesson 3 of 7

A pod is a named group of people — a practice team, a location, a partner's crew. Grouping people into pods lets MatterFirst show their combined workload, target help at the right group, and reason about coverage. This is separate from who owns an individual matter.

Before you start

  • Admin or Owner access — managing pods needs the 'manage teams' permission (admin and above).
  • At least a couple of team members already invited (see 'Managing team members').

Pod lead vs matter assignee

A pod has a pod lead who owns the pod — its people and their combined workload. That is a different job from a matter's assignee, who owns one individual matter and is set on the matter page. Someone can lead a pod and also be the assignee on specific matters; the two roles don't overlap. Keeping them distinct is what lets the workload board roll a whole pod's load up under its lead.

What pods feed

Pods are the structural layer beneath the Workspace hub (the next lesson). Once people are grouped, the hub shows a per-pod combined workload board, help requests can be targeted at the right group, and coverage is easier to reason about because you can see who a pod's work would fall to. Build the pods first; the hub reads from them.

  1. 1

    Open the Pods page

    In the sidebar click 'Pods' (or go to /app/settings/teams). The page is titled 'Pods' and lists your existing pods, each with a colour dot and its members. Pods is reached from the sidebar or by direct URL — it is not one of the Settings hub tiles.

    The Pods page (/app/settings/teams) — reached via the sidebar 'Pods' item.
  2. 2

    Create a pod

    Use the form at the top: give the pod a name and pick a colour, then create it. The colour is what identifies the pod on the workload boards. Heads-up on wording: the page title says 'Pods', but this create form still labels its field 'New team name' and its button 'Create team' — same thing, the interface just mixes 'pod' and 'team'.

    Name plus colour creates a pod; the form still reads 'New team name' / 'Create team'.
  3. 3

    Add and remove members

    On each pod card, use 'Add a member…' to add someone from your firm, and 'Remove' next to a name to take them out. A person can belong to more than one pod. Membership is what the combined-workload board sums up.

    Add members from the pod card; combined workload is the sum of the pod's people.
  4. 4

    Set a pod lead

    Next to a member, click 'Make pod lead'. That person gets the 'Pod lead' badge and becomes the owner of the pod's people and combined workload. There is one lead per pod; making someone else lead moves the badge. Remember this is distinct from a matter assignee — the lead owns the group, not any single matter.

    'Make pod lead' assigns the 'Pod lead' badge; the lead owns the pod, not individual matters.
  5. 5

    See the pod's combined workload

    Open 'Team workload' in the sidebar (/app/workspace) and scroll to 'Pods · combined workload'. Each pod shows its member and matter counts and a single combined load score — the sum of its people's load. Archive a pod you no longer need from the 'Archive' link on its card; archiving keeps history but drops it from these boards.

Tips & pitfalls

  • The wording mixes 'pod' and 'team': the page title and badges say 'Pod', but the create form says 'New team name' and 'Create team', and the sidebar item is 'Pods'. They all mean the same grouping.
  • A pod lead owns a group of people and their combined workload; a matter assignee owns one matter, set on the matter page. Don't conflate the two.
  • Pods aren't listed on the Settings hub — reach them via the sidebar 'Pods' item or by going to /app/settings/teams directly.
  • Archiving a pod removes it from the workload boards but preserves its history; it isn't a hard delete.

Key takeaways

  • Pods (name + colour) group people so their combined workload, help targeting, and coverage can be reasoned about together.
  • One pod lead owns the pod; that's separate from a matter's assignee.
  • Pods feed the per-pod combined-workload board on the Workspace hub; manage them at /app/settings/teams (admin+).
Roles and access levels The Workspace hub: workload, help & coverage

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