Projects and Participants

Projects and participants form the core Roster data model.

Create your first project and participant

Use this short walkthrough after completing the local SQLite evaluation setup:

1. In the Roster sidebar, open Projects, then select New project.
2. Enter Atlas Onboarding as the name and describe it as the project that handles onboarding security and vendor reviews. Keep the signed-in administrator as an owner, set Status to Test, and select Save project.
3. In the sidebar, open Participants, then select New participant.
4. Select Atlas Onboarding as the project. Enter Vendor Security Reviewers as the name and describe the responsibility this role handles. Add the Vendor and Security labels, then select Save participant.

The project and participant now provide sample routing data for Playground. To resolve the role to actual people, first configure a Directory Connector. Return to Participants, open Vendor Security Reviewers, select the Users or Group tab, search the connected directory, and add the appropriate record. These tabs become available after the participant is first saved.

A fresh Roster database does not contain external directory users or groups, and the participant form does not create them manually. You can still continue to Playground without an association to inspect which participant role Roster selects. In that routing-only result, the participant can be selected while the Users tab remains empty and the resolution status is not_found. Associate a directory record when the evaluation needs to return an actual person.

Projects

A project is a logical container. It can map to a business process, enterprise project, customer workflow, regional operation, or another domain boundary.

Project owners can manage the projects they own. Admins can manage projects globally.

Participants

A participant is a business role that can handle workflow action. It should be named after responsibility, not after a single person.

Good participant names:

• Helios Finance Approvers
• Supplier Onboarding Approval Reviewers
• EMEA Legal Reviewers

Participants can include:

• description
• labels
• typed metadata
• direct user associations
• group associations
• org-unit or role associations
• external email associations

Labels

Labels are global routing tags. The resolver uses exact labels returned from the label set and should not invent new labels.

Use labels for broad routing dimensions:

• Finance
• Procurement
• Legal
• Renewal
• Vendor

Metadata

Use metadata for structured constraints that need exact or ordered matching:

{
  "approval_limit_eur": 75000,
  "region": "EMEA",
  "review_after": "2026-06-01T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Metadata filter operators are eq, ne, gt, gte, lt, and lte. Ordered comparisons use numbers when both sides are numeric, otherwise parseable datetime strings.

Member Associations

Associate participants to directory users or groups. For exact member management, search the directory first, then add the returned directory entry to the participant.

Participant member listings return direct associations only. They do not expand users inside associated groups.