Act on behalf of lets the people who support your agents (transaction coordinators, team leads, and admins) work for an agent without logging in as them or sharing a password. Once it is set up, that person can see the agent's transactions and private contacts, view forms as the agent, and send client emails from the agent's name, all from their own login. Your own permissions still apply, and every action is recorded.
Setting it up takes one step, done by someone who can manage users: in the Act on behalf of section, choose which agents the person can act on behalf of.
There is no separate permission to turn on. The feature adds no new permission of its own; each person keeps their own permissions for what they can do.
Choose who each person can act for
The Act on behalf of section decides which agents a coordinator or team lead can see. It lives on the Users page, so anyone who can manage users can set it.
Go to Users > click specific user > Act on behalf of > manage users, then choose one option:
No one
All company users
Specific users or teams
You can change this at any time. If you remove an agent from someone's scope, that visibility goes away, unless the person is already a direct participant on a given transaction.
People you have not given a scope to see no change anywhere in the product.
What the person you set up can now see
The transactions of the agents in their scope, whether the agent owns the transaction or is a participant, without being added as a participant by hand.
The agents' private contacts, even without the “Can access private contacts” permission. Contacts that belong to a scoped agent carry a label so the coordinator can tell them apart from their own.
Your scope controls what you can see, not what you can do. Your own permissions still apply. If your profile cannot manage accounting, you still cannot manage accounting for an agent you support. Forms are the exception: you view them as the agent you act for.
View a form on behalf of an agent
Once you are set up in the Act on behalf of section, opening a supported form shows an Act on Behalf of dialog asking how you want to view it: choose Myself to view the form as yourself, or Another user to view it on behalf of an agent, then pick the agent from the list, which shows the agents who are participants on this transaction (an agent must be on the transaction to appear).
Before you continue, you will see a short authorization notice: "By acting on behalf of another user, you confirm you're authorized to do so and agree to follow all rules for viewing forms." Accept it, and the form opens as that agent.
Forms access follows the agent you choose, not you. If you cannot open forms under your own login, viewing as an agent who does have access lets you open and see their forms on a transaction. Anything that requires filling or signing a form is still done by the agent themselves, under their own login.
Send an email as the agent
When you write a client email from a transaction, you can choose who it comes from, so the client hears from the agent they know.
In the email composer, find Send as (under the recipients, above the message).
By default the email comes from you. Open Send as and choose one of the transaction's participants. Only people on the transaction appear; if the agent is not a participant, you cannot send as them.
Send. The email goes out under that person's name and email address.
It needs no special permission: anyone who can already send a transaction email can use it.
Everything is logged
Every action taken on behalf of an agent is written to the activity log with both names, for example: "[Agent name] (acted on behalf of by [your name]) performed [action] at [date and time]." Admins keep a full audit trail of who did what, and for whom.
Good to know
Is this the same as logging in as the agent? No. You stay in your own login. Act on behalf of gives you visibility into the agents you support plus a few specific abilities for them. It is not a full account takeover, and there is no separate "logged in as" session to end.
Will I get the agent's permissions? No. Your own permissions always apply. Forms are the exception: you view them as the agent you act for.
A coordinator I set up still cannot see an agent's work. There is one control for this: the Act on behalf of section on the Users page. Open that person's section and make sure the agent is listed (All company users, or the specific users or teams that include them).
I cannot open forms under my own login. Can I still see an agent's forms? Yes. Forms access follows the agent you are working as. If they can access forms, you can open and view their forms on their behalf. Filling and signing is still done by the agent.
The agent isn't in the Send as or form list. Why? The list only shows people who are participants on that transaction. Add the agent to the transaction, and they will appear. You cannot act on behalf of someone who is not part of it.
Who can set this up? Anyone who can manage users, using the Act on behalf of section on the Users page. There is no separate permission to grant.
Does the agent lose anything? No. Act on behalf of only adds help for the people who support them; it does not change the agent's own access.
Will the client know someone else sent the email? The email arrives under the agent's name and email, exactly as if the agent sent it, with no on-behalf label on the message itself. This is intended: it means the client hears from the agent they know, instead of a coordinator's name they may not recognize. Internally, the activity log records who actually sent it and on whose behalf, so an admin always has the full trail.
I'm an agent. What does this mean for me? Someone your admin authorizes, usually your transaction coordinator or team lead, can help with your transactions, forms, and client emails from their own login, so you spend less time on paperwork. They only get what your admin grants them, they can never do more than their own permissions allow, and every action they take for you is recorded with both names. Anything that needs to be filled in or signed is still done by you, under your own login.