How to manage team collaboration and permissions in Mailforge for B2B outreach

If you’re running B2B outreach, you know the drill: juggling contacts, campaigns, and an ever-growing marketing team. One wrong click, and someone’s blasted the wrong list, or worse—messed with your sender reputation. If your weapon of choice is Mailforge, you’ve got some built-in tools to keep things organized, but only if you set it up right. This guide is for team leads, ops folks, or anyone who’d rather not spend their afternoon untangling email disasters.

Step 1: Understand How Mailforge Handles Teams and Permissions

Before you start inviting your whole crew, let’s get real about what Mailforge can and can’t do when it comes to team collaboration:

What works: - You can create teams or workspaces, and add users with different roles. - Roles are permission-based—think Admin, Manager, Contributor, Viewer. - You control who can send campaigns, edit templates, manage lists, or just look but not touch.

What doesn’t: - Fine-grained permissions (like “edit these templates, but not those”) are limited. Don’t expect Salesforce-level complexity. - Audit logs and advanced reporting on user actions are basic. If you’re in a highly regulated industry, this might be a problem.

Ignore: - The marketing fluff about “seamless collaboration”—you still need to talk to each other. Mailforge isn’t magic.

Step 2: Plan Your Team Structure Upfront

Jumping in and inviting everyone is tempting, but slows you down later. Spend 10 minutes mapping your team’s real workflow:

  • Who needs to actually send emails?
  • Who just needs to review content?
  • Who’s managing contact lists or integrations?
  • Who should absolutely not have the ability to hit "Send"?

Pro Tip: If you’re in doubt, start with the strictest roles and loosen up. It’s easier to grant permissions later than to clean up after someone nukes a campaign.

Step 3: Set Up Your Team or Workspace in Mailforge

  1. Create a Workspace or Team:
  2. Head to the Team or Workspace settings (naming varies depending on your Mailforge plan).

  3. Name it something obvious—no one wants to guess if “Q2-ABM” is the right workspace.

  4. Invite Team Members:

  5. Use work emails. Avoid generic “info@” addresses—bad for tracking who did what.

  6. Assign roles as you invite. Don’t default everyone to Admin (seriously).

  7. Assign Roles:

  8. Admin: Can do everything, including billing. Limit this to 1-2 trusted people.
  9. Manager: Can create, edit, and send campaigns, plus manage lists.
  10. Contributor: Can build/edit content, but can’t send.
  11. Viewer: Can see reports and content, but can’t mess anything up.

Watch out for:
Some plans have limits on the number of users or Admins. Check before you promise full access to the whole team.

Step 4: Set Permissions for Each Role

Mailforge’s roles are mostly preset, but you can tweak some permissions:

  • Campaign Access: Decide who can create, edit, or send campaigns. If you’ve got junior folks, keep them in Contributor until they’re trained.
  • Contact Management: Limit list importing or exporting to Managers or above. This reduces GDPR headaches and keeps your CRM data safe.
  • Template Library: Not everyone needs to edit templates. If your branding matters, restrict this to a few people.
  • Integrations and API: Only Admins should touch integrations—one wrong Zap and you’re in spreadsheet purgatory.

Pro Tip:
Document who has what role somewhere outside of Mailforge (think Google Sheets). If someone leaves, you’ll know what needs cleaning up.

Step 5: Set Up Approval Workflows (If You Need Them)

If your team is big enough that you worry about rogue emails, Mailforge offers basic approval flows:

  • Draft-Review-Send: Contributors submit campaigns as drafts; Managers review and approve before sending.
  • Commenting: Team members can leave feedback on drafts—helpful, but don’t expect Google Docs-level collaboration.
  • Locking Content: Some plans let Admins lock templates or settings, so only certain people can make changes.

Real-world tip:
Approval flows can slow things down. Use them only where it matters—like sensitive campaigns or big list sends. For day-to-day, trust your team (or train them better).

Step 6: Manage Lists, Segments, and Data Privacy

Let’s be honest: list management is where mistakes happen. Here’s how to avoid drama:

  • Import Restrictions: Only let a few people handle imports/exports. If someone uploads the wrong CSV, you can end up blacklisted.
  • Segment Permissions: If you’re running multiple verticals or regions, set up segments only Managers can edit.
  • GDPR/CCPA Controls: Mailforge gives basic tools to manage consent and unsubscribes, but make sure only trusted users can change these settings.

Ignore:
Don’t bother with overcomplicated list hierarchies unless you’re running a huge operation. Most teams do fine with a handful of segments.

Step 7: Use Shared Assets Wisely

Mailforge lets you save templates, snippets, and sender profiles for the whole team. Use this, but don’t overdo it:

  • Templates: Keep a “Do Not Edit” folder for locked, brand-approved templates. Let everyone else play in a sandbox.
  • Sender Profiles: Limit who can add or change sender identities. One mistake here, and your emails look shady.
  • Snippets: Reusable blocks (like signatures or disclaimers) can save time, but review them regularly to avoid outdated info.

Pro Tip:
Have a quarterly clean-up. Old templates and unused profiles pile up fast, and clutter leads to mistakes.

Step 8: Monitor Activity (Without Micromanaging)

Mailforge gives you a basic activity log (who did what, and when). It’s not exhaustive, but it’s useful for:

  • Spotting who sent a campaign (or imported a list) if something goes sideways.
  • Checking that approvals are being followed.
  • Auditing when someone leaves the team—remove their access right away.

What doesn’t work:
Don’t expect real-time alerts or deep analytics on user behavior. If you need that level of oversight, you’ll need a more specialized tool.

Step 9: Offboarding and Access Reviews

Every time someone changes roles or leaves, clean up their permissions immediately:

  • Remove user access from the Team/Workspace settings.
  • Reassign any scheduled campaigns or approvals they owned.
  • Change shared passwords—don’t share login credentials in the first place, but if you did, now’s the time.

Pro Tip:
Set a calendar reminder to review team access every quarter. Creep happens—people get promoted, move teams, or forget they even had access.

What to Skip (and What Not to Stress About)

  • Don’t overcomplicate it: Most teams don’t need a unique role for every person. Start simple.
  • Ignore “collaborative dashboards” unless you really need them. Most teams just want to know who’s doing what and that nothing’s on fire.
  • Don’t rely on Mailforge for compliance: Use its tools, but keep your own records for legal and privacy requirements.

Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Review Often

Mailforge gives you just enough to keep a B2B outreach team running smoothly, not so much that you’ll drown in options. The trick is to set up roles and permissions with intention, and resist the urge to over-engineer things. Review your setup every so often, keep communication open, and remember—no software replaces good habits.

If you keep it simple and iterate as your team grows, you’ll spend less time chasing mistakes and more time actually reaching prospects. That’s what you’re here for.