When an athlete says "I can't find the button" or "my email isn't sending", the fastest way to help is to look at their account yourself. Impersonation logs you into ProductiveRecruit as that athlete so you see precisely what they see: their profile, their target list, their checklist, their inbox.
You never need their password, and you can hand back control in one click.
Starting a session
From an individual athlete's page, open the Actions menu and choose Impersonate. Confirm on the prompt and you'll land on that athlete's dashboard.
You can also start one straight from your athlete roster using the action menu on any row.
While you're in the session
A yellow Impersonating card sits at the bottom of the left sidebar for as long as the session lasts, just above the account name (which will show the athlete's, not yours). That card is your reminder that anything you do now is happening as that athlete, not as you.
Which means it counts. Emails you send go out from their account and land in their sent history. Tasks you tick off show as theirs. Profile edits are theirs. It all lands in their activity feed exactly as if they'd done it, so treat the session as read-only unless you're deliberately fixing something on their behalf.
Ending the session
Click End session on that yellow card. You're returned to your own account, and back to the page you started from.
Every session is logged when it starts and ends, including who did it and from what IP address. Impersonation is a support tool with a real audit trail behind it, not a quiet back door.
When to reach for it instead of something else
| Situation | Better option |
|---|---|
| Checking an athlete's stats, outreach, or recent activity | Their athlete page, no impersonation needed |
| Seeing how their profile looks to a coach | Their public profile link |
| Reproducing a bug or an error they're hitting | Impersonation |
| Walking them through a screen they can't find | Impersonation |
| Fixing something in their account at their request | Impersonation |
If you only need to read information about an athlete, the athlete page already shows it. Impersonation is for when you need their exact view of the app.
What's next
- See what each role can do in Staff roles & permissions.
- Review athlete detail and stats without impersonating in The admin dashboard.
- Track what your athletes are actually doing in The activity feed.