An SOP for virtual assistant work should start from the assistant's access, not from the task list. Decide what they can see and change first, then write each procedure against exactly that access. On the levelpartner.ai platform the access is set under Settings, then Users: their own login, the User role, only the modules their procedures need, and Only Assigned Data switched on so they see the records assigned to them and nothing else. This article covers that set-up step by step, then how to write procedures that fit it, for a firm of 10 to 250 people delegating to a remote assistant for the first time.
Why access comes before the procedure
Most advice on assistant procedures starts with the steps: record the task, write it down, hand it over. Access is an afterthought, and the usual afterthought is "just use my login for now". Three months later the assistant can see every client, every payment and every pipeline, nobody can tell which changes were theirs, and removing them means changing the director's password.
Reversing the order fixes that. If you decide first that the assistant manages the director's calendar and tidies contact records for the sales team, the access follows: calendars, contacts and conversations, and not payments or reporting. Each procedure is then written for someone who can only do what the procedure needs. A step that says "check the invoice" when the assistant has no access to payments shows up at once, before the assistant hits it on a Monday morning.
Which tasks to hand over first
Start with tasks that are frequent, rule-based and low risk if done slightly wrong at first.
- Calendar management against written rules about meeting types and protected time.
- Inbox triage, with drafted replies for routine messages.
- Contact record clean-up after meetings and calls.
- Preparing recurring reports from a fixed set of sources.
Leave client negotiation, pricing, hiring and anything sensitive about staff until much later. Some of those should never move.
Before you start
- The first two or three tasks you will delegate, written as one line each.
- For each task, the platform areas it touches: Conversations, Calendars, Contacts, Opportunities or others.
- The records the assistant should work on, assigned to them, such as the director's contacts or a set of accounts.
- An admin on your side who will create the user and review the permissions.
How to give a virtual assistant their own access
- Go to Settings, then Users.
- Click + Add User to create the assistant's login with their own email address.
- Open Roles & Permissions and select User as the role.
- Use the permission controls to turn on only the modules and actions their procedures need, and turn the rest off.
- Enable Only Assigned Data so they see only the records assigned to them.
- Click Save.
The User role means access is whatever the permissions say, nothing more. Only Assigned Data limits what they see in supported areas to records linked to them, such as contacts assigned to them, opportunities they own and appointments or tasks associated with them. It is not a blanket restriction on every part of the account, so still switch off modules they do not need.
If you later hire a second assistant to do the same work, open the new user's Roles & Permissions and use Copy Permissions to start from the first assistant's settings. Review them before saving.
Giving the assistant the Admin role because a permission was missing and it was quicker. Admin removes the boundaries the procedures were written against. Find the missing permission and turn on that one.
How to write the procedure against that access
With the login in place, write each procedure while logged in as the assistant, or at least with their permission list open beside you. Anything the procedure asks for that they cannot reach is a gap to fix now.
- Pick one task and record your screen while doing it for real, explaining each choice aloud.
- Write the task as numbered steps from the recording, one action per step.
- For each choice you made, write the rule as an "if" line with what to do.
- Check every step against the assistant's permissions and mark any that need access they lack.
- Either grant that single permission or change the step so it passes the work back to you.
- Write a "stop and ask" section naming the situations where the assistant checks with you first.
- Watch them do the task once using only the procedure, without helping, then fix every step where they hesitated.
Step five is the decision that matters. Every time a procedure needs access the assistant lacks, you choose: widen access, or keep that part yourself. Write the choice into the procedure so the next person knows why.
The rules matter more than the steps
For assistant work the steps are usually simple. The rules hold the value. A calendar procedure might have five steps and fourteen rules: no meetings before ten on Mondays, internal meetings no longer than thirty minutes, existing clients before prospects, a travel buffer between site visits.
Suppose the assistant's login can see the director's calendar and the contacts assigned to her, and nothing in Payments or Reporting. The procedure might have five steps and fourteen rules, three on protected time and three on priority. Expect plenty of questions in the first month, each one a missing rule to add. If the finished procedure took three hours of diary work a week off the director, that would be about 150 hours a year.
Put the rules in a short list at the top of the procedure. The assistant refers to them far more often than to the steps.
Checking quality without micromanaging
Decide in advance how you will check each task and for how long. A common pattern: check every output in week one, a sample in weeks two to four, and exceptions only after that. Because the assistant has their own login, every change they make is recorded under their name, which makes sampling quick.
Say a consultancy hands contact clean-up to an assistant with Only Assigned Data on and 400 contacts assigned. In week one the operations lead would check all 40 updated records. If most of the errors traced back to one unclear rule about job titles, rewriting that rule would fix them at the source. From week two she could check 10 records a week, cutting a couple of hours of checking to about fifteen minutes.
What most advice on assistant procedures gets wrong
It says to document every task in detail before you hire. That delays delegation by weeks and produces procedures written from memory, which miss the rules and ignore access entirely. Set up the login first, then document one task a week against it, handing each over as its procedure is ready.
The other common error is treating access as a matter of trust. Restricting an assistant is not a judgement on them. It protects them as much as you: an assistant who cannot see payments cannot be blamed for a payment error.
The trade-off
Narrow access means more requests in the first month. The assistant will reach a step that needs a module they do not have, and someone will have to decide whether to grant it. That friction is the point, because each request is a decision you would otherwise never have made consciously. Expect the requests to taper off after a few weeks as the procedures settle.
There is also a trade in control. Once a task is delegated by procedure, the assistant will do it the way the procedure says, which may not be quite how you would have done it on a given day. If you cannot accept that, the task is not ready to delegate.
Building a library as you go
After a few months you will have a dozen or more procedures, each with a note of the access it needs. Keep them in one place with an owner each, and review them when permissions or systems change. For training a new assistant on an existing library, see SOP training. For a full worked example of the format, read a sample standard operating procedure, and for where documents live and how versions are controlled, see document management SOPs.
Frequently asked questions
Should a virtual assistant use my login?
No. Create a separate user with the User role. It keeps a record of who did what, restricts what they can see and lets you remove access in one step.
What does Only Assigned Data actually hide?
In supported areas, it limits the assistant to records linked to them, such as contacts assigned to them and opportunities they own. It does not restrict everything, so switch off the modules they do not need as well.
Does adding an assistant cost an extra licence?
No. The platform licence covers unlimited users, so each assistant can have their own login.
How long does it take to hand over a task?
For most routine tasks, an hour or two to record and write the procedure, one supervised run and a week of checked outputs. Hand over one or two tasks a week.