Teams

Most firms have far more reach than any one person can see. Teams connects the accounts of colleagues at the same firm so you can search each other's networks — "does anyone here know someone at Acme?" — and see which colleague already has the relationship you need.

The same feature does one other shape. A referral board is a team with a direction: a company links its account with the advisors on its advisory board, searches the networks those advisors choose to share, and asks them for introductions, while the advisors do not search each other or the company. A firm, where everyone shares with everyone, and a board, where the sharing runs one way, are the same object with one setting changed, so everything on this page applies to both unless it says otherwise.

It's built around one rule: only the person who owns a relationship ever spends its social capital. You can see that a colleague knows the right person, but reaching out still goes through them. Teams runs on a firm plan with seats, or on each member's own Pro subscription, and everything below happens in the web app at thenetworkos.com.

1. 1

   Create your team

   In the web app, open Settings → Team and give your team a name — usually your firm. You become the team owner.

2. 2

   Invite your colleagues

   Invite teammates by email, and choose whether the sharing runs both ways. Each person gets an invitation link and needs their own NetworkOS account, using the email you invited; a seat on the team covers them.

3. 3

   They accept

   Your colleague opens the invitation and accepts. From that point their network is searchable to you, and yours to them if you invited them two-way. A limited view only, never the underlying contact records.

4. 4

   Search across the team

   Run any AI search, then switch to the Team tab. NetworkOS runs the same search across your teammates' contacts and shows who they know — ranked, with a reason for each match and the colleague who owns the relationship.

When you invite someone, you answer one question: whether they may see your contacts and ask you for introductions. Off means the sharing runs one way.

The box starts where your team already stands, and you can always change it before you send. On a firm, where everyone already shares both ways, it starts ticked: one more two-way member changes nothing about who can see you. On a referral board, where your advisors share with you and not with each other, it starts empty, because ticking it is what opens your own network. A brand new team is a board until you send your first two-way invitation, so a firm ticks the box by hand once and never again.

• One-way. Their network becomes searchable to you, and you can ask them for introductions. They cannot search you and cannot ask you for anything. On the member list they read as One-way.
• Two-way. The sharing runs both ways. They can search your network and ask you for introductions, and so can everyone else on the team who joined two-way. Those members can also see each other.

If you own the team, you can change your mind: Settings, then Team, has a switch on each board you own for whether your own contacts are shared with its two-way members. Turn it off and your network stops being searchable there straight away, without disbanding the board or removing anyone. The switch is about your contacts on a board you run, and it is the only pause switch in Teams.

Turning it off does one more thing worth knowing: the team stops being a firm where everyone shares with everyone, so invitations go back to being yours alone to send. Members who could invite a colleague a moment ago will be told to ask you.

Approval never changes. Whoever owns a relationship approves or declines every request for it, one at a time, and the introduction goes out from their own inbox.

If you accept an invitation to someone else's team, here is the whole of what the owner gets. It is deliberately short.

• Your name, your email and the date you joined, on the member list, next to whether you joined one-way or two-way.
• How many introductions they have asked you for, how many you approved, declined or have not answered yet, how many were actually sent, and how quickly you typically reply.
• A rough size band for your network, never an exact number and never a list. The bands are 0, 1 to 500, 500 to 2,000, 2,000 to 10,000, and 10,000 or more.
• The same limited match card everyone else gets when they search: name, company, title, LinkedIn, location, warmth and why the person matched.

They never see your contact list, your email addresses, your notes or your interaction history, and neither does anyone else.

Team search is deliberately limited. For each match your teammates see a compact card: name, company, job title, LinkedIn, location, a relationship-warmth indicator, why the person matched, and which colleague owns the relationship.

They never see the underlying contact — no email addresses, no private notes, and no interaction history. Those never leave your account, aren't part of any team search result, and aren't even used to write the match explanation.

Settings → Team is home base. The owner can rename the team, invite or remove members, and revoke pending invitations. Anyone can leave at any time. If you belong to several teams, each one gets its own card, and every action names the team it applies to.

Who can send invitations depends on the team. On a firm, where everyone shares both ways, any member can invite a colleague, the way it has always worked. On a referral board, where the advisors share with the owner and not with each other, only the owner invites: the roster is the thing the company is building, so who joins it is the owner's call. The two-way box is the owner's, because ticking it is what opens the owner's own network. On a firm that network is already open, so a member's invitation joins the new person to the pool the same way the owner's would.

Teams doesn't stop at discovery — you can request a warm introduction directly from a team result. Here's how it works:

1. You search the firm network.
2. NetworkOS identifies a relevant contact owned by a teammate.
3. You request an introduction from that result.
4. The relationship owner reviews the request.
5. The owner approves, edits, or declines it.
6. Any approved introduction sends through the relationship owner's inbox, exactly like any other NetworkOS intro.

The person who owns the relationship always stays in control: nothing reaches their contact unless they approve the exact wording, and it goes out from their own Gmail.

Searching your network · Making introductions · Settings & billing · Privacy & your data