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We know that each organization is unique in how granular they need permissions to be when sharing information across multiple teams in a single workspace. In this lesson, we’ll discuss how to enforce access to data across a single Dovetail workspace and ensure the right people have access to all the things they need to work effectively.
Note that user roles are only available on Enterprise and select legacy plans.

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Understand access levels

When a person is added to an Enterprise workspace, they are assigned a workspace role (manager, contributor, or viewer). This role defines what they can do throughout the workspace. From there, they can be assigned different levels of access to further restrict or expand their visibility to specific content in the workspace. The four permission levels in the workspace are:
  • Full access - Can edit content and manage who has access.
  • Can edit - Can edit content.
  • Can view - Cannot edit content but can view and/or comment.
  • No access - Cannot edit or view content.
View a full breakdown of these access levels →

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Start by assigning access at the folder-level

To build a system that supports the growth of your team in Dovetail, we recommend starting to apply access at the folder-level. Managers and contributors with Full access to a folder can control who has access to the folder and its contents using the Share settings. For large workspaces, we recommend that you set your folders as View only. This means that unless explicitly added to the folder, user groups and individuals will not be able to create and edit projects in the folder.
  • To do this, open your folder, click on Share in the top right corner, then set the workspace access as View only.
  • From there, add users or group levels of access and press Invite to confirm their access.

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Narrow down access to selected projects and channels

By assigning access at the folder level, any new project or channel created within a folder will automatically inherit the same access controls set at the folder level by default. Managers and contributors with Full access to a project or channel can detach the project from the inherited folder access controls within the project’s Share settings. You may want to do this if you’re looking to restrict a project from a user or group who have access to the folder it is housed within or expand who has project access to a user or group who does not have access to the main folder.
  • To do this, open your project and click on Share in the top right corner.
  • From there, assign users or groups levels of access and press Invite to confirm. Once invited, the users or group will be able to access the project under Shared with you in Browse.

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Assign access to shared tags, fields, or templates

Managers and contributors with Full access to a board of workspace tags, group of workspace fields, or templates can prevent others from making changes to these. Similar to folders, for large workspaces we recommend that you start with setting your workspace tag boards, field groups, and template as View only and assigning Full or Edit access to key user groups. This means that unless explicitly invited, other user groups and individuals can use these in their projects, but cannot make changes to the original templates. You can learn more assigning access to each item in your workspace below: Start by sharing and assigning access to folders set up in the workspace. For each folder that you’ve set up for your team, add the corresponding user group/users to the folder and reduce access for all users in the workspace. Assign access to folders →