What are access rights?

Access rights control who can see content, who can participate, and who can manage projects or folders on the platform.

The platform uses a three‑level system:

Folder level: controls access and management of groups of projects.
Project level: determines discoverability and visibility, it also allows you to assign project managers.
Phase level: sets who can participate in each phase (e.g., posting, voting, surveys).

This layered approach helps:

Protect sensitive or draft projects.
Target consultations to the right audiences.
Collect demographic data only when needed.

Folder-level access rights

What it controls:

Folder managers can edit folder pages, update descriptions, and oversee all projects in the folder.
A folder manager can act like a platform admin within the context of the folder.

Visibility behavior:

A published folder is visible to everyone.
If all projects in a folder are in draft, the folder stays hidden until at least one project is published.
If published projects are added to a draft folder, the folder won’t appear on the homepage, but the projects remain accessible via direct links or search.

Project-level access rights

Discoverability (Who can find this project?)

Not every project needs to be fully visible on the platform. For example, you might want to keep a project private and share it only via a direct link. The Discoverability setting determines who can find your project:

Public

Visible on the platform according to the settings in the Visibility section (see “Visibility” below).
Appears on the homepage and in widgets.

Hidden

Only visible to people who have the direct link.
Does not appear on the homepage or in widgets.
Will not be indexed by search engines.
Email notifications are sent only to participants.

This gives you control over whether your project is open to all, or shared more discreetly.

Visibility (Who can see this project?)

Once you’ve set how discoverable your project is, you can define who can see it. There are three options:

Everyone: Anyone on the platform can view the project.
Only admins and project managers: Restricted to platform admins and project managers that are managing the project.
A selected group: Limit visibility to a specific user group (see our article on user management and grouping for more details).

Assigning Project Managers

As an admin, you can assign one or more project managers to a project. Project managers have the same rights as admins, but only within the scope of that specific project (e.g., they can update the project name, change settings, and more).

Phase-level access rights

Phase-level rights define who can participate in each phase action (posting input, commenting, voting, completing surveys, etc.).

Authentication flows

Administrators & project managers: Only those with management rights can participate.
Anyone (surveys only): Visitors can answer surveys without logging in.
- Caution: May result in duplicate answers because no login/IP tracking.
- Submissions remain anonymous (a unique submission ID is provided to the user).
Email confirmation: Residents only confirm their email to participate.
- No username is set by the user; the system auto-generates one (admins can choose “User” format or “Animal” format under Settings → General).
Account creation: Full registration required (name, email, password).
SSO verification (if plan supports): Residents verify identity via SSO before participating; admins can set re‑verification frequency for high‑stakes projects.

Demographic questions

Admins can enable extra registration questions for participants.
- Account creation: All registration questions are enabled by default (can be made required or optional).
- Email confirmation: No questions by default, but admins can add any in the Extra Questions section.
Only admins (not project managers) can edit or create registration questions (done in Platform Settings → Registration).