An Introduction to Member Types, and How to Assign Admin Permissions

December 3, 2009 0 Comments

During the initial setup phase of your team collaboration environment, you should familiarize yourself with Membership Types as well as both Company Level and Workspace Level User Permissions. While inviting members to join the account and assigning them permissions may only become necessary once an initial set of workspaces have been created, there is a good amount to understand about how these subjects relate to your deployment before you go that far.

Member Types:

Internal Member – Is the standard membership type within your workspaces. Generally it includes people within your company, department, or project team. Typically an Internal Member will have access to multiple workspaces throughout the account. All Internal Members can be found on the Internal Member List (Roster), where both their Company Level Permissions as well as their Workspace Level Access and Permissions can be managed.
External Member – Should be considered guests of a workspace. Typically an External Member will only have access to a single workspace, and are generally related to that workspace as a customer, client, partner, vendor, etc. External Members are granted permission through out your account on a workspace by workspace basis, and their access and permissions can only be managed from the Members area of each individual workspace.

How to Assign Admin Permissions

As mentioned above, one of the first items on your Initial Setup punch list should be establishing Company Level Admin and Billing Admin permissions. As the rollout progresses, additional Administrators can be specified, but during the Initial Setup it is important to make sure that any users that will be considered Administrators have the appropriate permissions and access to the correct configuration/setting areas.

Company Level Administration

Company Admin – Any Internal Member specified as a Company Admin gains access to the Company Setup area (Account > Company Setup) and all of the configuration panels within. Primarily the Company Admin is responsible for adjusting account wide setting defaults, populating and assigning permissions to the Internal Member Roster, and is considered an authority or direct contact person when working with Central Desktop Support.
Host Web Meetings – This permission is needed in order to allow Internal Members the ability to Host Web Meetings (as long as your subscription level includes the web meeting feature)

Billing Admin – Any Internal Member specified as a Billing Admin gains access to billing information and invoice history of the account, and is considered a billing authority or direct person of contact when working with Central Desktop Support, Sales, or Billing departments.

Create New Workspaces – This permission simply allows an Internal Member to ability to create new workspaces as needed.

Workspace Level Administration

* When determining the Company Admin above, also take into consideration each Workspace area you create will also have its own specified Workspace Admin.

Workspace Admin – Any workspace member specified as a Workspace Admin gains access to the General Settings area of that specific workspace. In addition the Workspace Admin also gains access to the Members area of that specific workspace, allowing for the ability to add members from the Internal Member Roster, or individual External Members, into the workspace.
List Admin – This permission allows a member to explicitly notify other members of new discussions, online docs, spreadsheets, and uploaded files. This permission is generally useful when the workspace is accessed by a large group of members and there is a need to reduce the amount of email that could be generated when the “Notify” function is misused.

If you found this article helpful, you’ll also enjoy:

Highly Confidential Workspaces

Controlling Storage in your Central Desktop Account

The Sandbox Workspace