User permissions

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to user permissions. Set permissions too loosely and you risk a well-meaning teammate changing an account-wide setting. Restrict access too much and you cannot collaborate effectively with the people who contribute to your team's success.

In this article, we will cover all of the user permission levels, the difference between the three administrator levels, and show how you can manage user permissions in your account.

Click any of the following links to skip ahead:

Non-admin user roles

There are three primary levels of user permissions in Aha! Knowledge. You can give a user different permission levels in different workspaces in your account.

Permission

Contributor

Reviewer

Viewer

Create and manage workspace documents

X



Create and edit custom document templates (Aha! Knowledge Advanced)

X



Create, edit, and share personal documents

X



Publish drafts to a live knowledge base*

X



Add comments to documents

X

X


Share workspace documents

X

X


Create and assign to-dos

X

X

X

Be assigned to to-dos created by other users

X

X

X

*If you add a custom publishing role to your account and assign it to a users, only contributors with the custom role will be able to publish drafts to a live knowledge base.

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Administrator roles

Administrator roles give users the ability to edit various account-level settings. Admins are a secondary user role, which means that you can give any user in your account admin permissions, including users without permissions to see any workspaces or workspace lines in your account.

There are three different administrator access roles:

  • Account: Account admins can access the account profile.

  • Billing: Billing admins can access account-level billing and user permissions. Your account must always have at least one billing administrator. You cannot delete or disable your only billing administrator.

  • Customization: Customization admins can make configurations to your account's workspace hierarchy.

Permission

Account

Billing

Customization

Configure the account profile

X



Monitor account activity

X



Manage users and user permissions


X


Manage subscriptions and billing


X


Add and manage workspaces



X

Add a knowledge base



X

Configure knowledge base settings



X

Restore deleted workspaces, bulk deletions, and other records



X

Create and manage tags



X

Access the recycle bin



X

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User permissions across the workspace hierarchy

If you have a workspace hierarchy set up in Aha! Knowledge with at least one workspace line and a child workspace, then the following also applies:

  • A user who has permission for a workspace automatically gets viewer permission for the workspace lines that this workspace is nested under. This allows the user to see the hierarchy for the workspace line.

    The user cannot see other workspaces (even the workspace names) under the workspace line unless they have explicit permission to do so.

  • A user with explicit permission at the workspace line level will have that permission for all child workspaces. The only exception is if they are given more permission for a specific workspace. (They cannot be given less permission for a workspace in that line.)

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Disabling and deleting users

If you are an administrator with billing permissions, you have access to Settings ⚙️ -> Account -> Billing -> Users, where you can edit the permissions and profiles of your users. Here, you can also choose to Disable or Delete a user.

  • Disabled users do not count as paid seats, and can be reactivated later. Disabling a user does not remove documents they have created.

  • Deleted users are removed permanently from the list of users. Deleting a user does not remove documents and to-dos they have created.

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Default user permissions

Account administrators can set default user permissions for new users. Once set up, default permissions will be preselected for new users as a starting point when you add them to your account. Then you can further define which permissions you want a user to have before sending the new user invite.

To define default permissions for new users, navigate to Settings ⚙️ -> Account -> Users and click Set default permissions. Then select the permissions you would like set as a default starting point for new users and click Save. Once saved, the default permissions will be preselected when you add new users.

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Users with no permissions

If a user logs into Aha! Whiteboards but does not have access to any workspaces in your account, they will instead see a notifications page with a list of account administrators who will be able to update their user permissions.

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Bulk edit user permissions

To bulk edit user permissions, go to Settings ⚙️ -> Account -> Users. Select the checkbox next to any name. The Bulk edit button will appear at the top of the user list.

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