Roles
Everyone in a workspace has a workspace role: Owner, Admin, Member or Viewer. In short, Viewers read and comment, Members write, Admins also look after the workspace’s people and settings, and Owners also decide who can see what.
Folders and documents have their own access: Full access, Can edit or Can view. Your workspace role sets the most you can do. A folder or document’s general access, its direct shares and the access it inherits from the folders above it decide what you can do there (see sharing). Drafts are visible only to their author and the co-authors they invite, while the author stays in the workspace.
Your workspace role is a ceiling
Section titled “Your workspace role is a ceiling”Only Owners, Admins and Members can edit anything. A Viewer can only view folders and documents, whatever a share says: they can’t edit, rename, delete, share or restrict.
If a Viewer was shared something with Can edit or Full access before, the share is kept but counts as Can view, and the Share dialog marks it “counts as Can view”. Making them a Member restores it. People who were shared a single folder or document but have no workspace role can only view it too.
Workspace roles
Section titled “Workspace roles”| You can | Viewer | Member | Admin | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read, comment and suggest, where your access allows | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Edit, create documents and use history, where your access allows | yes | yes | yes | |
| Remove anyone’s comment or suggestion | in documents everyone in the workspace can edit | yes, except in other people’s drafts | ||
| Manage members, teams and invitations | giving Viewer or Member | yes | ||
| Rename the workspace, set sharing, search, public links and API access | yes | yes | ||
| See Plan and usage | read-only | yes | ||
| Empty the trash, restore a removed member’s drafts | yes | |||
| Delete or restore the workspace | yes |
Access to a folder or document
Section titled “Access to a folder or document”Editing and managing access also need an Owner, Admin or Member workspace role. A Viewer can’t gain editing rights from a share.
| Access | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Can view | Read. Comment and suggest when the document’s settings allow. Download, export and print when the workspace allows, and duplicate when it also allows copies and you can create documents where the copy goes. Resolve or reopen threads you started, while you can comment. |
| Can edit | Also edit and rename, create inside a folder, accept or reject suggestions, resolve any thread while you can comment, see and restore versions, and restore from the trash. Share or make public links only when the workspace’s settings allow. |
| Full access | Also manage access, move, delete and restrict it, delete a version, and remove it from the trash for good. |
Workspace Owners have Full access everywhere except other people’s drafts. Someone with Full access to a single folder can share and restrict that folder, but can’t change the workspace’s members. People with Full access to a document can also remove anyone’s comment or suggestion in it.
Admins
Section titled “Admins”Admin is a workspace role for someone who looks after people and settings without owning the content. Admins manage members, invitations and teams, rename the workspace, and set the sharing, public link and API access settings. They can remove anyone’s comment or suggestion in documents that everyone in the workspace can edit.
- Admins can make someone a Viewer or a Member. Only Owners make someone an Admin or an Owner.
- On folders and documents, an Admin has Can edit where general access lets everyone in the workspace edit (the default). Elsewhere they have only what general access, a share or Full access to a folder above gives them, and a restricted item stays closed to them unless they’re added to it.
- Only Owners delete or restore the workspace, empty the trash and restore a removed member’s drafts. Owners and Admins can see Plan and usage; Admins have read-only access.
Plan and usage
Section titled “Plan and usage”Workspace Owners and Admins. Admins have read-only access. In Settings, Plan and usage shows the workspace’s plan and what it counts. Everything is free during the private beta, so the plan reads Beta.
- Seats: Owners, Admins and Members, directly or through a team.
- Viewers: everyone else with access. Viewers are free, up to the plan’s viewer limit (see Pricing).
New documents start as drafts that only their author and co-authors can see, whatever their roles. Even workspace Owners can’t open someone else’s draft.
If you can only read a document, Colletta says so above the text. If you’re a Viewer, ask an Admin to make you a Member; otherwise ask someone with Full access to share it with you.