Access levels and permissions
Understand what Admin, Editor, and Viewer can do, and how account, workspace, and map access decide who sees what.
Access in Smaply comes down to two choices. The role you give someone sets what they can do, and the level you invite them at sets where they can do it. This reference explains both so you can pick the right combination for each person on your team.
In this guide
The two parts of access: role and level
Every person you invite gets a role and a level, and the two are independent.
Role - What the person can do: change things, edit content, or only look. The roles are Admin, Editor, and Viewer.
Level - Where that role applies: across the whole account, inside one workspace, or on a single journey map.
Someone can be an Editor on one journey map and an Admin across the account. The role tells you their power, and the level tells you its reach.
What each role can do
The same three roles are available wherever you invite someone, and the picker shows a one-line summary of each:
Admin - Can change everything within the account, workspace, or journey map. Admins manage users and permissions, create, edit, and delete all content, configure integrations, manage the Account Library, and control structure and settings. An Admin at the account level can also create and delete workspaces, manage account-wide integrations, and change customization settings.
Editor - Can create and edit journey maps, cards, personas, portfolio items, metrics, and research within their level. Editors can comment, use AI features, and link portfolio items across journeys. They can't manage users, change account settings, or configure integrations.
Viewer - Can see everything within their level except its settings pages: an account Viewer opens every workspace and its content, a workspace Viewer opens everything in that workspace, and a map Viewer sees one journey map. Viewers can comment on journey map cards but can't edit, create, or delete anything.
Here's how the roles compare:
Admin
Editor
Viewer
Best for
Platform owners and team leads
Service designers and core team
Stakeholders, clients, reviewers
View content
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comment on cards
Yes
Yes
Yes
Create and edit content
Yes
Yes
No
Use AI features
Yes
Yes
No
Manage users
Yes
No
No
Configure integrations
Yes
No
No
Integrations are configured once at the account level, so only an account Admin sets them up. Editors use the connected data on their maps but can't change the connection.
How the three levels work
The level you invite someone at sets how far their role reaches. Broader access cascades down to everything inside it.
Account level - Reaches every workspace and every journey map in the account, plus the Account Library. Best for people who work across the whole organization.
Workspace level - Reaches the journey maps, personas, portfolio items, metrics, and research in that one workspace, and nothing in other workspaces. Best for a project team or a department working on its own.
Journey map level - Reaches a single journey map and its cards. The person sees nothing of the wider workspace or account. Best for a stakeholder or client reviewing one journey.
To keep someone out of everything except a single workspace, invite them at the workspace level rather than the account level. Account access can't be narrowed afterward; it always includes every workspace and map.
The cascade applies the same way for read-only access. An account Viewer sees every workspace and its content read-only, a workspace Viewer sees only that workspace, and a map Viewer sees only that map. None of them can open settings pages, and there's no partial-edit state in between: editing always needs an Editor or Admin role.
Account level
Workspace level
Journey map level
Best for
People working across the whole organization
A single project team or department
One stakeholder or client reviewing a journey
Reaches
Every workspace and journey map
One workspace and its journey maps
One journey map and its cards
Sees other workspaces?
Yes
No
No
To put someone into one of these levels, see How to invite users.
Viewers can comment on cards
Commenting is separate from editing. Viewers can't change a journey map, but they can leave comments on its cards, which makes Viewer the right role for stakeholders and clients who need to give feedback without the risk of editing the map. Comments are limited to journey map cards and are available to every role.
Change a role or remove access
To adjust what someone can do, an Admin changes their role from the role dropdown on the user's row. You can move a person up or down between Admin, Editor, and Viewer, for example from Admin to Editor or from Editor to Viewer, raising or lowering their access. See How to change a user's role.
To take someone's access away completely, remove them instead. That revokes their membership until you re-invite them. See How to remove a user.
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