Visibility & Access Settings

If you're an Admin or Editor, you can give other people permission to view (and potentially download) files from your organization's Portal using the Visibility & Access settings on each Collection/Gallery.

To open the Visibility & Access (V&A) settings, click the permissions icon next to a Gallery/Collection in the left pane of the Library.

Setting Visibility

Visibility determines whether or not people can see a Collection/Gallery on your Portal. Visibility can be set to one of the following:

• Everyone 
  Anyone who visits your Portal will be able to view this Collection/Gallery and the files inside. This means the gallery or collection will be publicly visible, which includes people outside of your organization who may visit your portal.
  
  
• Those with permission
  Only people you've invited will be able to view this Collection/Gallery on your Portal.
  
  
• No one but me
  This Collection/Gallery is only visible in the Library by Library Staff. It is not listed on your Portal.

Setting (download) Access

Access permissions determine whether or not people can download from a Collection/Gallery on your Portal. Here are the different types of permissions you can apply:

• People/Group
  Invite individuals to a Collection/Gallery via their email address or share content with groups of stakeholders in an Invited Users Group. Stakeholders are required to log in with their email address and a password they set for themselves, or using Single Sign On. As a result, their name and contact information will appear in your download reports.
  
  
• Password
  Require stakeholders to enter a password before they can view (or download) a Collection/Gallery. Only the stakeholder's IP address will appear in download reports.
  
  
• Any Portal visitor
  Allow anyone who visits your organization's Portal to view (or download) a public Collection/Gallery. Only the stakeholder's IP address will appear in download reports.

After you determine who will have permission, you can next determine what kind of download permission to set for each kind of file type:

• Image DL Type
  Sets the largest size for image downloads using this permission.
  
  
• Video DL Type
  Sets the largest size for video download using this permission.
  
  
• Audio DL Type
  Determines whether or not audio files can be downloaded using this permission.
  
  
• Other DL Type
  Determines whether or not non-media files can be downloaded using this permission.

Permissions at-a-glance

There are two icons next to the title of every Collection/Gallery in your Library. The color of these icons (red, yellow, or green) is there to help you understand the permission settings of your Collections/Galleries at-a-glance.

The left icon indicates Visibility settings, while the right icon indicates download Access. When a Collection/Gallery is inside of another Collection, these icons also indicate permission inheritance. 

Visibility (the eye icon)

• Green = Everyone (public)
• Yellow = Those with permission
• Red = No one but me

Access (the arrow icon)

• Green = Any Portal visitor can download from this Collection/Gallery
• Yellow = Only certain people can download from this Collection/Gallery
• Red = This Collection/Gallery cannot be downloaded on the Portal

Inheritance

Every Collection and Gallery in the Library has native permissions. Native permissions apply whenever a Collection/Gallery does not inherit permissions from the Collection in which it's contained.

Example: Faded icons indicate that a Collection/Gallery is inheriting permissions from its parent Collection.

There are three ways to mix-and-match native and inherited permissions for Collections/Galleries contained in other Collections:

1. Inherited only
   The Collection/Gallery inherits all of the V&A settings from its parent Collection.
   
   
2. Native only
   The Collection/Gallery has its own V&A settings and does not inherit any permissions from the parent Collection.
   
   
3. Inheriting and Native - granting specific access to an inheriting gallery
   A Gallery can inherit all of the permissions from its parent Collection and have native permissions. Collections do not support this combination of permissions.

Inherited only

An inherited only approach is useful when you want all of the Collections/Galleries in a nested structure to have the same V&A settings. It works very well if you've organized your Library according to who needs access.

To create a new inherited-only Collection structure:

1. Select Library in the left pane of the Library
2. Click the New Collection button to create a new Collection at the root-level of your Library
3. Name the Collection and configure its Visibility settings
4. Click the New Collection button again
5. Name the second collection
6. Set it to Inherit Permissions
7. Repeat steps 4-6 as needed

To change an existing Collection structure to inherited-only:

1. Select a root-level Collection in your Library
2. Select one of the Collections/Galleries nested inside
3. Open the V&A settings for the nested Collection/Gallery
4. Enable the setting to Inherit Permissions
5. Ensure the Native Visibility matches the Inherited Permissions
   
   Example: If your Gallery inherits a Visibility of No one but me from the Collection it's contained in, then you should also set its Native Visibility to No one but me. This prevents access to the Gallery outside of the Collection that contains it.
   
   
6. Repeat steps 2-5 for all other Collections/Galleries contained in the root-level Collection

Native only

A native only structure is useful when you want to manage the Visibility & Access settings of each Collection/Gallery independently.

Example: Without Inherit Permissions checked, the selected Collection is visible on the pubic Portal, even though it's contained in a Collection set to Those with permission.

Granting specific access to an inheriting gallery (Inherited and Native)

Even if you've organized your Library according to who needs access and normally use an inherited only structure, there are times when you'll want to add an additional permission to a specific Gallery without removing all of the inherited permissions. For example, if you have a Collection that contains all of the files needed by your organization's marketing team and need to give an outside vendor access to a specific Gallery inside the marketing team Collection, you can add a native permission that will allow the vendor to get only what they need.

Example: This Gallery is inheriting a visibility of Those with permission from the Collection it's contained in to allow all members of the "Marketing Team" Invited User Group full access to download the original files. In addition, it has a native permission to allow people to download only 1200px JPEG files using the password "sponsors."

Note: Collections do not support both native and inherited permissions.

Visibility & Access FAQ

Do Visibility & Access settings affect the Library?

No. V&A settings only apply to your organization's Portal. Anyone with Library access (Admins, Editors, or Taggers) can see all of the files in your Library.

Can I set Visibility & Access for specific files?

No. All of the files inside a Gallery are subject to the same V&A settings. For example, you can’t hide half of the files in a Gallery and show the other half. Instead, use two separate Galleries with different V&A settings.