Permissions overview
  • 30 Mar 2023
  • 3 Minutes to read
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Permissions overview

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Airtable collaborators can be given specific permissions that determine what they can and cannot edit in a workspace or base. Permissions are an important part of healthy team collaboration : with the right permissions, you can ensure that only certain people are permitted to change the information in your bases. This article outlines the different actions that can be taken by collaborators on each permissions level.

Brief collaboration overview

There are two ways to add collaborators: on the workspace level, and on the base level. If you add a workspace collaborator, they will have access to every base in the workspace at the permission level they are assigned. If you add a base collaborator, they will only have access to that specific base at the permission level they are assigned.

NOTE
For information about viewing and editing current base and workspace collaborator permissions, see this support article. For more information about how adding collaborators to your workspace affects your billing, see this FAQ.


Base actions


Owner/CreatorEditorCommenterRead-Only

General actions

Access/view the entire base at your assigned permission level

Invite users at or below your permission level
Create or remove a view share link

Create or remove a base collaborator invite link


Rename the base


Record actions

Comment on records

 

Add, delete, or modify records

 

 

View actions

Download a CSV of the view




Print a view



Copy data in a view



Add, delete, or modify views


 personal views only

 

Lock and unlock views

 

 

 

Delete other collaborators' personal views

 

 

 

Field actions

Add, delete, rename and customize fields

 

 

 

Table actions

Add, delete, and rename tables

 

 

 

Import CSV as a new table



Automations

Create, delete, or duplicate an automation

 

 

 

Configure an automation (turn on/off, edit trigger type, edit action type, or add actions)

 

 

 

Rename an automation

 

 

 

Edit an automation description

 

 

 

View automation configuration

Copy automation URL

Sync

Create or remove a syncable view share link

 

 

Manually sync ("Sync now")

 

 

Create or delete a synced table

 

 

 

Update sync configuration

 

 

 

Extensions

Create an extension

 

 

 

Configure an extension's settings

 

 

Rename, edit description, or move an extension to a different dashboard

 

 

 

Delete, disable, duplicate, or share an extension

 

 

 

Add, delete, or rename an extension dashboard

 

 

 

Interface Designer

Create an interface or an interface page

 

 

 

Edit, preview, or publish an interface

 

 

 

Add/edit/remove elements in an interface

 

 

 

Delete, duplicate, or rename an interface

 

 

 

Restrict interface sharing



Update records via editable inline records or editable record details.

 

 

Add new records via interface form submissions



View an interface

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Workspace actions for workspace-level collaborators

Workspace-level collaborators at the Owner and Creator levels have extra permissions regarding the workspace itself, which are outlined below.

 OwnerCreatorEditorCommenterRead-Only
Access all bases within the workspace at your assigned permission level
Invite users at or below your permission level
Rename the workspace   
Add and delete bases in the workspace   
Rearrange bases within the workspace   
Move a base from the workspace to another workspace 
(restrictions apply)
   
Adjust the billing settings, upgrade the workspace    
Grant owner permissions   


Owner permission level

You will have the Owner permission level if you are the owner of a workspace. A few things to note about owners:

  • A workspace can have multiple owners.
  • Only another owner can grant owner permissions.
  • By default, the person who created the workspace is the owner.
  • To change the owner from the default, you will need to ask the owner to make another person an owner. (After that, the new owner can remove the old owner's owner permissions or the old owner can remove their own owner permissions.)
  • If you are the sole owner of a workspace with multiple members, you will need to transfer ownership of that workspace to another member before deleting your account.
  • Only account owners receive notifications when potential collaborators request access to a particular base. These notifications arrive via email and/or within the extension (bell icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page).


Tips with permissions

Inviting collaborators on Premium workspaces
When inviting workspace or base collaborators, it’s always a good idea to invite the collaborators in with Read-only permissions. By first inviting in your collaborators with read-only permissions, you can avoid incurring billable collaborator charges. Once invited, you can then determine the necessary permissions to provide to the collaborator.
Planning on having a larger team?
When managing a larger team of collaborators within a workspace, it’s best to consider having at least two workspace owners. The reason for this is that if one workspace owner is on leave, the workspace is not stuck in a position of not being able to perform workspace administrative duties.
Why have base collaborators instead of workspace collaborators?
Note that when collaborators are workspace collaborators, they will access all bases within the workspace and view the contents of the base. To prevent collaborators from accessing sensitive or confidential information, it’s a good idea to invite collaborators to individual bases. For example, say you had two teams within your workspace, a marketing team, and a logistics team. While it would be a good idea to have two different bases designated for each team, it might not be best to have each team be able to view each other’s bases. This is where you would set your collaborators to base collaborators and not workspace collaborators.



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