Admin levels

Create multiple admin levels with varied functionality.

Some possible examples:

User admin -- can access user management and moderate/delete inappropriate comments but cannot edit widgets or see admin containers.

Facilitator admin -- can access admin-only containers and steps but cannot modify content.

Developer admin -- all access.

Thanks, Joy. Those are excellent ideas, and I think I understand your context of where these needs are coming from. We will discuss this internally. As you know, we always try to avoid any platform complexity. Different admin levels have been one of the areas where we have tried to keep it simple. What you can do already today (that you might already be familiar with): 
- Main user: has access to the Main user dashboard, can manage all the users and workspaces
- Workspace admin: has all rights in the workspace level and if allowed, can create new workspace
- Page admin: can do anything on the page level (could be used for "facilitator admin," but needs to be added to all the pages where needed (can modify the content)
- Widget admin: can make changes in widget level

So we will discuss these. We had one previous tool where we made all kinds of user rights editable. It ended up being a horrible table with hundreds of checkboxes :) 

We moved this to "not planned" for now.

Additional use case for admin levels:

The "Stakeholder Auditor"

Scenario: A consultancy delivering leadership training for enterprise clients. 

The Need: To provide client-side supervisors and stakeholders visibility into program progress without exposing the backend architechture and administrative controls. 

Required Permissions: 

- Page visibility: Ability to see the same pages and content as the participants. 
- Analytics review: Access to overall analytics for engagement and performance metrics. 
- Progress monitoring: Ability to track individual participants engagement and completion status. 
- Engagement triggers: Permission to send reminders to inactive participants. 

Restricted Access (No permission to):
- Workspace settings: General settings and configurations.
- Visual settings: Branding and layout controls.
- Content management: No ability to modify or delete existing content in the workspace

Business value: Enhances client transparency and accountability, while protecting the intellectual property of the consultancy's workspace content and design.

Additional use case for admin levels:
"Semi-admin" access

Scenario: A consultancy running leadership training for their clients.

The Need:
1. The client's team leaders
Access to monitor the progress of the participants (access to progress)

2. The internal trainers
Ability to:
- send e-mail to users from userlists or single persons, but not add new participants;
- change text, but not add new widgets;
- monitor and use Progress, but not change the activities chosen in Progress.

The case is described more in detail in this roadmap item:
https://ecosystem.howspace.com/roadmap/semi-admin-please

Additional use case:
The regional facilitator with centralized governance

Scenario:
A large member-based organization expanding Howspace to be used nationwide. Currently, there is no technical safeguard to prevent workspace admins from altering workspace or visual settings that must remain uniform across the organization.

The need:
An admin level that restricts access to the workspace and visual settings to ensure that central brand consistency and workspace settings are centrally secured.

Additional Use Case: The decentralized operator (enterprise scale)

Scenario:
One of the largest Scandinavian trade unions is preparing to scale Howspace across their entire organization. This expansion will involve adding hundreds of new workspace admins to a single account.

The Challenge:
To maintain organizational compliance with GDPR and security policies while ensuring brand consistency, the organization must be able to delegate content facilitation without granting full administrative control.

The Need:
A restricted admin level that prevents local workspace admins from performing the following critical actions:
- User Management: Restricted to ensure strict GDPR compliance regarding data access and processing.
- System Settings: Locked to maintain security protocols and prevent unauthorized configuration changes.
- Visual Identity: Fixed to guarantee brand consistency across the whole organization.

Business Value:
Enables a massive, decentralized rollout that empowers local teams to facilitate, while centralizing the accesses necessary for legal, security, and brand integrity.

We have a strong need for a new permission level in Howspace to support global training deployments where local facilitators need session control without content editing rights.

The Scenario: We are a multinational retail organisation that centrally designs learning programmes with the help of our in-house learnign experts and distributes them globally. These sessions are run by local facilitators, many of whom are not full-time learning professionals. Their core responsibilities are simply to guide the programme within the pre-built workspace, allocate users to breakout groups, and access specific participant insights.

The Challenge Currently, Howspace’s binary permission model: Where users are either "Participants" (too restrictive) or "Admins" (too broad), prevents us from scaling. Granting facilitators full admin access introduces the risk of local users accidentally altering the globally designed program structure, having access to user data that they don't need, content, or branding.

The Need: We need a "Facilitator" or "Restricted Admin" role that allows for live session management (breakout groups, insights, etc.) while strictly locking down the following:

1. Content & Design: Cannot edit, move, or delete program structure, widgets, or learning content.
2. Visual Identity: Fixed to guarantee brand consistency across the entire organisation.
3. User Management: Restricted to ensure strict GDPR compliance regarding data access and processing.
4. System Settings: Locked to maintain security protocols and prevent unauthorized configuration changes.

Business Value & Impact: This feature is critical for us to scale Howspace into more markets and enable autonomous local facilitation. Currently, we have three large-scale global programs that are blocked from migrating to Howspace specifically because this restricted role does not exist.

Thanks Lizanne, very well described and helps us making decisions about this! Can you also list what this facilitator or restricted admin role should absolutely be possible to do?