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User Governance Permissions in Engage

Control your users' Engage access and permission level, at the social channel level.

Whitney W. avatar
Written by Whitney W.
Updated today

Let's learn about User Governance Permissions in Engage. We will walk through how you can expand the user permissions within Engage and the value to you.


What is User Governance Permissions?

User Governance Permissions in Engage allows you to control users' Engage access and permission level, at the social channel level.

This level of granularity expands on the previous Advanced Permissions feature for all users, by extending permissions even further for Engage. You can set user access levels for Conversations, Publish, and Social Analytics per social connection.


What are the new permissions?

The new permission options are:

Full Access

  • Available for Conversation, Publish, and Social Analytics

  • This is the highest level of permission and allows users to complete all tasks

  • Posts must be approved by a user with the Approver toggle on (more information below)

Needs Approval

  • Available for Publish only

  • This is the second highest level of permission and allows users to create new posts

  • Posts must be approved by a user with the Approver toggle on (more information below)

View Only

  • Available in Conversation and Publish only

  • Allows users to view and perform most internal actions

  • Does not allow actions that could send posts/engagements to native channels on behalf of the brand

  • User has access to the social connection but unable to take any action

No Access

  • Available in Conversation, Publish and Social Analytics

  • Users with this setting will not see the social connection in the account picker for the product areas they are set to No Access

Approver

  • Available in Publish

  • Approver gives users the ability to approve a draft in Publish

  • Users marked as Approvers will show up in the ‘Assigner’ dropdowns within Publish

  • A user may only have approver status if they are set to Full Access or View Only for Publish


What's the value?

Social media governance is well-beyond having a Social Media Policy. It's the day-to-day practices that the marketing & communications teams should embed in the social media strategy to help:

  • Manage and mitigate the inherent risks that come with having an online presence.

  • Ensure brand consistency and maximize the impact of messaging and visual assets.

While the risks involved in leveraging social media for business are vast, these are the top three risks to be should be aware of when using 24/7 online communication channels:

  1. Reputational Risk: A rogue tweet, comment, or post that is "off-brand", little to no response to customer complaints, or poorly vetted influencer collaborations.

  2. Breach in Confidentiality: Posting commercially sensitive details, account log-in breaches, or revealing private internal information.

  3. Regulatory Infractions: This includes GDPR, copyright, and fraud.

To mitigate these risks, you can use the governance permissions. Governance permissions puts more control in your hands! You can now feel more confident allowing access to interns, contract workers, agencies, etc. by making sure they only have as much access as needed.


How to set User Governance Permissions

In order to assign User Governance Permissions you will need to follow the steps outlined below:

  1. Navigate to the Owned Connections tab via Account > Social Connections

2. Within the account, select 'Open Menu', then select 'Assign Users'

3. You now see a table view available for assigning individual permissions per area of Engage (Conversations, Publish, Social Analytics)

4. Click into each drop down to assign access for each user. All permission options are explained below.

5. Click 'Assign' to save.

The User Governance Permissions have now been set. The permissions can be edited at any time.


Permission States Breakdown:

The availability of each permission state will vary between the different Engage product areas (Conversations, Publish, and Social Analytics). Additionally, you will see the addition of an approver state. Below is a breakdown of all permission states:

Permission Availability:

Product Area

yes

no

yes

yes

no

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

Social Analytics

yes

no

no

yes

no

Full Access

  • Available for Conversation, Publish, and Social Analytics

  • This is the highest level of permission and allows users to complete all tasks

  • Posts must be approved by a user with the Approver toggle on (more information below)

Needs Approval

  • Available for Publish only

  • This is the second highest level of permission and allows users to create new posts

  • Posts must be approved by a user with the Approver toggle on (more information below)

View Only

  • Available in Conversation and Publish only

  • Allows users to view and perform most internal actions

  • Does not allow actions that could send posts/engagements to native channels on behalf of the brand

  • User has access to the social connection but unable to take any action

No Access

  • Available in Conversation, Publish and Social Analytics

  • Users with this setting will not see the social connection in the account picker for the product areas they are set to No Access

Approver

  • Available in Publish

  • Approver gives users the ability to approve a draft in Publish

  • Users marked as Approvers will show up in the ‘Assigner’ dropdowns within Publish

  • A user may only have approver status if they are set to Full Access or View Only for Publish


User Permissions in Conversations:

Content Stream Changes

The content stream will show content relating to VIEW ONLY accounts with the following changes:

  • A new ‘View Only’ badge has been added to the content card

  • No ability to mark as complete (or New)

  • No ability to hide on FB or IG

  • No ability to ban on FB

  • No ability to send a TW direct message from a reply

Reading Pane Changes

The right pane will show content relating to VIEW ONLY accounts with the following changes:

  • A new ‘View Only’ badge has been added to the parent post level

  • No ability to comment/reply to the thread or the parent post

  • No ability to like or retweet

  • No ability to mark as complete (or New)

  • No ability to hide on FB or IG

  • No ability to ban on FB

  • No ability to send a TW direct message from a reply

Social User Profiles Modal

The social user profile modals relating to VIEW ONLY accounts will display, but users will not be able to change the Twitter follower status.

Full access and No access: no change


User Permissions in Publish

Create Content Changes

If a user has VIEW ONLY permissions to all assigned accounts, that user will not see the ‘create content’ button. They also won’t be able to click on the calendar to create a post.

On step one of the publish flow, only accounts where the user has FULL ACCESS or NEEDS APPROVAL will be available.

Applying Permissions to Post Groups

The assignment level of a post group is based on the lowest level assigned to any account in that message group, barring no access accounts.

Examples:

Assignment Scenario

Post Group Access

User has FULL ACCESS to Account A and VIEW ONLY access to Account B.

VIEW ONLY access to that post group

User has FULL ACCESS to Account A but NO ACCESS to Account B.

VIEW ONLY access to that post group

User has FULL ACCESS to Account A and NEEDS APPROVAL to Account B.

NEEDS APPROVAL access to that post group

User has FULL ACCESS to Account A and Account B.

FULL ACCESS access to that post group

Approval Flow Changes

If a user is marked as an APPROVER on all accounts in the post group:

  • They are included in the approver dropdown

  • They will see the ‘Approve’ and ‘Reject’ buttons on relevant post groups

For users with NEEDS APPROVAL permissions to a post group, they must assign an approver on the post group. This means these users are unable to ‘Post Now’ as well.

Actions on Post Groups

Users will only be able to perform the following actions on VIEW ONLY post groups:

  • Tag

  • Assign

  • Clone and Edit

Full access and No access: no change.


NOTES:

  • Account Admins will be allowed to make new connections and change user assignments.

  • Account Viewers will not be able to make new connections or update user assignments.

  • Account Viewers will be allowed to reconnect accounts they have been assigned to with both the View Only and Full Access permissions.


💡 Tip

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