KB User's Guide - Explanation of User Types and Access Levels

This document provides a broad overview of the different types of live site users in the KB, their access level, and how it relates to what content they can see.

Note: The user types described below all pertain to long-term KB access. If you have a need to share internal or draft content with an individual user on a temporary basis, please use the Private Share feature: KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Shared-private (Privately Shared Docs)

User Types

The user types that can access KB live sites (i.e. external and/or internal sites) are as follows, ranging from the lowest access level to the highest):

Public User

A "public user" is a user who is not authenticated with campus credentials, and who does not possess them. This is essentially anyone who is not affiliated with your campus.

A public user can only access externally-published content via your (and any other) external KB site.

Campus User

A "campus user" is a user who possesses valid login credentials for your campus and can successfully authenticate, but who does not meet the definition of any of the other user types described below.

A campus user can access externally-published content as well as content that has been published with the CampusAccess setting: KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Using the Campus Access Setting to Protect Content

Group Authorized User

A "group authorized user" is a user who meets the criteria for at least one "internal site" Group Authorization rule that is currently active (see KB User's Guide - Users Tab - Group Authorization for more information).

A group authorized user can access externally-published content, CampusAccess content, and any non-restricted internal content.

Fully Authorized User

A "fully authorized user" is a user who has been added to your KB group space's user list with internal KB (iKB) permissions, but who is not a User Access Group member.

A fully authorized user can access externally-published content, CampusAccess content, and any non-restricted internal content.

Read Access Group Member

A Read Access Group member is a user who:

  1. is a fully authorized user or a group authorized user, and
  2. is a member of a User Access Group, or meets the criteria for a "document specific" Group Authorization rule

A read access group member can access externally-published content, CampusAccess content, any non-restricted internal content, and internal content that is read access-restricted to their UAG.

What Each User Can See

Below is a chart detailing what content each user can see on which sites (external and internal), as well as how each site is presented to them.

In addition to the users described above, access conveyed via a Private Share is also included in this chart. For more information on the Private Share feature, please see: KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Shared-private (Privately Shared Docs)

External Site

Since the external site is not behind a login, the KB does not differentiate between user types. All external site visitors will see the same thing when viewing the homepage, search pages, or document pages.

Please note that external documents published with the Campus Access setting "Ext/Internal with campus login" will show up to all users when searching, however, users will be required to login to the view the contents. This means that public users will not be able to view the document beyond the search result.

Internal Site

Users visiting your internal site will each see different content depending on what type of user they are:

  • Public users: A public user who is not affiliated with your campus will not be able to access your internal site.

  • Campus users: When campus user logs into your internal site, the site layout and styling will look identical to your external site. For example, site elements like menus and content modules that are only enabled for your internal site will not show up to campus users. Similarly, if you have a topics tree, they will see your external topics.

    The search will also return the more-or-less the exact same documents as your external site, with the addition of documents published with the Campus Access setting "Internal for all campus users" (if applicable). They will also be able to view the contents of Campus Access documents.

  • Group Authorized and Fully Authorized users: Group Authorized and Fully Authorized users will both see the normal version of your internal site, i.e. they will see menus, content modules, topics, etc. that are enabled internally.

    They will see all of the documents published to your internal site, except for those with read access restrictions applied. By default, read access restricted documents will not show up in search results for these users (unless this setting has been changed). They also will not be able to access restricted documents directly via URL.

  • Read Access Group users: Read Access Group users will see everything that Group and Fully Authorized users see, as well as documents restricted to the read access group(s) they are a member of. Documents restricted to their read access group will show up in searches as well as be accessible directly via URL.


Keywordscampusaccess valid campus authenticated credentials fully group authorized authorization limited users internal staff KB Admin Tools permissions see content admin only hide hiding content text page pages provision   Doc ID36826
OwnerLeah S.GroupKB User's Guide
Created2014-01-28 17:17:28Updated2024-09-03 13:52:01
SitesKB User's Guide
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