Owner/creator permission level

Owners/Creators are able to do everything in the base, from granting permissions to deleting, removing elements and everything in between. Owners/Creators can:

• Access everything in the entire base
• Invite people to be co-owners, editors, commenters or read-only users
• Create and remove share links, and rename the base
• Add, delete, and modify records, as well as comment on everything in the base
• Add, delete and modify views, download a CSV version of a view or lock it
• Add, delete and rename tables, or importe a CSV as a new table
• Add, delete, rename and customize fields
• Create and manage automations, from deleting to duplicating, configuring and renaming. They’re also able to edit their description, cipy their URL and view their configuration.
• Manage syncing by either syncing a table manually, creating or deleting a synced table, as well as creating or removing syncable view share links.
• Create extensions, configure their settings, and handling them within dashboards
• Run the Interface Designer, in order to create aninterface or an interface page, fully edit, preview and publish interfaces, adding and removing elements from it, as well as deleting, duplicating or renaming them.

Finally, Owners/Creators at the workspace level are able to access, add, rearrange and delete all bases within that workspace, rename it, adjust billing settings, and grant owner permissions to other users.

Put it shortly, Owners/Creators have full rights over everything in their workspaces and bases, and can manage it all from the actual content of the bases to the settings and user permissions.

Editor permission level

A step below Owners/Creators, Editors are able to change data within the base, add, delete or modify Airtable views, or download data, but they are limited in terms of “administrative” permissions (adding or deleting tables, creating automation, creating an interface, etc.). Editors are able to:

• Access everything in the entire base
• Invite people to be editors, commenters or read-only users
• Add, delete, and modify records, as well as comment on everything in the base
• Add, delete and modify views, or download a CSV version of it
• View an automation configuration, and copy its URL
• Manually sync the base, and create of remove a syncable view share link
• Configure an extension's settings
• Use the Interface designer to update records or view an interface

Finally, Editors at the workspace level are able to access all bases within that workspace, invite other users to be Editors, Commenters, or Read-only users, rename that workspace and manage bases within it.

Editors’ capabilities are just a hair short of Owners/Creators, and while they are especially limited when it comes to automations, the Interface Designer, and extensions, they are still able to get a lot done on Airtable.

Commenter permission level

Commenters are able to, well, comment, but are limited in every other aspect and cannot edit the base. This is the second-to-last powerful permission level. The actions commenters can take are limited to:

• Accessing/viewing the base and inviting others to comment and/or read-only
• Commenting on records
• Adding, deleting, and modifying views for their personal use only
• Viewing automation configuration and copying their URL

As far as workspace rights, Commenters are able to access all bases in that workspace that they have the right to, and invite others to be Commenters or Read-only users. As you can see, they are quite limited in their scope.

Read-only permission level

Finally, read-only users cannot do much except browsing the base, and some minor actions without impact on the content of the base/workspace:

• Accessing and viewing the base, and inviting others to be read-only users as well
• Viewing an automation configuration and copying its URL

At the workspace level, accessing bases set to “read-only” rights, and inviting others to be read-only users

Airtable permissions use case example

Let’s get back to the example of the Head of Marketing from earlier.

This time, they want to build their budget management further by including salary data. However, displaying salaries for everyone to see might be frowned upon and not the best idea for every business. Using Airtable, they would probably need to create an entirely different base, granting Editor access to managers only.

This would work, but it complicates everything as the data for salaries would need to have its own base, and calculations might be cumbersome as a result.

Using Softr, the Head of Marketing would be able to implement a shared base among all collaborators, but where some of the data (salaries) would only be displayed to whoever is authorized to see it (managers).

As you can imagine, this level of granularity can be extremely useful for a lot of different use cases and situations.

But how does it work exactly?

Create and configure user groups

User groups are a great way to ensure you deliver a personalized experience to your users. By default, blocks and pages can customized for logged-in and non-logged-in users in Softr, but you also have the option to create custom user groups in a few steps:

1. Select “Users” in the left sidebar of your Softr interface

This section is where you’ll be able to find your users and set groups and restrictions for them.

2. Click on the “User Groups” tab

Depending on your template, you might already have created pre-set user groups.

3. Click on the “Add custom group” button

You can create a custom group of users for which to set permissions.

4. Name your new user group

Make sure to pick an easily identifiable name.

5. Select whether to assign users manually or based on a condition

Softr lets you add users to a group, either manually from a list or based on a condition. Here, we want to create a group of users who are not freelancers, so we select “condition-based.”

6. Configure your conditions

Softr lets you select from several options to create your condition-based user group. Here, we selected every user whose role is not “freelancer.”

7. Save your new user group

Save your newly-created group, and ta-dah, it’s ready to use everywhere in your app!

Set page and block visibility

With your newly created user group, you can now set visibility for every particular block or page in your app. To do so, click on your block of choice and follow these simple steps:

1. Select the “Visibility” tab in the right panel

In any given block, you can set the visibility to a specific user group.

2. Choose users in the “who can see this blog” dropdown

Depending on the configuration of your user group, they likely will have to be logged-in to be selected in the next step.

3. Select your user group in “Which user groups” dropdown

The group you previously created will appear in the list.

Going forward, only your specific user group members can see the block. As mentioned, this also can be applied to pages.

Set up global data restrictions

Global data restrictions allow you to hide irrelevant or sensitive records for groups of users in your entire app across dynamic blocks, dropdown options, and inline filters. To do so, check out the following steps:

1. Select “Users” from the left sidebar.

We’re now going to explore the third tab in that menu.

2. Select the “Data restrictions” tab

Where the magic happens.

3. Click on the “Add restriction” button

Let’s get started.

4. Select a data source.

The restriction will apply to a specific table in your data source

5. Select the base and table the restriction will apply to

Click “Next” once you’ve selected the appropriate base and table.

6. Select the user group and restrictions.

You can select the user group you want to restrict from a dropdown, then configure the restrictions you wish to apply. Once done, click "Save".

That’s it! To learn more, check out our Help Docs article on global data restrictions on Softr.