Roles and permissions

Brand Atlas has four roles. Brand owner is the author and approver. Editor is a delegated co-author. Team member is a reader who can raise change proposals. Guest is a scoped, time-limited reader. Each role’s permissions are described below.

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The four roles, at a glance

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Brand owner

There is exactly one brand owner per atlas at a time. The brand owner is the author of the brand record (see Brand authorship). They have every permission listed above. The brand owner is set at atlas creation and can be transferred at any time. Transfer is a two-step action: the current brand owner initiates, the new brand owner accepts. The change is recorded in the brand record’s history. After transfer, the previous brand owner becomes an Editor by default; this can be adjusted.

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Editor

The Editor role is a delegated co-author. Editors can edit the sections and Horizons they have been granted access to, raise Update Requests (which the brand owner still approves), and read the rest of the atlas. They cannot approve requests, manage billing, manage the team, or transfer authorship. The Editor role is available on Keeper and Guardian. It is the right role for:

• An internal brand manager working alongside the brand owner.
• A MadeBy_ collaborator under a maintenance retainer.
• A senior member of the team given delegated authority over a specific section or Horizon.

The brand owner can grant Editor rights at section level: an Editor responsible for Voice and Social sees those sections as editable and the rest as read-only.

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Team member

The Team Member role is the default for invited team. Team Members read the populated atlas, search it, copy values, and (on Keeper and Guardian) raise Update Requests against any section or Horizon they can read. They cannot edit directly. Team Members are the largest population in most atlases. The role is designed for the marketing manager, the social manager, the freelance designer, the agency partner, the production house. They need the brand to act, and they need a channel to flag what is missing.

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Guest

A Guest accesses the atlas through a Guest Pass: a time-limited, scope-limited link. Guests do not have an account on the atlas and do not consume a team seat. A Guest sees only the sections or Horizons specified in the pass. A pass can be set to expire after a date, after a number of views, or both. Use Guest Passes for:

• A vendor who needs the colour system to print.
• A partner who needs the lock-ups for a press release.
• A reviewer who needs to see a single Horizon ahead of a launch.

See Guest Passes explained for the full mechanics.

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Permission inheritance

Permissions inherit at section and Horizon level, with two principles:

• Read implies search. Any section or Horizon a role can read is included in their search results.
• Read does not imply edit. Edit is granted explicitly, not derived from read access.

For Horizons specifically, the brand owner sets the audience at publication. A Horizon visible to “All team members” includes Team Members, Editors, and Editors with restricted scope. A Horizon visible to “Specific team members” includes only the named people.

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Role changes

Roles can be changed at any time by the brand owner. Open Settings → Team, find the person, click the menu, choose Change role. The change is effective immediately. The brand record records the role change.

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Audit trail

Every action that creates or changes a permission (invite, role change, Guest Pass creation, authorship transfer) is recorded in the brand record’s history with attribution and timestamp. This is part of what makes the atlas accountable: who said yes, when, and to what.

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