Roles and Permissions
A workspace has four roles: Admin, Member, Reviewer, and Volunteer. Each role has a defined set of permissions.
Two of them — Admin and Member — are archivist seats, and those are the ones your plan counts. Reviewer and Volunteer seats are free and don't count against your seat allowance.
Permission matrix
| Action | Admin | Member | Reviewer | Volunteer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| View accessions, files, fonds, dossiers | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Own/assigned only |
| Add and describe material, edit the catalogue | ✓ | ✓ | Held for approval | Held for approval |
| Approve or reject a colleague's submitted draft | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Create accessions via Field Capture | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Publish / unpublish to the Public Portal | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Force publish past blockers | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Export an accession, fonds, dossier or selection | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Export the TNA Discovery workbook | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Take a complete copy of the workspace | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Download the figures behind Reports and the Figures tab | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Import a collection, run a conversion, edit classification schemes | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Delete a whole collection | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Ask an admin to delete a collection | — | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Edit Data Model schema | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Manage Export formats and mappings | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Change Public Portal settings | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Invite / remove members, change roles | ✓ | — | — | — |
| See the workspace activity trail | ✓ | — | — | — |
| View billing and upgrade plan | ✓ | — | — | — |
When a role won't allow something, the product says so in one sentence: "Your role in this workspace doesn't allow this. Ask an admin if you need it."
Role descriptions
These are the descriptions shown beneath the members table on Settings → Members.
Admin
Runs the workspace: members, billing, settings and the data model. Can publish to the public portal.
Typical: Lead archivist, manager, organisation owner.
A workspace must always have at least one Admin. You can't demote or remove the last Admin; promote someone else first.
Member
Adds and describes material, edits the catalogue and publishes to the public portal. Cannot change workspace settings.
Typical: Staff archivists, researchers, contractors.
Member is the right role for most people, and it's the role an invitation defaults to.
Reviewer
Checks and approves other people's edits, and publishes records to the public portal. Their own catalogue edits are held for approval.
Typical: Volunteer supervisors, second-pair-of-eyes checkers, curators who sign work off rather than produce it.
A Reviewer seat is free — it doesn't count against your plan's archivist seats. Reviewers cannot start an import or a conversion, edit a classification scheme, or download the spreadsheets behind the Reports page.
Volunteer
Can add new material through the capture app and check catalogue entries assigned to them. Their edits are held for an archivist to approve. Cannot delete or publish.
Typical: Community volunteers, scanning day participants, distributed collection contributors.
Volunteers use the Field Capture PWA at app.archivers.ai/capture to photograph items and record metadata on-site. Their captures appear in the archivist's review queue and are processed normally. A Volunteer seat is also free.
See Volunteer Field Capture for the full guide.
Changing a role
Settings → Members → pick the new role from the drop-down in that person's row → confirm.
The change takes effect immediately. The affected member's permissions update on their next page navigation.
Moving someone from a free role (Reviewer, Volunteer) up to an archivist role (Admin, Member) uses one of your plan's seats, the same as inviting a new archivist would.
Workspace ownership
The first Admin who set up the organisation is the workspace owner. They:
- Are billed for the subscription
- Receive billing notifications
Ownership can be transferred via support@archivers.ai.