Read-only users

What read-only users can do in your Beacon database

Updated over a week ago

Setting a team member's type as read-only in Beacon lets you give that team member the ability to view the data in your database, but not change things.

Unlike regular licences, read-only licences do not count towards your user limit.

You can switch users over to the read-only type on your Team Members page.

At Beacon we believe that getting data into the hands of more people in your organisation is a good thing. Read-only users are perfect for those team members who just need to view your data, but don't need a paid-for licence yet.

For example, you might assign the read-only type to:

  • Your CEO - so she can access data before major donor meetings

  • Volunteers - to see registrations lists

  • One of your Trustees - to view some key charts

  • A colleague who might need full access in the future

In this article:


What can read-only team members do?

Here's full list of all of the things a read-only team member can and can't do in Beacon:

Individual records

Can:

  • View records

Cannot:

Lists of records

Can:

Cannot:

Charts

Can:

Cannot:

  • Create charts

  • Edit charts

  • Delete charts

Forms

Can:

Cannot:

  • Create forms

  • Edit or delete forms

Imports

Can:

Cannot:

  • Create import templates

  • Update or delete import templates

  • Run imports

Exports

Can:

Cannot:

  • Create export templates

  • Update or delete export templates

  • Run exports

Document templates

Can:

Cannot:

  • Create document templates

  • Update or delete document templates

  • Run document merges

Email templates

Can:

Cannot:

  • Create email templates

  • Update or delete email templates

  • Send emails from Beacon

Customising records

Cannot:

Dashboard

Can:

Notifications

Can:

Cannot:

  • Create or edit account notifications

Other areas

Other features in the database are off-limits to read-only users. This includes (but isn't limited to):


How many read-only users are we allowed?

You can have an unlimited number of read-only users on most Beacon plans (max 10 on Starter).


How are read-only users different to roles & permissions?

The Roles & permissions element gives you fine-grained control over who can access and edit what data in your database. It is available on Beacon's Standard, Premium, and Ultimate plans.

Read-only team members can be assigned to roles, but those roles will not give them the ability to edit anything (as they're read-only).

Let's say you want to give volunteers read-only access to your database. To keep things simple, you want to hide everything that's not relevant to them: charts, forms, certain people fields, and data on grants you're applying for. Read-only users will be able to see these by default, but you could use roles & permissions to prevent this.


How can we give edit access to one of our read-only users?

If a read-only team member needs to make changes in your database, then they're no longer read-only!

You will need to change their type to a regular user in Settings > Team members and they will count towards your user limit.

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