A corpus often holds knowledge that only some people should see or change, such as HR policies, financial reports, or customer contracts. Corpus access control lets you decide exactly who can use each corpus and what they can do with it, so you can share knowledge widely without losing control of it.Why manage corpus access?#
Protect sensitive content. Keep confidential documents visible only to the people who need them.
Collaborate safely. Let teammates help maintain a corpus (uploading documents, updating settings) without giving everyone that power.
Scale with teams. Share a corpus with a whole team in one step. When people join or leave the team, their corpus access follows automatically.
Stay accountable. The owner of a corpus always keeps access, so every corpus has someone responsible for it.
Roles at a glance#
| Role | What it allows |
|---|
| Member | Viewing the corpus |
| Admin | Viewing, changing, and deleting the corpus, including managing who has access |
| Owner | The person who created the corpus. Has full access, and can't be removed or changed |
A role says which corpus someone can work with. What they can actually do also depends on the Permission Sets they hold. For the full details, see Corpus Permissions.Use cases#
Read-only users: Add a support agent as Member when their assistant needs the help articles, or they need to browse them, but they shouldn't change anything.Co-maintainers: Add a content manager as Admin so they can upload new policy documents each quarter.Whole groups: Share an "HR Policies" corpus with the HR team as Admin and with all managers as Member, so access follows people as they join or leave those teams.
1. Open the corpus access settings#
On the Corpora page, find your corpus and click the edit (pencil) icon in its Actions column. The Corpus Settings window opens, listing everyone who has access under Permissions.You can also rename the corpus here, in the Corpus Name field.
2. Add a user and choose their role#
Click Add User, choose one or more people under Select Users, and pick a Role: Admin or Member. Then click Add. You can search the list or use Select All.3. Add a team#
To give a whole team access, click Add Team, choose the teams under Select Teams, pick a Role, and click Add.Sharing with a team doesn't give its members access automatically. Each member also needs a Permission Set that allows the action on corpora shared with their teams. A team Member role is limited to viewing, even if a Permission Set would allow more.
4. Review and save the changes#
New entries are marked New in the list. To change someone's access, use the Role dropdown in their row; to remove them, click the delete icon in Actions. When everything looks right, click Update Corpus. The message Permissions saved appears.The Owner can't be removed and their role can't be changed.
FAQs#
Who can change a corpus's access?#
Only its Admins and Owner. Members can't change who has access.What happened to the Viewer and Editor roles?#
Viewer was renamed Member. Editor was merged into Admin, which can also delete the corpus and manage access if the person's Permission Sets allow it.Is a public corpus visible to everyone?#
A public corpus is shared with everyone in the organization at Member (view-only) level. Each person still needs a Permission Set that lets them view corpora. 