What do Collaborators See?

[Note from Wrike] Hey there! Before you start reading, please note the information is kind of old now, and may not be totally accurate. Don’t worry, you can read this brand new post from Lisa which covers everything on this topic 🖖

 

Collaborators have a more restricted view within the Workspace and we frequently get asked what exactly a Collaborator's Workspace looks like. Check out the screenshots below to find out. 

Tip: It’s easier to remember what a Collaborator can do vs. what they can’t. Collaborators can: change a task’s status, add comments, view existing Custom Fields, add and delete file attachments, and submit Request forms. Collaborators can’t: create new Tasks, Folders, or Projects, or edit the task’s description field.

Collaborators

  1. Have Inbox, My Work, Stream, and a Folder tree, but they do not have Dashboards or Reports.
  2. Can only see Folders and Projects which are shared with them (same applies to all Wrike users).
  3. Can see the List, Table, and Timeline views, but no additional views.
  4. Can change a task’s status.
  5. Can see (but not edit) a task’s description field.
  6. Can add comments.

For comparison, here is what a Regular User would see when logged into the Workspace.

Regular Users

  1. See all available Global Views (Inbox, Reports, etc).
  2. Have access to all available views (Table, Timeline, etc).
  3. Can create new tasks.
  4. Can add a task to Folders or Projects.
  5. Can view and edit a task's description field.

Check out the table here for a more detailed breakdown of what rights each user type has.

 

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1. If a collaborator submits a request form, and the request is targeted to a folder the collaborater does not have access to, is the collaborator still able to view and edit the task?

2. Do you have to share the whole folder with a collaborator, or can you share just one task? (Even if the folder is not shared)

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Anastasia

Hi Gro, thanks for the questions!

When a Request is submitted by a Collaborator, they will have access to the resulting task even if its target Folder is not shared with them. The task can be found in the root of the account (by clicking "Projects" in the navigation panel). Collaborators won't be able to edit what they have already submitted (since this license type doesn't have the permissions to edit task attributes), but they will still be able to add comments and attachments to the task to include additional info.

If a Collaborator doesn't need access to a whole Folder, you can share just the necessary tasks with them. These tasks will reside in the root of the account. This approach is perfect if you need to share a limited amount of data, and it also works great with Request forms. Some more tips about when to make someone a Collaborator can be found here, and here is an article with an overview of license types. Let me know if you have any other questions about this! :)

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@Anastasia / @Stephanie I think we might have a privacy issue here, I'll try to explain the best I can and really  hope that I'm wrong: 

Problem:

When using the below two features, the full account name list is referenced making it too easy to mistakenly add someone to the wrong task/project/folder.

1) Assigning a Person

2) @ Mentioning in Comments 

Case Example: I have 2 unique clients who do not have access to each others' folders: 

Project 1 - Client 1 (my client is Anastasia):

- I accidentally assign Stephanie to a task which had private SOW info, Stephanie now sees information of another client (Anastasia). Although Stephanie was not shared the project/task prior hand, by mentioning her name or assigning her a task, she now has access to it.

- Anastasia is annoyed that someone else saw their private info - we look bad as a team etc etc..

Project 2 - Client 2 (my client is Stephanie): - Stephanie is confused

 

Workarounds?

1) How do we limit the assignee list to only people within the project? if we can, this is followed by the next question of;

1.1) if we limit the assignee / mention lists view by project, how does someone ask for another person to be added to the project (assuming this would be ab administration task of just adding the person to the folder first before them being available in contact lists) 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

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@Anastasia just nudging 

 

What's the best way to ensure my clients do not see internal comments from a task  (is there a way?)

Background to the question: 

As any organization we have multiple teams, how can one team (PM)s & Consultants) talk to the client and share tasks with them, while the Dev team works on the tasks without the client seeing their internal comments...the trick here being the task should be cross tagged in order to track it live for both teams. 

or should we just continuing using Jira for all dev work? 

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Stephanie Westbrook

Hi @Imran, I'm sorry for the delay here, we've been thinking about your question. In terms of your first comment (you gave a great explanation as always): you're right, if you're a Regular User in an account, the full user list is visible to you when you go to @mention or assign someone. 

One possible workaround is Folder Permission settings which let you limit a user's rights on a certain Folder/Project, but I'm not sure if this will work in your use case. For example, if someone has Editor Access they would only be able to @mention and assign users who the Folder/Project is already shared with. However, making someone an Editor would limit their other rights as well (which is why I'm not sure if it will work), and there must always be at least one person with Full Access to the Folder. 

Matt added a piece of feedback requesting more granular permission settings and I think that might be related to your request, if you want to add a +1 or comment there. 

For your second post about comments: once a comment is added, anyone with access to the task can see the comments, and specific comments cannot be hidden from certain users. I completely understand wanting to have Dev comments be internal only though. My initial recommendation would be to create a separate task for developers (which clients don't have access to), but it sounds like that might not be an option. Could you tell me a little more about what type of information is stored in the tasks? It sounds like the tasks might be used to track work being done for clients, where the PMs communicate about work progress, and the Devs work on completing the client's request - is that correct? 

 

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Hello

I like the possibility of the Collaborator role. There is one thing I miss over there. You can add comments to a task and change the status. When you are able to change the status, in my opinion it also needs to be possible that the person who changes a status can also add his/her time registration on it. It is strange that this is not possible. This makes this role less usable.

Regards
Luk

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Stephanie Westbrook

Hi Luk, happy to see you on the Community forums! It sounds like you would like Collaborators to have the ability to track time on tasks (specify how much time they spent working on a task), is that right? If so, you're correct, that functionality is not available to Collaborators. The reasoning for this is that the license is intended for people who only need to give very limited updates (either via comments or by updating the task status). Whereas the External and Regular licenses are for people who need to create tasks, add context, or report on work. 

I hope that explains the intention behind the role a little more, but we also have a post (When to Make Someone a Collaborator) that delves more into the details. Please let me know if you have any questions!

 

 

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Hi

 

I have been using the trial business license to see if Wrike is right for our organisation. It covers a lot of the functionality that we need. One thing though, I manage multiple projects for multiple customers, and I will use outside consultants for additional resource for some tasks.

I would like to set a task for them to complete, have them update the statues and add any comments etc. but also record time on each task. I then collate my time and the consultants time to then combine to charge back to the customer.

Once complete i may not use the consultant for a long time, so wouldn't want them to be a regular user, just a collaborator when needed, but with the ability to record their time.

Thanks

Andrew

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Hi Andrew! Thanks for posting your question! Judging from what you describe the Collaborator license would be the best option for inviting your consultants into Wrike. They will be able to add comments, work with attachments in the shared tasks and Folders/Projects, and change the statuses of the tasks they work on. Since Time Tracking is not available to Collaborators, you can add time entries yourself with an additional note if the time was invested by the Collaborator.
 

 
Alternatively, a numeric Custom Field can be created where you can enter the number of hours a Collaborator spent on each task.
 
 
Please note that both Time Tracking and Custom Fields features are available in the Business and Enterprise subscription plans. See this help page for more details about available subscription plans and the feature sets they include: Manage Subscriptions.

Anton P Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Aprenda sobre as funcionalidades e melhores práticas em Wrike com o nosso Treinamento Webinar Online

Anton P Wrike Team member Aprenda sobre as funcionalidades e melhores práticas em Wrike com o nosso Treinamento Webinar Online

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Hi Anton

Thanks for the comprehensive answer, much appreciated.

 

I will try this.

 

Thanks

 

Andrew

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It would be great if the @mention feature only listed the users/collaborators that already have access to the folder/project/task. 

This way you wouldn't accidentally pull in the wrong designer/client/contributor to a task or project that they shouldn't have access to. 

You can set up folders/project/tasks in such a way that all permissions are set, tasks are assigned, everything is in order, but once someone is @mentioned in the wrong task or project they are likely to see files/comments that aren't intended for them. 

@imran to speak to your question "What's the best way to ensure my clients do not see internal comments from a task (is there a way?)" we have worked around this by having all discussions/comments at the project level, which our clients don't have access to. 

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Anastasia

Hi Ariel, thanks for commenting here, this is an interesting insight! I understand how that could be helpful for making sure that nothing is shared accidentally. I know that this request is a bit different, but I though yo might be interested in upvoting it too: Allow Collaborators to only @mention Users Assigned to Task. Thank you for sharing the tip about where to hold internal discussions, I think this will be useful for other users too! :)

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Will collaborators receive daily email notifications for their tasks the same way regular users do?

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Anastasia

Hi Leah, welcome to the Community! Collaborators receive the same types of email notifications as any other users do, and what they receive is based on the options they select in their Profile Settings. Happy to answer any other questions about this!

P.S. Love your profile picture! :)

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In which language will new Collaborators receive their initial invitation email and the following "Welcome to Wrike" form?

My team is usually working in german, but sometimes we need collaborators that only speak english. It now has happened a few times that those freshly invited collaborators stumble over german information in the invitation email and welcome form, and can not proceed without requesting further help.

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Anastasia

Hi Jan, thanks for asking this here! The invitation is sent in the language specified in the Profile of the person who is sending it. This means that if a Collaborator is invited by someone who as German in their Profile, the invitation will also be in that selected language. Does this help?

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Hi Anastasia, this explains a few things and makes it easier to understand.

Anyway, I think it should be possible to preset a profile language when inviting a new user, so the invitation email and welcome form will be shown in the chosen language.

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Hello

Earlier in this post it was discussed, what collaborators (in German: "Gast") are able to see & do.

What's the best way to ensure my clients cannot change a tasks status and also cannot see who a taks is assigned to? Furthermore as asked earlier that they do not see the internal comments?

Background to this question:

We would like to give our customers an active timeline; for them to see the status of the project in real time. But apart of that we do not want them to collaborate, rather just to be informed about the project status. If I make a snapshot of the timeline this snapshot of course is static and does not update. Maybe Wrike can solve this request by adding a new user type which is even more restricted?

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Stephen

Hi Urs, currently Collaborators do have access to change the status of a task and this cannot be limited. If you are looking to give your clients an overview of the project's status they cannot edit, the Timeline Snapshot you mentioned is the best approach. 
 
I understand that using the Timeline Snapshots option means you will need to provide your client with regularly updated versions, it is still the best option to ensure Collaborators do not edit elements of the Project. 
 
I also want to mention Report snapshots here too, which may come in handy when you're looking to show the statuses too.
 
We really appreciate the valuable feedback and use case example. We'll make sure we pass this to the Product team. Thanks for sharing!
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We are wondering if collaborators can see time we log on tasks? 

Also it would be great if internal users could make a comment internal so that this whole issue of being careful what you expose to external collaborators was moot. We are using collaborator logins for clients so we definitely have to watch that and have just had to say keep anything not client friendly off wrike.

 

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Stephanie Westbrook

Hi Emily, Collaborators can't see the Timelog View and they don't see the time tracking icon at the top of the task, but they are able to see who tracked time (and how much) in the Activity Stream. Would it work to have separate Projects/Folders that aren't shared with Collaborators?

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(Withdrawn)

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Hi there, why don't you allow collaborators to see the Files view ? It is very messy to open each tasks to see which file is uploaded/attached in there. Files view is great as it offers the full files list. Why can't collaborators see that ? What can you propose to collaborators to look for files in an easier way ?

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Stephen

Hi Ly, Collaborator license provides limited access so they can help with a Task or Project. The Collaborator should only see the Task's that have been shared with them so they can collaborate  - so there should be a little need for a holistic view of files. It would be great to hear a little more about how File view would help Collaborators in your account so our Product Team better understand how people use this license type.

Let me know if you'd like me to arrange a call with your Account Manager to discuss your options 👍

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Hi Stephen,

Thanks for answering my question. Collaborator as we understood is anyone that is not project owner, that does not need to create new project/amend project description/add new tasks and change project timeline etc. That's why it has for example been granted to our directors/line managers so they can connect and have an overview of our projects progress/status, commented on the task and see the key files attached to them. It is very painful to open each task to see which file is in there. They need an overview of what are all the files uploaded per project.

What is the effort of granting our collaborator the file view ? I don't think it require development on your side correct - simply a permission setting? 

 

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If I am using consultants to complete tasks, can I add them with a collaborator license and have their scheduled hours show in the resource manager?

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Stephen

Hey Suzanne, by Resource Manager, I assume you mean Workload View? If this is the case, Collaborators do not show up here, only members of your team. This is because Collaborators are there with limited abilities to help with tasks and there Workload shouldn't be managed in Wrike.

If you have some Collaborators, who you work with a lot, and they have a heavy workload which you want to review, you might consider providing a license for this person. Let me know if you'd like to speak to your account manager about your options and I can arrange a call back to discuss 👍

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Hello! Are collaborators restricted on the users they can @ mention in comments? 

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Stephen

Good Question Allison. Collaborators can only @mention people that have access to the same folders/projects they have access to. Hope that helps!

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Can a collaborator update custom fields?

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Folllowing List for Post: What do Collaborators See?
[this list is visible for admins and agents only]

Alto
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