Roles and permissions in Hives | Hives.co Help Center

Everyone in a hive has one role: Admin, Manager, Member or Guest. On top of that role, people get extra rights on specific things when they are named on them, for example as a collection manager or as a panel member on a step. This page explains both, and ends with tables of who can do what.

The four roles

Your role is set per hive. If you belong to several hives, you can have a different role in each.

Role	In short
Admin	Runs the hive. Sees every collection and idea, changes hive settings, changes people’s roles and manages workflows.
Manager	Creates things: collections, surveys, pages, folders, announcements and groups. Can invite people. Does not automatically see every idea.
Member	Takes part. Sees the pages and collections shared with them, submits ideas, likes or votes, and comments.
Guest	Sees only the specific things shared with them, and takes part there like a member: submits ideas, likes or votes, and comments. Has no access to the rest of the hive.

Only Admins can change someone’s role. See Finding users and changing roles.

Admin

Admins can see and do almost everything in their own hive:

See every page (published or not), collection and idea, including hidden ideas and ideas in hidden steps.
Read every comment and every answer, whatever its visibility setting.
Manage any collection without being named as its collection manager, and delete any collection.
Change the hive settings under Menu > Admin > Hive: who can join, sign-in methods, the login page text and onboarding.
Edit the Home page, and change the order of pages on it.
Change anyone’s role and group.
Create and edit workflows (the templates that collections are built from).
Add and remove survey managers.

There are a few things even Admins cannot see:

Who submitted an idea in a collection that hides contributor names or saves ideas anonymously.
Who answered a survey. Survey answers are anonymous to everyone.
Other people’s conversations with Ida, the AI assistant.

A hive must always keep at least one Admin, so the last Admin cannot change their own role.

Manager

The Manager role is about creating and organising, not about seeing everything. Managers can:

Create collections, surveys, pages, folders and announcements. They automatically become the manager of the collections, surveys, pages and folders they create.
Edit and delete announcements.
Create, rename and delete groups.
Invite people to the hive.
See everyone’s email address in the user list, and search users by email.
See every page, including unpublished ones, so they can set them up.
Open the list of workflows when setting up a collection, but not change workflows.
Use Ida, if AI features are on for your hive.

Managers cannot:

See ideas in collections they don’t manage, beyond what a Member would see. Seeing an unpublished page does not show them the collections on it.
Edit or delete a collection unless they are one of its collection managers.
Edit a page unless they are its page manager.
Change hive settings, the Home page, workflows, or anyone’s role or group.
Add or remove survey managers.

Member

Members are the people taking part. They can:

See published pages that are visible to them, and the collections and surveys on those pages.
Submit ideas to collections that are open to them.
Like or vote, and comment, on ideas they can see.
Edit their own ideas, and delete them while they are still in the Inbox.
Answer surveys they can see.
See colleagues’ names, pictures, roles and groups (but not email addresses), and choose their own group.
Read announcements.

Members don’t have the Menu, the + button or Ida in the top bar. A Member who is named as a manager of something still gets that thing’s manager screens. See Contextual roles.

Guest

A guest is not a full member of the hive. A guest sees only what has been shared with them, such as a page that names them, and nothing else. In a collection shared with them, a guest can do everything a member can: submit ideas under their own name, following the collection’s access rules, like or vote, and comment. Guests have no Home page, member list, groups, announcements or statistics. They cannot choose a group, and they cannot be made a panel member, reviewer or assignee.

Someone who signs in through a collection’s share link, but isn’t let in by Who can join, becomes a guest of that collection. A guest becomes a Member automatically when their email address is added to the invite list or their email domain is allowed.

Manager or collection manager?

These two are easy to mix up:

Manager is a role for the whole hive. It lets you create things.
Collection manager is a right on one collection. It lets you run that collection: its settings, steps, questions and all its ideas.

A Manager who creates a collection becomes its collection manager automatically. But being a Manager gives you nothing on collections other people created. And a Member can be named a collection manager without being a Manager.

Contextual roles

You get these rights by being named on something specific. They come on top of your role and only apply to that one thing.

Whatever your role, if you manage something you reach its manager screens. A Member who is a collection manager, directly or through a folder, sees the View, Manage and Edit tabs on that collection. A folder manager can open Folders. A page manager sees Edit on their page. The Menu, the + button and Ida stay limited to Admins and Managers, and the Dashboard to Admins.

Contextual role	How you get it	What it lets you do	What it doesn’t
Collection manager	Named in the collection’s Managers, or you created the collection.	See every idea in the collection, including hidden ones. Change the collection’s settings, steps and questions. Move ideas, assign people, hide or delete ideas, choose who sees a comment and delete comments. Share the collection, export it, create AI summaries and delete it.	See who submitted when contributor names are hidden or saved anonymously.
Folder manager	Named in the folder’s Managers, or you created the folder.	Everything a collection manager can do, for every collection in the folder and its subfolders. Edit, move, archive and delete the folder. Manage the surveys in the folder: edit them, see their results, export answers and delete them.	See who answered a survey. Create folders, unless you are an Admin or Manager.
Page manager	You created the page.	Edit the page, choose who sees it, publish or unpublish it, and delete it. You always see your own page.	Anything on the collections or surveys shown on the page. Change the order of pages on Home.
Survey manager	You created the survey, or an Admin added you.	Edit the survey and its questions, share it, see results, export answers, create AI summaries and delete it.	See who answered. Change the list of survey managers.
Panel member	A collection manager or Admin put you on the panel of a step or the Inbox.	See ideas while they are in that step, even hidden ones. Answer and rate that step’s questions on the idea while it is there. See the step’s Voting and Scoring overview, including who gave each score. Get an email when an idea moves into your step (not the Inbox).	See the idea after it moves on, unless you can see it anyway. Answer other steps’ questions or see their scores. Read comments limited to idea authors or managers.
Reviewer	A collection manager or Admin assigned you as an idea’s reviewer.	See the idea, even if hidden, and mark it as reviewed.	Answer or rate step questions, unless you are also on that step’s panel.
Assignee	A collection manager or Admin assigned you to an idea.	See the idea, even if hidden. Edit its title and text. Move it between the collection’s steps. Get notified about comments.	Delete the idea, or change who is on it.
Contributor	You submitted the idea, or a collection manager added you to it.	See your idea, even if hidden. Edit the answers you gave. Read comments shared with idea authors.	Change the idea’s step or who is on it. Only the person who submitted can delete it, and only while it is in the Inbox.

Guests can’t be collection, folder, page or survey managers, panel members, reviewers or assignees.

Collection managers and Admins can answer the questions of any step at any time, and see who rated what in every step. Panel members see who rated what in their own step.

More detail: Collection managers, Folder managers, Survey managers, Reviewers and panels and Assignees and contributors.

Who can do what

These tables show what each role can do on its own. Where a contextual role adds rights, the table says so.

People and the hive

Action	Admin	Manager	Member	Guest
See the Menu, the + button and Admin	Yes	Yes	No	No
Change hive settings (Admin > Hive)	Yes	No	No	No
Edit the Home page and the order of pages	Yes	No	No	No
Invite people to the hive	Yes	Yes	No	No
See colleagues’ names, roles and groups	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
See colleagues’ email addresses	Yes	Yes	No	No
Change someone’s role	Yes	No	No	No
Put someone else in a group	Yes	No	No	No
Choose your own group	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Create, rename and delete groups	Yes	Yes	No	No
Create and edit workflows	Yes	No (can view)	No	No
Use Ida (when AI is on)	Yes	Yes	No	No
Read announcements	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Post, edit and delete announcements	Yes	Yes	No	No

Collections and ideas

Action	Admin	Manager	Member	Guest
Create a collection	Yes	Yes	No	No
See a collection	All	If it’s on a published page they can see, they were invited to it, or they manage it	If it’s on a published page they can see, they were invited to it, or they manage it	Only if shared with them
Submit an idea	Yes, if the collection is open	Yes, if the collection is open to them	Yes, if the collection is open to them	Yes, if the collection is shared with them and open to them
Like, vote and comment	Yes	Yes	Yes	In collections shared with them
See hidden ideas	All	Only as collection manager, or if involved	Only as collection manager, or if involved	No
Change a collection’s settings, steps and questions	Any	As collection manager	As collection manager	No
Move ideas, assign people, delete any idea	Any	As collection manager	As collection manager	No
Export a collection	Any	As collection manager	As collection manager	No
Delete a collection	Any	As collection manager	As collection manager	No

“Involved” means you submitted the idea, were added as a contributor, are assigned to it, or are on the panel of the step it is in.

Pages, folders and surveys

Action	Admin	Manager	Member	Guest
Create a page, folder or survey	Yes	Yes	No	No
See unpublished pages	Yes	Yes	Only as page manager	No
Edit, publish or delete a page	Any	As page manager	As page manager	No
See folders	All	Folders they manage	Folders they manage	No
Edit a survey, see results, export answers	Any	As survey or folder manager	As survey or folder manager	No
Delete a survey	Any	Surveys they can see	As survey or folder manager	No
Add or remove survey managers	Yes	No	No	No
Answer a survey	If they can see it	If they can see it	If they can see it	If shared with them

Anyone with a survey’s share link can answer it, with or without signing in.

Common questions

Why can’t a Manager see all the ideas?

The Manager role is for creating things, not for seeing everything. A Manager sees the same ideas as a Member, plus everything in the collections they manage. To give a Manager full access to a collection, add them as a collection manager. See Collection managers.

Can an Admin see who submitted an anonymous idea?

No. If a collection hides contributor names or saves ideas anonymously, nobody can see who submitted, Admins included. See Hidden ideas, hidden names and anonymous collections.

Can I give someone extra rights on just one collection?

Yes. Name them as a collection manager of that collection. Their role in the rest of the hive stays the same.

How do I change someone’s role?

An Admin does this in Menu > Admin > Users. See Finding users and changing roles.