Board & Folder Permissions

What it is

Permissions let you control who can see and work with your boards and folders. You can grant access to individual users, to entire teams, or to your whole organization, and you can decide at each level whether someone can only view a board or folder, can edit it, or owns it outright.

These controls apply to perpetual boards, cycle boards, and board folders. Folders pass their permissions down to the boards they contain, so you can set access once at the folder level and have it apply to everything inside.

Permission levels

When you grant someone access, you choose one of these levels:

You can also choose Remove Access on an existing grant to revoke someone's access entirely.

Access scopes

Permissions are organized into three scopes inside the permissions dialog:

• User Access - grant access to specific people, one at a time.
• Team Access - grant access to an entire team at once.
• Organization Access - set a baseline level for everyone in your organization. When organization access is turned off, the organization row shows Restricted, meaning only the users and teams you have explicitly added can reach the board or folder.

Opening the permissions dialog

Boards live in the Plan Delivery module in the left sidebar.

For a folder, you can open the permissions dialog in any of these ways:

1. Right-click the folder, or open its kebab (three-dot) menu, and choose Permissions.
2. Click the small sharing / permissions status icon next to the folder name.

For a board, open the board card's kebab (three-dot) menu and choose Permissions.

The dialog is titled Manage Permissions - {name}, where {name} is the board or folder you opened it on.

Granting and changing access

Inside the Manage Permissions dialog:

1. In the Add Access field, type into the Search for users or teams... box, choose a level for the person or team (Viewer or Editor), and click Add.
2. To change an existing grant, use the role selector on that row to switch between Viewer, Editor, Transfer Ownership, or Remove Access.
3. To adjust the baseline for everyone, set the Organization Access row to Viewer, Editor, or Remove Access.

Each level shows a short description in the selector - for example, Viewer ("Only view") and Editor ("View, edit").

Transferring ownership

The Transfer Ownership option only appears when you are the current owner of the board or folder. Use it to hand full control to another user. When you transfer ownership, you become an Editor unless you're an organization Owner.

How inheritance works

Child boards inherit the user, team, and organization permissions of the folder they're created in. When you create a board inside a folder, the folder's access settings are copied onto the new board automatically.

You can override inherited access at any level by setting custom permissions directly on the board or folder. Setting a custom permission at a given scope replaces the inherited value for that scope.

Real-time updates

Permission changes are broadcast to everyone connected, so access updates take effect without a page refresh. If a change removes your access to a board or folder, it is automatically pruned from your view, and you'll see a notification letting you know you no longer have access.

Context menus reflect your access

Menus only show actions you're allowed to perform, so you won't see options you can't use.

• Folder context menu (right-click or the kebab button on a folder row): New Folder, Move, and Edit appear when you can edit the folder; Archive / Unarchive appears when you can delete it; and Permissions appears when you can edit it.
• Board card kebab menu: Edit and Permissions appear when you can edit the board, and Delete appears when you can delete it.

The folder's sharing-status icon also gives you a quick read on its current visibility. Its tooltip shows Share and Manage Permissions (or View Permissions when you only have read access), along with a status line such as "Only visible to you.", "Shared with specific users or teams.", or "Shared with organization."

Who can manage permissions

You can manage permissions on a board or folder if any of the following is true:

• Your role includes the Manage all boards permission — the Owner role and the default Admin role do, and a custom role does if you grant it. This bypasses per-object sharing (see Roles & Permissions).
• You are the owner or creator of the board or folder.
• You hold the Owner level on that board or folder.
• You have edit access to it.

Roles and creating boards

Whether you can create boards and folders depends on your organization role together with your sharing access. The behavior below reflects DevStride's default Admin and Member roles; because roles are now customizable in Configure Settings → Permissions, your organization may have adjusted them.

• Creating a perpetual board is governed by your access to the parent folder — anyone with Editor or Owner access to a folder can add boards there. By default, Members can do this wherever they have folder access.
• Cycle boards depend on cadences, which are configured in Configure Settings. Only roles with access to organization settings can reach cadence configuration, so creating cycle boards is effectively limited to those roles (the default Admin and Owner).
• The top-level + Folder button at the top of the Boards page is available to roles with that capability (the default Admin and Owner).
• The Measure Performance module appears in the sidebar only for roles whose Module Access includes Reports (the default Admin and Owner).

Restricted boards in the Items Table

When you view items in the Items Table (in Manage Items), the Board column reflects your access to each item's board:

• If an item is assigned to a board you can see, the column shows the board's icon and name.
• If an item is assigned to a board you cannot see, the column shows a lock icon with the label Restricted and the tooltip "You don't have permission to view this board." The item itself is still visible - only its board placement is hidden.
• If an item has no board at all, the column shows Unplanned (no lock icon).

This makes it clear when an item is planned on a board you don't have access to, versus simply not being on a board yet.

Related pages

• Adding a Folder
• Working Group Folders
• Setting up and Using Perpetual Boards
• Using Cycle Boards
• Workstream & Item Permissions — the items and workstreams counterpart to these board controls.
• Understanding Permissions — how roles and sharing combine across DevStride.
• Roles & Permissions — organization roles and the "Manage all boards" capability referenced above.