Collaborators in piSignage - delegating account management

Collaborators is a  very popular feature in piSignage which helps you delegate account operation responsibility while maintaining an  overall control over your account.

With this  feature as a basic use case you can have multiple users managing a single display network  by adding them  as collaborators to the account. Each collaborator  here,  can be given  different levels of access and privilege to operate  the account.

As an advanced use case multiple display networks can be created from a single account  with each subnetwork having their own set of players, assets and playlists and  managed by a set of users.

Thus each subnetwork can be insulated from the other with collaborators of one network not having access or control over the other.This makes collaborator a very highly used feature with piSignage.

You can refer to the video link below if you prefer to understand the feature through video demo. Follow this blog for the feature explained in words.

First log into your main account  that is the master account where you have all your players and assets. Here we add collaborators to manage this account.

Go to  the settings section of that account.

The very first tab  you see is collaborators.

If there are previously added collaborators they are listed here.

Click on add. A pop up page opens .

Here the first way  is to add an  existing piSignage user account  as a collaborator to manage your account.

Please note that In piSignage There are 2 types of  users  that can be added as a collaborator.

The first type of  user is  your  regular piSignage user account. Any user who has signed up at piSignage.com  or an account can create  and manage his own display network with this  account. In addition, this  user  can be added by other pisignage user accounts as collaborator to manage their accounts.

Now  the second type of piSignage user  is a user created in piSignage, exclusively to function as  a collaborator. These usertypes are not set up  with a signup, does not have an independent account of their own and thus cannot create a display network. They can only  be added as a collaborator by another account, even multiple accounts  to manage their account.

You can add any of these 2 types of  existing users as collaborators to manage your account.

If you don't want to add any of the already existing users as collaborators (both Independent user or collaborator only user)  you can instantly create a collaborator only  user account then and there  and proceed to add this  newly created user as a collaborator.

This is the second way. We will see this in detail later. First we will see about adding an existing  user  as a collaborator.

Search for an existing  user  you want to add as collaborator and select it. We just selected an existing user account  named  colab_new_indi_1 as a collaborator.

Now you can see below , there are multiple options available, using which access level for  collaborators are controlled.By default most of the privileges are given to the collaborator.We will learn about these options later. For now we will leave as it is.

Click  SAVE . A collaborator is successfully  added to manage your  account.

Now If you log into the colab_new_indi_1 account , which you have just added as a collaborator,  you can see in the drop down that the account to which you have access as a collaborator  is visible.

Note that the colab_new_indi_1 account is an independent user account , thus can have its own display network in addition to being a collaborator. The procedure will be same even when  you are adding a existing   collaborator only account as a collaborator. The only difference is that this type of user does not have an independent existence to create a personal display network and the functionality is limited to being a collaborator.

If you don't want to add any previously created user but want to create and add a new collaborator, you can instantly create a new collaborator and add it.

Go to settings in the main account

Click on Add.

Click on Add a new user .

Enter a unique user Id and password.

Email is optional for Collaborator only account.

Click on Add collaborator.

Click on Save.

You can see a new collaborator account is created and added.

Please note  that the ID and email used here can not be used to create A new Independent account later.

Next Let us learn about granting and controlling various levels  of access and privileges  to a collaborator.

Click on any collaborator present. A popup opens. Firstly you have to  select , the groups to which you want  the collaborator to have access. A collaborator can have access to one or many groups. Even all groups can be chosen.
Giving access  to selected groups  gives you further finer  control while granting privileges.

Next we go to allotting privileges. Now  by default when you add a collaborator , you can see that  major privileges are given.

Also  most of the privileges are self explanatory ,given their names. You can give or take away any privilege at any point of time as per your requirement.

You can

Allow the collaborator   to just  deploy the default playlist

Allow the collaborator  to schedule playlists .

You can give access to assets ,playlists and players with ability to create  and edit assets and playlists .

A collaborator can also  be given admin privileges like  payment and account settings .

We will skip the options which are self explanatory and focus on an important option called content scope.

With   content scope  ,  we can further filter and limit  the access, further to a  finer degree for a collaborator , who has access to playlists and assets.

Content scope has 2 options ie  restrict to group content and restrict to admin and group content.

Every player, asset or playlist in a piSignage account  can be assigned to a group or a set of groups.b When you select restrict to group content  option  the collaborator can see  only the players, playlists and assets   which are assigned to the group it  has access to. You may see above that we have selected some groups for access when creating a collaborator.

All the other assets which are associated with other groups or even the assets not associated with any group will not be accessible to the collaborator.

With restrict to group content scope you can give collaborator access to a very specific set of  account properties .

The second  option is restrict to Admin and group content.
When this is chosen the collaborator will have access to all the properties which are assigned to the group it has access to.

In addition it will also have access to the Admin assets/properties. If any asset/playlist is not assigned to any Group explicitly we call them Admin assets/playlist.

Restrict to group and admin Content scope  is useful when you have some entities, say for example  assets  , whose access are to be specifically given to some and restricted to others while there are other general assets that are to be accessible to all .

Thus  the content scope  can be used to filter assets and playlists accessible to a collaborator offering you complete control over access.

If both options in content scope are left unchecked  , there will be no restriction on players, assets and playlists visible to the collaborator.  All of the master account properties  will be accessible.

But a very important point to note here here. The  Content scope options are relevant only if you have  given the  collaborators access to  assets ,playlists or  players.

In the settings seen  below if any of the Assets , playlists, players options are unchecked, they are totally inaccessible to collaborator thus further filtering with content scope is  irrelevant.  Access filtering becomes redundant  in the  case of a wholesale block.

With the combination of relevant privilege, piSignage enables you to  create and add collaborators with custom access to your account.

The  Collaborator  feature  is  a  very popular feature   in piSignage, with presence of master accounts with 100 s of registered players managed in turn by multiple collaborators.

Reach us at info@pisignage.com fur any further queries.