Permissions and Access Control

Use this guide when you need to decide who can open a page, download a document, or access protected content on the website.

What this guide helps you do

understand the difference between website access and Club Management Portal access
choose the right permission level for pages and documents
understand what the gray, green, orange, and red access icons mean
avoid surprises for lapsed members, board members, and administrative roles

Two different kinds of access

In Clubistry, these are related but not identical:

Website access

This controls who can open protected content on the website itself, such as:

pages
documents

Club Management Portal access

This controls who can sign in to the Club Management Portal and manage content or records there.

Helpful detail:

A person can have permission to manage something in the portal without that automatically making every website page public to them.
If you want help with portal sign-in and management-role access, see Admin Panel Access.

Understanding the access icons

The Access column on Pages and Documents gives a quick summary of who can view that item.

Gray means public access.
Green means member access.
Orange means board or other specific roles.
Red means admin or task-role access only.

Helpful details:

Hover over the icon in the Access column to see role details.
Administrators and Super Admins always have full access.
The icon reflects the broadest practical website access level for that item.

Where you set permissions

You usually set permissions in the Permissions area when editing a Page or a Document.

Helpful details:

On Pages, the permissions area appears in the Advanced panel.
On Documents, the permissions area appears on the main edit form.
Content Manager is always kept selected for pages and documents so content can still be managed.
After you save, the access icon updates to reflect the current setup.

How the Permissions area works

You can check more than one role at the same time.

In practice, these patterns matter most:

If Public is checked, the item is public even if other roles are also checked.
If Member is checked and Public is not, the item is available to logged-in members.
If Board or custom roles are checked without Public or Member, the item shows as specific-role access.
If only admin or task roles are checked, the item shows as restricted access.

Common roles you may see include:

Public
Member
Board
club-specific custom roles
administrative task roles such as Content Manager, Member Manager, Application Manager, E-Commerce Manager, and Report Manager

Pages and documents behave a little differently

Documents

Documents use the Permissions area for download access.

Helpful details:

A document must also be Active to be available.
On website document lists, restricted red/admin-only documents are hidden from the front-end listing.
Public, member, and specific-role documents show permission icons before the document name on the website.
A direct document link still checks access before allowing the download.

Lapsed members

Lapsed status matters for both website access and portal access.

For pages:

Lapsed members can be blocked from non-public pages when Hide from lapsed members is checked.
If that setting is not checked, a lapsed member may still be able to open a non-public page if their role otherwise allows it.
Public pages are not affected.

For documents:

Lapsed members can access only public documents.
There is no document-level override like the page setting above.

For the Club Management Portal:

lapsed members with member access are blocked from the portal
this is separate from page and document permissions on the website

Admins, Content Managers, and other management roles

Admin and Super Admin always have full content access.
Content Manager is always preserved in page and document permissions so content managers can do their work.
Other management roles do not make content public by themselves. They matter only when they are part of that page or document's permissions.
A red access icon usually means the item is intended for administrators or task-role holders rather than regular members.

Common setup patterns

Public information

Use Public for items such as:

homepage content
about pages
public event information
membership information meant for visitors

Member-only content

Use Member when all logged-in members should have access, such as:

member news
internal documents
member resources
member-facing pages behind login

Board or committee content

Use Board or specific custom roles when access should be limited to a smaller group, such as:

board minutes
committee resources
planning pages
internal working documents

Administrative-only content

Use admin or task roles only when the content is meant just for the management side of the organization.

Practical tips

Start with the smallest group that should have access, then widen it only if needed.
Use Member instead of many separate membership-type roles when all members should see the same content.
Review the Access icon after saving so you can confirm the result quickly.
Hover over the icon in the list if you need to confirm exactly which roles are included.
Test especially sensitive pages or documents with a real member account before announcing them.