In this quick article, we explain how Zingtree handles administrative rights and access rules for organizations that have many decision tree authors.

Let’s break things down…

The Three Types of Authors

In Zingtree, anyone who can create and manage trees or invite others to join is an Author. An author can be one of the following:

• Billing Administrator: This one individual can make purchases, change plans, and see credit usage and view previous transactions. They can also transfer this role to another person.
• Super User: This one person can do everything an Author can do, and can also delete Authors, or make themselves an administrator on any tree. The Super User can transfer this role to another person.
• Author: Any organization can have multiple Authors. They can create and edit trees, and invite other Authors to the organization.

Collaborator Roles

An Author who is helping to build a tree is a Collaborator on that tree. Collaborators can have one of these permissions on any given tree:

• Administrator: Can invite others, edit the tree, and change the permissions of any other Author on a tree.
• Editor: Can edit the tree, but cannot delete it or change the permissions of any Author.
• View-only: Can view and examine the tree, but cannot edit it or manage Collaborators.

In order to be a Collaborator, you must first be added as an Author.

Adding Authors

Anyone who is an author can add another author. Here’s how:

1. Go to My Team > My Authors
2. Click Add an Author
3. Enter the author's email address.

The new author receives an invitation via email to sign up for Zingtree. If the author already has a Zingtree account, they are automatically added to the organization.

You can see all the Authors for your organization from My Team > My Authors.

Deleting Authors

Only the Super User or Billing Admin for your organization can delete an Author.  You cannot delete a Super User or a Billing Administrator.

To delete an Author:

1. Go to My Team > My Authors
2. Click the Author Info button next to the Author.
   
   The Author Info page appears.
3. Click the Remove button for the Author.  If there is no Remove button, then the author cannot be deleted by you.

Assigning a Collaborator to a Tree

If you are an administrator of a tree, you can give other authors rights to administrate, edit or view the tree. Here’s how:

1. Go to My Trees, and select a tree.
2. Click Tools, Assign Collaborators.
3. Click the Add Collaborator button.
4. Use the drop-down menu to pick an Author from the list.
5. Select the rights to assign (Administrator, Editor or View-only.)
6. Click Invite.

Assigning an Author to Multiple Trees Quickly

If you have a lot of trees, you can assign an author to all of them at once as follows:

1. Go to Account Settings, My Authors.
2. Click Assign Trees next to the name of the author.
   
   The Assign Trees tool appears, like this:

   

3. Use one of the Assign All buttons to set rights for ALL your trees, or select rights for individual trees.
4. Be sure to click Update Author Rights when finished.

See What Others are Working on

When you go to the My Trees tool, you’ll see an option to select an author. This shows you all of the decision trees this person is collaborating on. You can also choose “(all trees)” from the Author selector, which will show you every tree in your organization, including what rights YOU have.

If you’d like access to a tree, click on the Rights icon next to that tree. If you are the Super User, you’ll get immediate Administrator rights on that tree — otherwise, a request will be emailed to the administrators of that tree that you’d like access. You can also include a custom message when requesting access.