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Open and Closed Permissions Models

Information  

For the activation of the Open Model or to run a test, please get in touch with your Key Account or Customer Success Manager.

In this article, you will learn :

  • What Roles and Permissions are
  • The difference between the "Open" and "Closed" Permissions Models
  • Recommended use cases for each model
  • Frequently Asked Questions

What are Roles and Permissions?

The Roles and Permissions feature in Sherpany provides a flexible and transparent way to assign access rights within meetings. It is designed to:

  • Bring more flexibility and clarity when assigning permissions
  • Make it easier to invite participants to meetings or share documents from the library
  • Give you full control over who sees and edits meeting content

By using familiar patterns, this feature helps you confidently share relevant information with the right people.

What is the difference between the "Open" and "Closed" Permission models?

Sherpany offers two approaches to manage meeting access: the Open Model and the Closed Model. Each serves different collaboration needs:

Open Model

The Open Model gives all users in a room the ability to:

  • Create meetings freely, without technical restrictions
  • Invite any user or group from the room to meetings
  • Define access rights (e.g. view or edit) for each user
  • See a consolidated and clear overview of all users

Closed Model

The Closed Model offers enhanced control over meeting access and is particularly suitable for confidential or formal settings, such as Board meetings. It preserves familiar workflows while introducing a clearer and more structured permission system.

Key improvements:

  • The user interface has been streamlined to offer a more intuitive experience.
  • The previous role-based structure (“Admin”, “Editor”, “Member”) has been replaced with clearly defined permission sets (e.g. “User with restricted permissions”, “User + User Management”, etc.), making it easier to understand who can do what in a room or meeting.
  • You can easily switch between edit and view modes, thanks to a toggle in the top-right corner.

Recommended use cases

Open Model

Ideal for Steering Committees or Executive meetings where autonomy and flexibility are important.

Use it when you want to:

  • Enable all users in a room to create and manage meetings
  • Remove group-based limitations for invitations
  • Simplify collaboration by reducing ambiguity around permissions
  • Scale up meeting usage across the organisation

Closed Model

Perfect for formal governance settings like Board meetings, where stricter control is needed.

Use it when you want to:

  • Prevent unauthorised users from creating meetings
  • Limit who can invite attendees to specific, pre-approved groups

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we switch between Open and Closed Models?

Certainly, at any time. The more "Open models" the merrier, because it means more excellent meetings will be created in Sherpany.

In the Open Model, can users see all meetings?

No. Users only see meetings and documents they’ve been invited to.

Any pricing changes with Open vs Closed?

No. Pricing remains unchanged, regardless of the permission model used.

How are view vs edit permissions defined in the Open Model?

By default, users invited to a meeting get View Permissions and appear as Participants. To give Edit Permissions, the organiser must manually adjust access.

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