--- title: "People Permissions" slug: "people-permissions" updated: 2026-05-25T02:34:21Z published: 2026-05-25T02:34:21Z --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.infoodle.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # People Permissions This article explains the **People** permissions in infoodle — the role permissions that control what a user can see and do with the people, households, and contact records in your database. People permissions live alongside **Groups**, **Reports**, **Contact**, **Finance** and the other permission groups inside each role. ## Where to find people permissions People permissions are configured per role. To see them: 1. Click the **administration cog** in the top right, then click **Roles**. 2. Find the role you want to inspect or change, and click **Edit** next to it. ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-ACLQL49G.png) 1. Scroll to the **People** section. Each row is one permission with a tick-box ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-KROWZSD7.png) 1. Click **Save** at the bottom of the role editor to apply the changes. Ticking a permission grants it to every user who holds the role; clearing the tick removes it. --- ## People permission criteria Below is each role permission that appears in the **People** section of the role editor, grouped by what it lets a user do. The names below are exactly the labels you see on the Roles page. **Important:** some permissions expose private data, grant administrative power, or remove records — review them carefully before granting. ### Finding and viewing people permissions ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-SM869PWW.png) **Search People** The baseline permission for the People area. Lets the user open **People & Households**, search the database, and view profiles they are allowed to see. ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-CSW0BLBL.png) **Has Staff view of all people** Reveals fields your tenant has marked as staff-only on each profile — typically the most sensitive data, such as date of birth, safeguarding notes and pastoral context. Pair with **Field Permissions for People** to control which individual fields the role can see. ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-F9PI5EJ4.png) **Can see archived people** Lets the user tick the **Archived** checkbox in people search and see archived profiles. Without this, archived people are hidden from search results and lists. ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-PSIMW2T6.png) **Online Directory** Restricts the user to the contact items ticked **Visible** for people outside the groups they administer. Use for directory-only users who should only see public contact info. **Limit view to just directory settings** A stricter form: limits the user to the **Visible** items even for people in groups they are a full member or administrator of. **Privacy tip:** combine **Online Directory** and **Limit view to just directory settings** with **Search People** to publish a member directory while keeping non-Visible fields private. ### Editing people permissions ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-E4UK9YO1.png) **Edit any person and household contact details** The broad edit permission. Lets the user open the **Edit** form on any person they can view and change names, phone numbers, emails, custom fields and household details. **Edit my household and contact details** A scoped edit permission. Lets the user edit only their own profile and the other members of their household. Use for self-service users who maintain their own contact details. **Edit person dropdown lists** Lets the user manage the configurable dropdown lists used on the person form (for example, phone types or contact-method preferences). Grant only to users responsible for configuration — changes affect every record that uses the list. ### Adding, archiving and deleting people permissions ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-MBM6P40E.png) **Add new people** Lets the user create new person records. Without this tick, the **Add a new person** action is hidden. **Able to archive people** Lets the user archive a person record. Archiving keeps the person in the database but removes them from active lists and reports. It is the first step of the two-step delete flow. **Can delete people from the database** Lets the user permanently delete a person record. Deletion is a two-step archive-then-delete flow, so this permission only takes effect alongside **Able to archive people**. Once deleted, there is no in-product restore — recovery requires a database restore from backup by infoodle support. ### Notes permissions ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-GNANZZV7.png) **Can see my notes** Lets the user see notes they have authored themselves on people they can view. **Can see general people notes** Lets the user see general notes (notes not restricted to a specific note-visibility role) on people they can view. **Add general notes to people** Lets the user add new general notes to a person's profile. ### Communication history permissions ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-P0OUEM7K.png) These three permissions expose communications sent by other staff members to a contact. They are GDPR-relevant — reading another staff member's correspondence with a parishioner is, in data-protection terms, accessing a third party's communications. **See emails others have sent** Lets the user see the email history of any person they can view, including emails sent by other users. Without this tick, the user only sees emails they themselves sent. **See texts others have sent** The SMS equivalent. Lets the user see texts other users have sent to the contact. **See documents others have sent** The documents equivalent — visibility of documents (PDF letters, receipts and the like) other users have sent to the contact. ### Account and role administration permission ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-APJWWXCK.png) **Create accounts and roles** Grants the ability to create logins and assign roles. A user with this permission can effectively grant themselves or anyone else any other permission on this page — by editing an existing role or building a new role and then assigning it. Treat this like a system-administrator permission and review the role-holders regularly. ### Other people permissions **Access actions features** Lets the user open and use the Actions area (workflow-driven follow-up tasks attached to people). **Home page widget - birthdays** Adds the **Birthdays for the next 7 days** widget to the user's dashboard. Your tenant may show additional People rows beyond those above — for example, **Approve edits to household and contact details**, **Edit users involvement** and **Add new households** appear only when their tenant features are enabled. The label on the Roles page is always the canonical name. --- ## How to Edit People Role Permissions 1. Click on the **administration cog** in the top right, then click on **Roles**. 2. Click **Edit** next to the role you want to change. 3. Tick the permissions you want the role to grant, and clear the ones you want to remove. 4. Click **Save** at the bottom of the page. ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-3AMCY1R1.png) The change applies to every user who already holds that role. For **granting** a permission, signed-in users pick up the change at their next session re-check; signing out and back in is the quickest way to refresh. For **revoking** a permission — particularly when off-boarding a staff member — also disable the user's login under **Administration → People → [the person] → Login** so their access terminates immediately. --- ## The cluster-member restriction At the bottom of the role editor is a **Cluster** section with the role permission **Is a member of a cluster**. This is a restriction modifier that changes how the People permissions above behave for the user. ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-5UYXS872.png) When **Is a member of a cluster** is ticked, the user is treated as a group-restricted (cluster) member: the People permissions in the role apply only to people who are members of a group the user is a full member or administrator of. So if a role has both **Edit any person and household contact details** and **Is a member of a cluster** ticked, the user can edit any person within their cluster — not any person in the whole database. Use the cluster restriction as your main scoping tool. If a role needs a broad permission such as **Edit any person** for day-to-day work, ticking **Is a member of a cluster** confines that power to the user's own groups. This is usually easier to audit than building narrow custom roles. The accompanying tick-box, **Can duplicate check whole database**, lets a cluster member request a duplicate check against the full database when adding a new contact, even though their day-to-day visibility is restricted to their cluster. --- ## Common questions #### I ticked Edit any person and household contact details but the user still cannot see archived people. The edit permission and the archived-visibility permission are separate. To let the user edit archived people, also tick **Can see archived people**. #### The user has Add new people but the Add button is missing. Adding a person also requires **Search People**, the gateway to the People area. Tick both. #### The user can see their own emails but not emails sent by other team members. Tick **See emails others have sent**. The same applies to **See texts others have sent** and **See documents others have sent**. #### I want a user who can update their own details but nobody else's. Give them **Edit my household and contact details**, and leave **Edit any person and household contact details** unticked. #### I want a user who can edit only the people in their own group, not the whole database. Give the role **Edit any person and household contact details**, then in the **Cluster** section at the bottom of the role editor tick **Is a member of a cluster**. The combination grants edit power scoped to the user's own groups. #### How do I let a user delete a person? Tick **Able to archive people** and **Can delete people from the database**. Deletion is a two-step archive-then-delete flow, so both permissions are needed. --- **Related articles** - [Adding a Person](/v1/docs/adding-a-person) - [Editing a Person](/v1/docs/editing-a-person) - [Archiving a Person](/v1/docs/archiving-a-person) - [About Permission Roles](/v1/docs/permissions) - [Adding a New Role](/v1/docs/adding-a-new-role) - [Editing a Role](/v1/docs/editing-a-role) - [Role Permission Examples](/v1/docs/role-permission-examples). ## Related - [Roles](/roles.md) - [Role Information Details](/role-information-detail.md) - [About Role Information Details](/role-information-details.md) - [Deleting a Role](/deleting-a-role.md) - [Editing a Role](/editing-a-role.md) - [About Permission Roles](/permissions.md) - [Adding a New Role](/adding-a-new-role.md) - [Changing a Person's Role](/changing-a-persons-role.md)