Direct and inherited memberships

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An user or user group in an organization can have direct or inherited membership – or both – in an org entity like a workspace, application, or group.

You can add a user to a workspace, an application, or group. When you do, you give the user direct membership in that entity.

You can also add a group to a workspace or app (or another group). When you do, the group becomes a direct member of the workspace or app. The members of the group inherit membership in the workspace or app though their membership in the group. When you see a user group as a member of any entity, you are dealing with inherited membership.

Note that a user or user group can have both direct and inherited membership in a workspace, app, or group.

Keep both direct and inherited memberships in mind, especially when revoking memberships; when any member has both direct and inherited membership, revoking membership in an entity requires more than one step.

Managing Workspace Memberships and Roles

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To view membership in a workspace, do the following:
  1. Click Workspaces > workspaceName > Members.
  2. Browse, filter or search for the member to remove. You can filter the member listing using the following filter presets:
    • Membership type: Direct, Inherited
    • Member type: User, Group
    • Role: Member; Workspace manager
    • Status: Active, Deactivated, Pending
  3. Click the row to display the member record.

Managing Workspace Roles

The member's role in the workspace may be either Member or Workspace manager. The role displayed is the effective role in the workspace. The effective role is the highest role the user has through any membership in this workspace. If the member has:
  • Direct membership only, the Role field displays the role granted to them as a direct member. This field includes Direct as the source of the role.
  • Inherited membership, or has both direct and inherited membership, their effective role may come from the direct or inherited membership, whichever is highest. If the effective role is inherited through group membership, the Role field includes the group or groups that are the source of the role.

For example, the user's direct membership may grant them the role of member. However, if the user also inherits membership in this workspace through a group that has the Manager role, this user's effective role in the workspace is Manager.

To change a user's role in the workspace from Member to Manager, assign the user the Manager role in any workspace membership. You can do either the following, whichever makes most sense from the user management perspective:
  • Change the user's direct membership role to Manager.
  • Change the workspace membership role for a group through which this user inherits workspace membership to Manager.
To change a user's role from Workspace manager to Member, you must change the user role to Member in all workspace memberships. Do the following as required:
  1. Change the user's direct membership role to Member.
  2. Change the workspace membership role for all groups through which this user inherits workspace membership to Member.

Managing Workspace Memberships

To make a user a member of a workspace, you can assign direct or inherited membership, or both.
  • To assign direct membership in a workspace, see "Adding Members to a Workspace" in Create a new workspace.
  • To assign inherited membership, add the member to a group that has either direct or inherited membership; see "Adding Members to the Group" in Create and manage groups.

To completely remove a user from a workspace, you must remove all memberships they have in the workspace – both direct and inherited. Do the following in the user profile page, Membership type panel:

  1. If required, select Revoke direct membership.
  2. If the user has inherited memberships, do the following:
    1. Click the group name listed to jump to the group profile page.
    2. Find the user in either the Members tab or the Managers tab.
    3. Right-click the user row and select Revoke; then confirm.
    4. Return to the workspace members page and repeat steps a though c for other inherited memberships.
  3. Click Save.