Setting Access Rights

In this module, you will learn how to manage access rights in Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) for both users with and without Opti ID. You will explore how to create and manage users and groups, assign permissions, and control content visibility and editing rights. Additionally, you will learn how to create and assign custom roles in the Opti ID Admin Center and configure corresponding access rights within the CMS to ensure secure and role-based access management across your organization.

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Manage users and groups, and assign access rights for different content types.
• Configure access inheritance and apply access settings to subitems.
• Set access rights directly from the edit view for specific content.
• Understand and manage access rights with Opti ID.
• Create and add a custom role to an individual user in Opti ID.

Access rights without Opti ID

Overview of Access Rights

You can add users, create groups, and assign different levels of access to content. For example, creating a Marketing Department group allows all marketing users to share identical access rights.

Access rights in Optimizely CMS control:

• What visitors can see.
• What editors can do.
• Where editors can perform actions in the content structure.

Examples:

• Give marketing members edit access to marketing materials.
• Set rights for content types like pages, blocks, images, documents, or assets.
• Use access rights with audiences to show certain content only to specific user segments.

Access rights are typically managed from the Administration View, but editors can also manage rights for individual pages in Edit View if permitted.

Types of Access

Access rights define what actions users or groups can perform:

To access the Admin View, users must belong to the CmsAdmins group.

Built-in User Groups

Optimizely CMS includes predefined groups aligned with user roles:

• Administrators – Full access to all system parts and content.
• Content Admins – Access to Admin and Edit Views (but not all content).
• Content Editors – Access to Edit View; must be added to other groups for content-specific rights.
• Everyone – Unregistered visitors; typically given Read access only.

Note: Ensure membership and role providers are configured to support built-in groups during development.

Setting Access Rights

To learn how to set or modify access rights, try this demo walkthrough:

Managing Inheritance

By default, content items inherit access rights from their parent.

• To break inheritance, uncheck Inherit settings from parent item and set custom rights.
• To apply rights to subitems, select Apply settings for all subitems.

Access Rights for Assets

You can assign access rights to:

• Folders
• Blocks
• Media

Set rights at the Root, For All Sites, or Recycle Bin level. Subfolders inherit parent permissions unless inheritance is removed.

Note: Editors need Create rights to upload assets and Publish rights to auto-publish uploads.

Setting Access from Edit view
**Administrators can set access rights from the **Edit view for specific pages or blocks. Try this demo walkthrough to learn how to set access from the Edit view:

Note: This method only affects the selected content and inheriting sub-items.

Users vs. Groups

You can assign access rights to:

• Single users
• Groups

For efficiency and consistency, use groups for common permissions.

Using Audiences in Access Rights

If you want an editor to manage audiences without granting access to the full admin view, add the editor to the AudienceAdmins group. This group provides access only to the Audience option in the top menu. The AudienceAdmins group is included by default in Optimizely.

Try this demo walkthrough to learn how to use Audiences in Access Rights:

Access Rights for Languages

In multilingual sites, set language-specific access rights so editors can only create/edit content in allowed languages.

Access rights without Opti ID

For detailed guidance and best practices, visit Access rights with Opti ID