Share and collaborate

There are different ways for teams to access and interact with playbooks. This is managed in the System Console using permissions. Permissions can be granted in a variety of ways, to allow for different combinations of access and visibility.

Permissions are provided using:

System Scheme: Applies permissions universally across all teams, channels, and playbooks.
Team Override Schemes: Allow admins to customize permissions for each team (available in Mattermost Professional and Enterprise).

For more information about System and Team Override Schemes, refer to the Advanced Permissions documentation.

Note

Some permissions functionality is only available to Mattermost Enterprise customers. For more information, visit https://mattermost.com/pricing.

In the context of Playbooks, members are assigned a role and based on the selected permissions, this determines how they interact with Playbooks. A member can be a member of one playbook, and an admin of another. This allows for granular permissions across teams and departments. For example, setting playbook visibility so only certain teams can view it, or setting permissions to allow an organization to view a playbook but only designated team members can make edits.

Permissions are applied only to playbooks - there are no permissions that are specific to runs.

Playbook roles

Member

In the context of Playbooks, members are users of Mattermost who are added to a playbook.

Playbook Admin

In the context of Playbooks, Playbook Admins are also members, and may have elevated permissions to change playbook and run visibility as well as functional settings. They do not have access to the System Console and their privileges are managed by the System Admin. Members need to be promoted to the role from within Playbooks. The Playbook Admin role is applied per playbook.

Note

Before you make system or team changes to permissions, ensure that you don’t lose access to your existing playbooks. Navigate to the playbook you’re a member of. Select the Manage Access icon and change your role from Member to Admin.

Playbooks permissions

The default Playbooks settings are completely open which enable all members to participate in runs, edit playbooks, view runs and playbooks, remove other members from runs, edit actions, and make other changes. Permissions provide better control over confidential runs and playbooks, as well as member management. Note that even with the default settings, private playbooks restrict these actions to members of the playbook.

Create read-only playbooks

In the following example, only playbook admins can edit playbooks. Other users can view public playbooks and private playbooks of which they are a member, but can’t edit any playbook or change playbook memberships.

Go to System Console > User Management > Permissions.
In the All Members section, uncheck Manage Public Playbooks and uncheck Manage Private Playbooks.
Scroll down to the Playbook Admin section and confirm that Manage Public Playbooks and Manage Private Playbooks are checked.
Select Save.

Restrict who can create playbooks

You can also set permissions for read-only playbooks that do allow members to create new public or private playbooks.

Go to System Console > User Management > Permissions.
In the All Members section, uncheck Manage Public Playbooks and uncheck Manage Private Playbooks.
Then, check Create Public Playbook and Create Private Playbook.
Select Save.

I want to restrict who can convert playbooks from public to private

You can control whether Members can convert playbooks from public to private.

Go to System Console > User Management > Permissions.
In the All Members section, check Convert Playbooks.
Select Save.

Alternatively, to restrict this action so only Playbook Admins can convert playbooks from public to private, uncheck the setting above and:

Go to System Console > User Management > Permissions.
Scroll down to Playbook Admin.
Check Convert Playbooks.
Select Save.

I want to control who starts a run

By default, all Members can start a run using a playbook. You can restrict this so that only Playbook Admins can start a run. Note that with this configuration, Members are not able to start runs or edit playbooks.

Go to System Console > User Management > Permissions.
In the All Members section, uncheck Manage Runs. This also unchecks Create Runs.
Scroll down to Playbook Admin and ensure that Manage Runs is checked.
Select Save.

If you want to continue to allow Members to edit playbooks, an alternative to this configuration is to make the playbook private.

Duplicate a playbook

Playbooks are repeatable workflows and sometimes it’s easier to copy and improve rather than start from scratch.

You can do this by duplicating a playbook in the Playbooks screen. Select the … under Actions and then select Duplicate. The copied playbook will have Copy of appended to its original name which you can edit.

To import a playbook, go to the Playbooks screen, and select Import. Choose the team you’re importing to, then select the JSON file. You can also export any playbook to JSON to easily share with other Mattermost servers.

Channel export

Exporting the contents of a channel requires the channel export plugin. See the Channel Export plugin documentation for more information.

Note

Channel export is only available to Mattermost Enterprise customers. For more information, visit https://mattermost.com/pricing.