Content Publishing Controls & Permissions 🔐

Overview

When creating and sharing content in Haystack, not every team member needs—or should have—the same level of broadcast authority. To protect your intranet from unintended mass notifications, unauthorized carousel placements, or misconfigured security settings, Haystack builds role-based publishing controls directly into the content creation process.

Understanding how permissions shape the publishing flow allows your organization to grant content creation access broadly while keeping high-visibility, broad-reach distribution tools safely in the hands of authorized platform stewards.

Prerequisites & Permissions

Publishing controls are automatically enforced based on a user’s administrative permissions within Haystack:

General Posters / Members: Standard publishing access within groups where posting is permitted.
Group Owners: Group-level management authority over local notification settings and group approvals.
Global Content Admins (Post, Resource, Event Admins): Workspace-wide creation and management capabilities within their designated content types.
Workspace Admins: Complete platform control, including all high-impact distribution and security features.

Step-by-Step Guide: Publishing Controls by Role

When preparing a post, event, or page, users proceed through creation and settings steps before publishing. The available toggles and options on these settings screens dynamically adapt depending on the creator's assigned role.

Feature	General Poster	Group Owner	Workspace Admin	Notes & Description
Basic Content Creation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Draft and publish basic posts, events, and pages in accessible spaces. General posters are limited to open groups or groups with member posting rights.
Default Member Notifications	Yes	Yes	Yes	Send standard notifications based on individual user preferences. General posters cannot force email blasts or override settings.
Custom Email Preferences	No	Yes	Yes	Tailor or force email delivery preferences for published updates to ensure critical group messages are delivered.
Post Approvals	No	Yes	Yes	Review, approve, or reject post submissions from group members before they appear publicly on the feed.
Homepage Carousel & Featuring	No	No	Yes	Promote major announcements or key resources directly to the primary workspace hero carousel or top-level banners.
Security & Access Controls	No	No	Yes	Restrict viewing permissions, apply specialized security access tags, or lock content editing across the workspace.
Ghost Authoring	No	No*	Yes	Publish content on behalf of executive leaders or other team members (e.g., sending an update under the CEO's profile).

*Note: Ghost authoring permission for Group Owners can be enabled via Workspace Admin settings.

Detailed Breakdown by Role

1. General Posters & Regular Members

General posters can draft and publish content in open groups or groups where they hold contribution rights, but their distribution options are intentionally streamlined:

Notification Controls: Locked to standard user defaults. General posters cannot force email blasts, override individual notification preferences, or trigger workspace-wide broadcasts.
Feature & Promotion Tools: Cannot feature items in the main homepage carousel or pin content across global spaces.
Security Controls: Restricted from altering security tags, access restrictions, or specialized visibility parameters.

2. Group Owners & Content Admins

Group Owners and specialized content admins (such as Post or Event Admins) manage localized publishing behavior within their designated areas:

Notification Customization: Can adjust notification settings and delivery preferences for members within their specific group.
Local Featuring: Can feature key resources or posts at the top of their individual group dashboard.
Approval Management: Can approve or reject post submissions from group members if post approvals are enabled for that group.
Carousel & Global Reach Limits: Group Owners cannot place items directly into the primary workspace homepage carousel unless they also hold global Post Admin or Workspace Admin privileges.

3. Workspace Admins

Workspace Admins hold unrestricted authority across every publishing feature and high-visibility channel in the system:

Homepage Carousel Placement: Exclusive ability to feature critical announcements, campaigns, or news directly on the main workspace carousel.
Broad Broadcast & Notification Overrides: Full authority to customize workspace-wide email alerts, send urgent notifications, or enforce "Must Read" flags.
Ghost Authoring: Ability to draft and publish posts on behalf of executive leaders or other team members (e.g., publishing an announcement under the CEO’s profile).
Advanced Security & Analytics: Full access to configure content-level security settings, lock editing permissions, and access end-to-end performance analytics.

Best Practices

Keep Broad Broadcast Rights Centralized: Limit Workspace Admin and Global Post Admin roles to internal communications leads to prevent notification fatigue across the company.
Empower Group Owners Locally: Allow departmental leads to manage content and local notifications in their own groups without granting them workspace-wide publishing privileges.
Use Group Approvals for Open Posting: If you want all employees in a group to submit posts, enable post approvals so Group Owners or Workspace Admins can review submissions before they go live.
Leverage Ghost Authoring for Leadership Comms: Utilize Workspace Admin ghost authoring capabilities to streamline executive communications while keeping leadership profiles secure.

Need More Help?

We're here to assist you with setting up your publishing workflows and permission structures!

Live Chat: Click the chat icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to connect with our team via the on-page support widget.
Email Support: Send your questions to support@haystackteam.com

Keywords: content publishing, permissions, workspace admin, group owner, publishing controls, notification settings, carousel, ghost authoring, post approvals, internal communications