See what your client sees
“There’s a link that says ‘edit’ but I don’t see the page listed.”
“I don’t see anything about forms.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
...
Note: in this article, the terms ‘client’, ‘member’ and ‘user’ are used interchangably. They all refer to an ExpressionEngine user with access to entries in the control panel.
When setting up member groups in ExpressionEngine, it’s important to login as an end-user, that is, login as if you were your client. This way you can see exactly what they see when they login, and troubleshoot potential problems. In ExpressionEngine 2, go to Members—> View All. Click the member’s name, then scroll down to the bottom and click ‘Login as member’, then choose ‘Control panel’. Note: Steps for ExpressionEngine 1 are very similar.
Once you’ve logged in as this person, consider what actions they’ll be performing in the control panel. For most users, 90% of their work will be publishing and editing entries. Make sure that they have access to the correct channels, but also that you hide channels they shouldn’t see. For example, in may of our installs we have channels that contain entries whos URL titles match corresponding templates. We then use Playa to allow users to select and order content blocks on a page. So we typically have a channel called ‘columns’ or something like that. We don’t want the client to see it.
Additionally, if you’re using certain add-ons like Zenbu or FreeForm, you will need to provide users limited access to these add-ons as well. Unfortunately, such access is not as granular as it should be, so you may have to expose some parts of ExpressionEngine to your client you prefer to keep hidden.
