Last reviewed: July 18, 2025

User Roles, Permissions and Access

User roles

Users of Content Publisher. can have different roles, each role holding possibly different permissions and access to different parts of Content Publisher. Below is a summary of the roles:

Contributor

Contributor users are the ones creating content and able to submit their content from their editorial tools to the Content Publisher service  (as of now, using our Google Docs add-on or a custom solution based on our Ingest API).

They are typically content writers that collaborate in their collaboration tool (eg. Google Docs) and are able from there to send their content for publishing via Content Publisher.

  • Contributors using Google Docs don’t have to use any other system, and don’t need to sign-up to Content Publisher. They simply only need to install a content publisher add-on to be able to contribute to a content collection to which they’ve been given access.
  • Contributors typically don’t have access to Content Publisher admin interface and don’t have an account to use that system..

Collection Manager

Collection Managers are typically in charge of managing the publishing process for content being created for the websites they govern. They have ownership of one or several content collections that they can manage and configure. They supervise both governance and operations having the authority to define which content is being published where and how.

  • They can manage the collection’s structure: create sections, sub-sections, order documents and sections, edit, hide or even unpublish documents.
  • They can configure the collection: deciding on the collection’s visibility (who can publish)  and approval process (moderated or not)
  • They own the publishing workflow and are responsible for approval of content when a collection is configured to use the approval’s workflow.

Although a Collection Manager might belong to a Google Workspace that has many other collections configured beyond the one he is a manager, and to which he might be able to publish, he will not see these collections in Content Publisher admin interface. He will only see the collections he is a managing

.

In other words, a collection manager for a given collection might be only a contributor for another and this does not create any conflict in the interface as contribution (Google Docs add-on) and management (content.pantheon.io) are two different systems.

To be entitled to access Content Publisher admin interface, Collection Managers need to have a Pantheon.io user account (either free personal plan or existing pantheon.io website plan).

Provisioning/sign-up is manual (either by the user or by Pantheon Customer Success Team) in current version of the solution

Administrator

Administrators are the persons owning collections from an operational perspective and from a procurement perspective. A person becomes an administrator by the action of creating a collection.

A collection manager for Collection A might become administrator of Collection B when creating it, but will remain collection manager for collection A (permissions are all happening at collection level).

  • To create a collection, users simply need to have a pantheon.io user account and to access content.pantheon.io and create a collection
  • Future limitation and entitlement will be introduced when the solution reaches Public Preview and furthermore when the solution reach General Availability status
  • After creating a collection, an administrator has the same operational role as a Collection Manager, but can, on top of that, delete the collection.

As owner of the collection, the administrator is the one connecting the collection to billing and entitlement systems (from Public Preview only). The administrator will then be the one receiving invoices and accountable for payment, be it in a self-service way or in a contractual way, via the organization he belongs to. (work in progress to be further defined)

Developer

Developers are typically using Content Publisher in different ways:

  • Using the Delivery API to develop websites leveraging Content Publisher content.
  • Using the Ingest API to create new content sources for contributors to work in.
  • Using the Pantheon Content Publisher public API to extend Content Publisher to programmatically manage all things Collection Manager and Administrators can do.
  • Access control and entitlement to be detailed further. (work in progress to be further defined)

Permissions break-down

The following tables summarize the permissions for the different users.

Admin

Collection Manager

Contributor

Content Publisher Add-on for Google Docs

Connect document

✅

✅

✅

Send Document (with Gdocs edit access) for Publishing

✅

✅

✅

Send Document (without Gdocs edit access) for Publishing

❌

❌

❌

Preview Document (with Gdocs view access)

✅

✅

✅

Access content checker

✅

✅

✅

Access content analytics

✅

✅

✅

Connect Google Analytics

✅

✅

✅

Un-publish documents (with Gdocs edit access)

✅

✅

✅

Un-publish documents (without Gdocs edit access)

✅

✅

❌

Add smart component

✅

✅

✅

Update metadata field definitions

✅

✅

❌

Content Publisher Admin Panel

Approve & publish document

✅

✅

❌

Edit and save metadata

✅

✅

❌

Update collection structure

✅

✅

❌

Exclude document from search

✅

✅

❌

Configure collection permissions

✅

✅

❌

Add and remove collection managers

✅

✅

❌

Configure collection approval mode

✅

✅

❌

Create collection

✅

✅

❌

Delete collection

✅

❌

❌

Update collection

✅

✅

❌

Create and revoke Access tokens

✅

✅

❌

Create and revoke Mgmt tokens

✅

❌

❌

Content Publisher APIs

Delivery API

✅

✅

❌

Ingest API

✅

❌

❌

Public API

✅

❌

❌

Entitlement, Billing, Payment and Metering

These aspects of the service will be documented later on as the solution reaches Public Preview and eventually GA. All will be linked to the administrator role.