Overview

Audience Based Access Control (ABAC) provides the flexibility to enable highly targeted content, communications and access controls. This article provides an overview on how to create a page restricted to a specific audience. This capability allows content creators to control content visibility by assigning relevant audiences and is often referred to as "having private pages on a site."

Who is this for: App managers, site owners, site managers, site content managers

Page definition and usage

Pages are one of the three types of site content, along with events and albums. Pages are pieces of content that populate your users' home and site feeds. They can contain multimedia information including files and images. Pages are the most common form of communication on sites.

Audience definition and usage

Audiences are customizable groups of users based on attributes like role, location, or specific individuals. They can then be used to manage who has access to specific features and content.

What does it mean to restrict a page?

Restricting a page will ensure that only the selected audiences within a site have access to view that specific page. This means you can have pages that are visible to everyone within your site, or you can have pages visible to specific people/audiences within your site.

If a page is not restricted, it is accessible by the default audience in the site as always:

• Public site: Everyone who can access the site can see the page

• Private site: Everyone who is a member of the site can see the page

Who can restrict a page? Any user who can create content will be able to restrict the access of a page:

• App managers, Site owner, Site managers, Site content managers

• Standard users (if content submission enabled)

• Feature owner/Admin/Manager of Manage site Access Control Group (if enabled)

Who can be added as an author

For any site, authors can only be added from within that site's visibility scope meaning a user must already be able to see/access the site to be eligible to be added as an author on its content.

Caveat: App managers and users in the Manage Site ACG can be added as authors even if they fall outside the site's visibility scope.

For restricted content specifically, the eligible author pool is:

• Users within the restricted audience of that content, plus

• Site managers, content managers, and site owner

• App manager or users in the Manage Site ACG these can be added as authors even if they are not part of the restricted audience

Step 1: Identify your site

As always, pages are created within sites. Before you create your page, determine which site the page will be added to. Your site's target audience will determine the max scope on who can see your content.

For example, if I have a public site for everyone in the organization, then by default when I create a page, everyone in the organization will see my page.

Check out this article for creating a site and defining visibility and site subscription.

Step 2: Creating a page and restricting your audience

To create a page:

1. Click the + Create button at the bottom left of your screen.

2. Click Page.

3. Select the site you would like to publish your page to.

4. Fill out the necessary fields:

   • Title

   • Content body

   • Page category

   • Topics

   • Upload files (if applicable)

5. Toggle on the option to Restrict who can see this page.

6. Select whether you want to restrict files. Files can be restricted even if the page is not.

7. Select your audience for the page.

8. Click Publish.

We recommend sending a content notification to your target audience to let them know the page is ready for them to view.

Deep dive: Selecting your audience for a page

Available audiences while restricting a page depends on the type of the site:

• Content on a public site: Site visibility and their hierarchy and site's system audiences will be available in the audience picker.

• Content on a private site: Only the site's default system audiences will be available in the audience picker.

Select an audience by following the below steps:

1. Under the Select audience section, click Browse.

2. If you would like for this page to be visible to a selected audience:

   • Browse through the available audiences.

   • Select your preferred audience.

3. If you would like for this page to be visible to a sub-audience:

   • Click on the + icon (Add sub-audience) in front of any audience.

   • Enter the audience details.

   • Click Create.

   • Select the newly created sub-audience.

4. Once your audience selections are made, click Done.

5. If you are not ready to publish this page just yet, click Save to save it as a draft.

To access this draft at a later time:

1. Click the rocketship icon on your side navigation bar, titled Manage features.

2. Click Content.

3. Your drafted page will appear, and will be available to edit, delete, or publish.

Best practices and recommendations

When creating a page:

• Use descriptive page titles that accurately reflect the content and purpose of the page.

Selecting your audience:

• When choosing your audience, you can create a more targeted sub-audience by clicking the + button. This allows you to add a group or rule to define a smaller segment of your existing audience. Within the sub-audience selection, you can view the list of users included in that audience by clicking on the number indicating its size.

After audience selection:

• Once you have made your audience selection, you can verify which users will have access to the page. Click the three dots to the right of the user images to double-check the list of individuals with access.

When publishing your page:

• Consider creating a review process for restricted pages to ensure content accuracy and audience relevance before publishing.

Visibility of the restricted content

Content can be restricted to a specific audience and will be visible only to users in that audience, subject to applicable permissions.

A user who is not part of the restricted audience cannot view the content, even if they are the author, unless they have the required managerial permissions.

Restricted content remains accessible to users with applicable management permissions, including Site Owners, Site Managers, Site Content Managers, App Managers, and Manage Site ACG admins/managers.

Managing a restricted page

Content that has restricted access will now be marked with a lock icon within the Manage content screens (accessible via Manage > Content or Manage site > Content). This update helps managers easily identify restricted content.

Clicking on the lock icon displays what audience is that page is restricted to.

View all the restricted content in that site by using the 'Restricted' filter on the Manage content screen.

Page notifications

If a page is restricted, notifications will be sent only to users who are a part of the restricted audience.

Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting introduces the concept of a Protected Author, an author on whose behalf other qualified users may manage content, subject to the applicable permission boundaries.

Content authored by a Protected Author can be edited by Feature Owners, App Managers, ACG Admins/Managers, and qualified Allow List users with minimum content management rights. These same users can also assign a Protected Author as the content author.

Site Owners and Site Managers are not permitted to change the author on behalf of a Protected Author.

Related articles: 

• ABAC: Creating a site

• Content creation/What are pages?