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Two settings decide who reaches a canvas:
  • Visibility decides who in your organization sees the canvas on their Canvases page and through their agents.
  • Access mode decides who can open the link.
Your agent sets both when it creates or changes a canvas, and you can change them on the Canvases page at any time. Changing either is free.

Owner and visibility

Every canvas has an owner: the person whose API key or connected agent created it. Inside its organization, a canvas is visible in one of two ways: New canvases are Private unless the agent chooses otherwise. An Admin can change this on the Defaults page under Default visibility. To change a canvas’s visibility, select Manage next to it, then Share with organization or Make private. Only the owner or an Admin can do this. Making a canvas private takes it out of other members’ lists at once.

Access modes

A canvas link works like a password while the canvas uses link access. Anyone who has the URL can open the canvas and work on it. Use signed_in or invited for anything you would not post publicly.

Who can open a canvas

A person can open a canvas if any one of these is true:
  1. They own it and are still a member of its organization.
  2. They are an Admin of its organization.
  3. They are a member of its organization and the canvas is shared with the organization.
  4. A verified email of theirs is on the invite list.
  5. The canvas uses Signed-in people and they are signed in.
  6. The canvas uses Anyone with the link.
CanvasView checks this on every request and every live connection. Nothing is granted for good.

Canvas roles

Everyone who opens a canvas has a role on it. Your agent can give an invited address any role with set_canvas_access, for example to make a colleague from another organization an editor, or a reader a viewer. A role on the invite list can raise or lower someone, but never lowers the owner or an Admin. The Who can open this canvas dialog sets addresses only. Saving it gives every address on the list the Participant role.

Change who can open a canvas

  1. Open Canvases.
  2. Select the access button next to the canvas. It shows the current mode, such as Anyone with the link.
  3. Choose a mode in Who can open this canvas.
  4. For Invited people, enter the email addresses, one per line.
  5. Select Save.
Only admins of the canvas can change who can open it: its owner, the organization’s Admins, and anyone invited as an admin.

When access gets narrower

When a canvas becomes more restricted, everyone who no longer qualifies is disconnected at once. This happens when:
  • the access mode changes to one fewer people can use, such as from Anyone with the link to Invited people;
  • an address comes off the invite list;
  • the canvas is made private;
  • an Admin gives the canvas a new owner, and the previous owner no longer qualifies.
What people already did on the canvas, such as answers and comments, stays. When someone leaves your organization, their access through membership ends too, and their email comes off your canvases’ invite lists. See Organizations and members.

Invitations

Each new address on the invite list gets one email with the canvas title and link, sent shortly after you save. If someone did not get it, share the link with them yourself. An invited person must sign in with the invited address, and the address must be verified. If they sign in with another address, the canvas says Invitation required and shows the address they used.

What people see

  • Anyone with the link. The canvas opens straight away. People are asked for their name, which labels what they do.
  • Signed-in people and Invited people. The canvas asks people to Sign in or create an account, then returns them to the canvas. Their name comes from their CanvasView sign-in and cannot be changed on the canvas.
Everyone who opens a canvas while signed in, other than its owner, sees The owner can see that you opened this canvas. at the top.

Who opened it

The owner and Admins can see everyone who opened a canvas. On the Canvases page, select Manage, then Who opened it…. Each entry shows:
  • the person’s name;
  • their verified email if they were signed in, or Name not verified for someone who opened a link canvas without signing in;
  • how they had access: Owner, Admin, Organization, Invited or Viewer;
  • when they first and last opened it.
Signed-in people are listed by the name and verified email from their sign-in. Anonymous link viewers are listed by the name they typed, one entry per browser. The log keeps up to 1,000 viewers for each canvas and shows the 200 most recent. It holds no canvas content, and it is deleted with the canvas.

The Canvases page

The Canvases page has three sections. Each row has one label for how you have access. Rows in Yours also show the canvas’s visibility, its owner when that is not you, the number of answers, and the key or agent that created it. Rows you own, or every row if you are an Admin, show how many people opened the canvas and when it was last opened. Canvases in Shared with you and Recently viewed show which organization they belong to, and only open. A canvas leaves Recently viewed when it expires, and both lists when it is deleted or you lose access. An expired canvas stays in Shared with you, marked Expired, until its read-only period ends. To take a canvas off Recently viewed, select Remove. Opening it again puts it back.

Default access for new canvases

The Defaults page sets the access new canvases start with when your agent does not choose one: Anyone with the link or Signed-in people. The built-in default is Anyone with the link. Existing canvases keep their own access. Only Admins can change defaults. See Canvas lifetime for the other defaults on that page.

Canvases that use a data source

A component on a canvas can call a data source your organization approved. Anyone who can open that canvas can make those calls through CanvasView. So a canvas that uses a data source is not left open to anyone with the link by default:
  • A canvas created with a data source starts as Signed-in people when the agent did not choose an access mode and your default access is Anyone with the link.
  • When a link-access canvas starts using a data source, CanvasView switches it to Signed-in people and sends a notification.
An access mode the agent sets, or one you set on the canvas, always wins. You can switch the canvas back to Anyone with the link on the Canvases page if link sharing is intended, and CanvasView does not undo that.

Report a canvas

Anyone viewing a canvas can open More in the bar and select Report canvas. CanvasView reviews reports. If CanvasView removes a canvas after a report, its link stops working, and you get a notification that explains how to contact support.