Managing website permissions

What are access permissions?

Access permissions allow administrators to grant or restrict visibility to specific areas, pages, and features of your website based on member groups. For example, you can make a registration page or a news article visible only to full-time members while keeping it hidden from prospect members or the public.

You can control permissions across five areas of MC Professional:

• Articles: Individual site pages or content blocks.
• Categories: Folders used to organize articles. If a member group is blocked from a category, they are automatically blocked from viewing any article inside that category.
• Menu Items: The clickable navigation links in your menu bar.
• Widgets: Reusable content blocks (like announcement sidebars or quick links) displayed on your pages.
• Calendar: Scheduled events displayed on your public or member-only calendars.

Best practice: When creating brand-new articles, forms, or events, we highly recommend setting their permissions to Admin Only while you work on them. This keeps the draft content safely hidden from your members and the public until it is fully finalized and ready to go live.

Article permissions

You can manage article permissions using two different methods:

Method 1: In bulk

1. Go to Website > Articles.
2. Click the Permissions button in the top toolbar.
3. Locate your articles in the first column and your database member groups in the remaining columns.
4. To grant every single group access to an article at once, check the Quick Set box for that article's row.
5. To grant access selectively, check the individual boxes under the specific member group columns.
6. Click Save.

Method 2: Inside the article editor

1. Go to Website > Articles and click the title of an individual article to edit it.
2. Locate the Group Access checkboxes on the right-hand side of the editor screen.
3. Check or uncheck the boxes for the appropriate member groups.
4. Click Save.

Note: Changing permissions here instantly updates the master permissions grid, and vice versa.

Category permissions

Category permissions are typically established during your website's initial launch setup, but they can be adjusted by an administrator at any time.

1. Go to Website > Categories.
2. Click the Permissions button in the top toolbar.
3. Locate your category folders in the first column.
4. Check the Quick Set box in a row to open that category folder to all member groups.
5. Check individual column boxes to grant access to specific member groups only.
6. Click Save.

Menu item permissions

1. Go to Website > Menu Items.
2. Click on the name of the specific navigation menu set you want to update (such as Main Menu or Footer Menu).
3. In the top toolbar of that menu set, click the Permissions button.
4. Locate your navigation links in the first column.
5. Check the Quick Set box to make a link visible to all visitors.
6. Check individual group columns to restrict the link to specific member groups.
7. Click Save.

Widget permissions

1. Go to Website > Widgets.
2. Click the Permissions button in the top toolbar.
3. Locate your custom widgets listed in the first column.
4. To open a widget to every member group, check the box directly underneath the main "Widget" column header for that row.
5. To restrict the widget, check the individual group boxes across that row.
6. Click Save.

Calendar event permissions

You can manage event visibility using two different methods:

Method 1: In bulk

1. Go to Community > Calendar.
2. Click the Permissions button in the top toolbar.
3. Locate your scheduled events in the first column.
4. To make an event visible to everyone, check the box directly underneath the main Event Title column header for that row.
5. To restrict visibility, check the individual member group checkboxes across that row.
6. Click Save.

Method 2: Inside the event editor

1. Go to Community > Calendar and click on the title of the specific event you want to modify.
2. Scroll to the Permissions section on the event set up page.
3. Click Toggle All to quickly select or clear all groups.
4. Check or uncheck the checkboxes for specific member groups individually.
5. Click Save.

Note: Saving your changes here automatically updates the master Event Permissions matrix.