Private projects
Limit a team project to chosen members, so only they, owners, and admins can see its chats, dashboards, Data Flows, alerts, and tasks. Business plan.
A project keeps related chats, dashboards, Data Flows, alerts, and tasks together, for a client, a team, or anything else. By default, everyone in the team can see every project.
A private project is seen only by the members you choose, plus the team's owners and admins. Use it when only some people should see the work, for example one client's account team, or a department working on something sensitive.
Before you start
You need:
- The Business plan (or a custom contract).
- To be a team Owner or Admin.
- A project in the team workspace. Personal projects can't be private.
Make a project private
- Open the project switcher at the top of the sidebar.
- Hover over the project and click the pencil to edit it.
- Under Who can see this project, choose Only chosen members.
- Add the members who should see it. You can add Viewers too; they see only the project's dashboards. Owners and admins are listed as Always has access; you don't add them.
- Click Save access.
Before anything changes, you see what will happen:
- People who made items in the project but aren't chosen. They're ticked, so they stay members unless you untick them.
- Public links in the project that will be turned off.
- Slack channels that will stop getting posts from the project's tasks, alerts, and dashboards.
- Automations that will pause because their owner can't see the project.
Click Make private to apply it. Private projects show a lock next to their name.
Who sees what
Chosen means people added to the project. Others means everyone else on the team.
| Owner | Admin | Chosen | Others | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| See it and its items | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Choose who sees it | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Move items in | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Move or copy items out | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Make public links | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Its items are its chats, dashboards, Data Flows, alerts, and tasks.
For everyone else, a private project doesn't exist: it isn't in the project switcher, pickers, or counts, and a link to one of its items says it wasn't found. This applies in the app, in Slack, and in emails.
Public links, Slack, and automations
- Public links. Making a project private turns off its items' public links. Afterwards, only owners and admins can create new ones.
- Slack channels. Tasks, alerts, and dashboards in a private project can't post to Slack channels, because we can't check who is in a channel. Direct messages to members still work. A post that is skipped tells its owner why.
- Automations. If the owner of a task, Data Flow, alert, or scheduled dashboard refresh can't see the project anymore, it pauses. It starts again when they get access back. Tasks stay off until their owner turns them on again.
- Emails. Only people who can see the project receive its task, alert, and dashboard emails. Removed members are taken off recipient lists.
Project-only data sources
In a private project, you can mark a data source as Only this project:
- Edit the project.
- Under Data sources, turn on Only this project next to the source.
Then:
- Only chats and items in this project can use the source.
- People who can't see the project don't see the source at all.
If chats outside the project use the source, you see them first. When you confirm, the source is removed from those chats, and each one gets a note saying so. Tasks, dashboards, and Data Flows outside the project that use it have to be moved into the project, or changed to use another source, before you can turn it on.
Data sources limited to a project show Only and the project's name.
Moving items
- Anyone who can see a private project can move their chats and items into it.
- Only owners and admins can move or copy items out, because that shows them to more people.
- Moving a chat moves what was made in it, like its dashboards, Data Flows, and alerts.
- A chat that answers in a Slack channel can't be moved into a private project.
- Files saved in a private project's chats belong to the project and are hidden from the team's file library for everyone else.
Changing your plan
Changes to who can see a project, its members, and its project-only data sources are recorded in the audit log.
If the team leaves the Business plan, private projects stay private. Owners and admins can still change their members or open them to everyone, but can't make another project private.