Owner, administrators and users

Every account on Tesria belongs to one of three tiers: owner, administrator or user. The tier decides whose account can act on whose, and it is the first thing to understand before changing anything in Administration.

The three tiers

• Owner. Exactly one account: whoever set Tesria up, until they hand it to someone else. The owner can do everything, always. Nobody else can suspend the owner, sign them out, reset their password or turn off their two-factor, so the instance always has a way back in.

• Administrators. The people who look after the instance day to day. What they may do is set by their role (see Roles). Administrators cannot demote one another; only the owner can.

• Users. Everyone else: they read and write pages, create spaces, export and use API tokens, as their role allows. They never see the Administration area.

A role is a set of rights inside a tier. Each tier has a built-in role, called Owner, Administrator and User, and you can add your own: say, a Contractor role in the user tier that cannot export. Moving someone to another role in the same tier never changes their tier.

What only the owner can do

• Promote users to administrator, and demote administrators. The owner can give promoting (never demoting) to an administrator role.

• Transfer ownership to someone else.

• Change what administrator roles may do, and create new administrator roles.

• Change the branding, and restore a backup. These two are the owner’s by default, and the owner can give them to an administrator role.

Handing the instance to someone else

When the owner is leaving, or set Tesria up on someone else’s behalf, ownership can move to another account. Only the owner can do this, so this part is described in words rather than pictured.

Step 1: Find the new owner

In Admin, Users (Admin is in the top bar; in a narrower window it is under More, and on a phone in the ☰ menu), find the person. Their account has to be active: a suspended account cannot own the instance.

Step 2: Choose Transfer ownership

It is in their row, and only the owner sees it. A box explains that you become an administrator, and that only the new owner can change roles or hand ownership back.

Step 3: Confirm

Choose Transfer ownership in the box, and enter your password if asked.

The other account becomes the owner at once, and yours becomes an administrator. Nobody is signed out. Every administrator is alerted, including you: if it was not your doing, that is the moment to act.