An Overview of Viewing Permissions for Lessons on ScreenSteps Live

Three levels of permissions can be set for lessons that you upload to ScreenSteps Live.

1. Public: Anyone who comes to your ScreenSteps Live site will be able to see this lesson.
2. Private: This lesson will only be viewable by people you give permission to (Admin and Author users on your account can always see all lessons). This can become public if you drop it into a topic. We will talk about that below.
3. Hidden: It doesn't show up on your main ScreenSteps Live site. People can't search for it there. But if you send someone the full url to the lesson they can view it.

There are two ways of accessing lessons on ScreenSteps Live: in the All Lessons section (1), or inside a Manual (2). All Lessons are just all of the lessons that you post to ScreenSteps Live. A user that comes to your site will be able to see all of the lessons that you have uploaded as "public" lessons. Admin or Author users will see all lessons on your account.

NOTE: There is a way to override this behavior so that no lessons are available to users who haven't logged in. Please see the "Require Login for all Users" lesson if you wish to do this.

Manuals are a little different. Manuals are groupings of lessons that you have created. When a lesson is in a manual the lesson's permission doesn't matter. Access to the lesson is controlled by the permission you set on the manual itself.

A manual can be public or private. A public manual will show up on your main ScreenSteps Live page. A private manual will only be viewable when an admin or author has logged in UNLESS you give Readers (users that you add to your account) permission to view them.

In this example the manual is marked as private.

This manual is public.

If you make a manual public then all of the lessons in that manual will be viewable by anyone who comes to your site, regardless of the permission level you have set on the individual lessons.

So what if you have a manual that you only want certain people to see? That is when you need to add Readers to a manual.

Create new reader accounts for the users you wish to view the lessons. You can learn how to do that here.

You can hen add readers to your manual. You learn how to do that here.

Now, when a reader logs into your account they will see:
1. All lessons you have marked as public.
2. All manuals you have marked as public.
3. All manuals that are marked as private but that you have given them permission to view.