A Read-only Site Administrator sees exactly what a Site Administrator can see, nothing less. The distinction is permission to make changes, not visibility. Granting this access requires a level of trust close to that required for a Site Administrator. It supports troubleshooting, audits, and oversight by people trusted to review the site's configuration and activity.

Administrative Visibility

Any feature, record, or setting visible to a Site Administrator is equally visible to a Read-only Site Administrator. References throughout this documentation to what Site Administrators can view apply equally to Read-only Site Administrators.

This visibility includes highly sensitive information about other people's work. API request logs, for example, show usernames, request paths, IP addresses, and operation results. Together with configuration and sharing records, that information reveals how people and systems use the site.

Both kinds of administrator see the same recorded request paths. Credential filtering removes recognized credential values before those paths are logged, so neither view recovers the filtered values.

Logs, messages, and other administrative records can also contain file contents, data read from files, or URLs that provide access to file contents. For example, Automation run records can show data read or produced by an Automation that processes files, and AS2 logs can link to retained transmitted file contents when those contents are available.

Treat these permissions as highly privileged access to the site's data, including file contents, and apply the same care to assignment, account protection, and access reviews as for Site Administrators. Preventing configuration changes does not keep information in administrative records confidential from the person reviewing them. Grant this access only when the person's work requires broad administrative visibility and they are trusted with that data; ordinary folder permissions are appropriate when they only need access to selected files.

Permissions to Make Changes

Read-only Site Administrator access does not grant permission to change site configuration. Permissions granted separately still authorize their usual actions. For example, a user who also has Folder Admin permission can manage the supported settings of that folder, and a user with Share permission can create Share Links. Granting this access does not remove permissions the account already holds.

Child Sites

A Read-only Site Administrator on the Parent Site automatically has Read-only Site Administrator visibility on every Child Site, without a separate grant for each one. This matches the scope of a Parent Site Administrator's view and continues for as long as the user holds Read-only Site Administrator access on the Parent Site.

On each Child Site, the user sees exactly what its Site Administrators can see, without permission to change its configuration. Access to file and folder contents remains subject to their folder permissions on that Child Site. Administrative records can contain file contents or links to them, as described above.

For parent-site users who do not have Read-only Site Administrator access on the Parent Site, access can instead be granted to selected Child Sites, directly or through a group. Each grant provides the same administrative visibility within the selected Child Site. It does not grant access to the Parent Site or other Child Sites, or change who can manage the parent-site account.

Administrative Access covers assignment and related administrative permissions. Full Parent Site Administrator authority is different: it includes management of every Child Site and cannot be reduced through Child Site configuration.