How users and groups work in MangoMap
Put people in a group, share maps and data with the group, and everyone in it can get in — up to whatever their role allows.
A user is one person with a login. A group is a named set of users. Most access decisions follow one rule:
Put people in a group. Share maps and data with that group. Everyone in the group can use what the group can access.
Share with groups, not people one at a time. To give a teammate access, add them to the right group. This page is about sharing privately with your team; publishing a map to the public web is a separate thing.
Three things set what a person can do:
Which groups you're in
Being in a group is what brings a map or dataset within reach. If none of your groups has it, it doesn’t show up in your account at all.
How it was shared
Each map or dataset is shared with a group to view or to edit.
Your role
A limit on what you can do. A Viewer can look but never change — even in a group that can edit.
In short: your groups grant access, and your role sets the limit.
The four roles
Each person has one account role. It limits what they can do, even when their groups grant more access. Most people are Editors or Viewers.
| Role | What they’re for |
|---|---|
| Owner | Runs the account. Sees and can change everything without being in any group, creates the groups, and invites people. One per account. |
| Admin | Builds things. Creates maps and datasets, controls whatever they make, and can share it with groups — so the Owner does not need to handle every new item. |
| Editor | Maintains data. Edits the attributes and geometry of any dataset a group of theirs can edit. Changes the data, not a map’s design — restyling a map is an Admin job — and doesn’t create maps or datasets of their own. |
| Viewer | Reads maps. Pan, zoom, click features, filter, query — but changes nothing, even where a group has edit access. |
Follow one setup, start to finish
Tom is the Chief Data Wrangler at Mapping Inc., and the account Owner — so he’s the one who makes groups and invites people. (Admins can share maps and data too, but only the Owner manages people and groups.)
Make a group
Tom creates a group called Wranglers for his two assistant wranglers, Sally and Rick.
Add the people
Sally and Rick are Editors. On its own that gives them nothing — it means only they’re allowed to edit data wherever a group of theirs can.
Share maps and data with the group
Tom shares the Customers dataset with Wranglers to edit, and the two maps
built from it to view. Choose View or Edit when you share an item.
One dataset can sit behind any number of maps. The Customers and Sales Territories maps are two views of the same Customers data, which is why all three are shared with the group. Because the edit is on the dataset, Sally and Rick do their editing right inside either map — click a feature, change its attributes, move its geometry — and since both maps read the same data, the change shows up in both. Had Tom shared the dataset to view instead, they’d open both maps and change nothing.
A second group, a different kind of member
Tom also puts his boss Emily and the other executives in a group called Management. They read internal maps to make strategic decisions, but they shouldn’t change those maps or the data behind them — so they’re Viewers.
Strategic Sales is eyes-only. Sally and Rick aren’t in Management, so it never appears in their accounts — maps you haven’t been given are hidden, not locked.
So who sees what?
Here are both groups in one picture: who is in each one, and what each group can reach.
That is the whole system. In practice:
- Sally and Rick (Wranglers, Editors) open the Customers and Sales Territories maps and edit the Customers data behind them. Strategic Sales isn’t shared with any group they’re in, so it does not appear.
- Emily and Alan (Management, Viewers) open Strategic Sales to read it. The Wranglers maps and the Customers data aren’t in their accounts at all.
- Tom (Owner) sees and can change everything — in every group, or none.
Each person gets what their groups were given, limited by their role.
Maps and the data behind them are separate
Sally can edit the Customers data but only view the maps built on it, because a map and its dataset are two separate things, shared one at a time. It’s the edit on the Customers dataset — not her role alone — that lets her actually change features.
It works the other way too: share Strategic Sales with Management to edit tomorrow, and Emily still changes nothing, because Viewer caps her at looking. A generous share can’t lift someone above their role, and a high role can’t reach something nobody shared with them.
Need help? Email support@mangomap.com or open the support messenger from inside your account.