Read access and rights per operation
After this article you'll know what read access may and may not do, what it costs, and how operations control who may edit which records.
Read access is access to the admin area that only looks: it opens the same lists and documents as an admin but cannot save anything. Next to it sit operations: they narrow the admin area so that a role only edits the records of its own operation. Both hang off a custom role, not off a new level — the levels stay Owner, Admin, Crew and No access.
Read access
Read access is admin access with a read role. The person signs in normally, sees the admin area and everything their role may see — but every attempt to save is refused. Instead you get “With read-only access you can view, comment and export, but not change anything. Ask an account owner for an editing role.” The header additionally shows the banner “Read access — you can view, comment and export, but not change anything.”
| Allowed | Not possible |
|---|---|
| Viewing: dashboard, inquiries, events, inventory, locations, finance, Staff, Settings | Changing anything: no create, edit, delete or archive |
| Reading and writing comments | No time tracking, no ticking off shifts or tasks |
| Writing direct messages | No connecting or changing a mailbox or calendar |
| Downloading exports — except DATEV and BMD | No subscription, setting or invitation changes |
| Printing documents as a print view or PDF | No sending invitations, no changing roles |
Viewing leaves no traces. While viewing, Univents stores nothing in the background for read access: the read marker of a Postfach thread stays unchanged for everyone else, and no error message appears. Comments and direct messages may be written.
Creating a read role
- Open Settings → Roles and click Create role.
- Give it a name, for example “Read only”, and pick the Read only template (“See everything, change nothing · counts as a read seat”) — or set every action in the permission matrix to View.
- In the role list, set the role to Kind: Read only. Under the switch it then says “Read-only role — counts as a read seat.” Create, Edit and Delete are locked in the permission matrix; View stays switchable.
- Assign the role to a person under Staff › Access. The list then shows Admin · Read access.
You can switch a read role back to Kind: Edit at any time; the existing permissions stay in place.
What does read access cost?
On the Scale plan one read seat is included per admin seat. Every additional read seat costs €19 per month or €190 per year. Univents shows the amount before saving; if you do not confirm it, the person stays without the read role.
Growth and Core have no read access — they do not include role management. In billing, a read seat counts separately from admin seats: the billing page states how many read seats are included and how many are charged on top. When you move to a plan without read access, read seats count as admin seats again; the billing page warns you beforehand.
Operations
An operation is a role's working area, expressed through event tags. A record belongs to an operation when it or its location carries one of that operation's tags. A role with operation tags sees events, inquiries, documents, tasks and shifts only from its own operation — as before. Booking pages, products and locations it sees all of, because quotes need the whole catalogue; it can only edit those of its own operation. Foreign entries open read-only with the note Belongs to business … — read only, and both lists start with the My business filter; All entries still reaches the whole catalogue.
Setting up operations:
- Under Locations, give each venue the tag of its operation, for example “Cologne” or “Düsseldorf”.
- Create one role per operation and pick the matching tag under Event visibility (tags).
- Assign the role to that operation's admins.
Assigning existing records. Products and booking pages without a tag belong to no operation. Adding the tag makes them part of it — fastest via bulk editing with Add tags across the whole selection.
Shared records. Records without an operation tag are shared. A restricted role sees them but can only edit them if May edit shared records is switched on in its role. Without that switch a shared record stays read-only.
The guard also applies on save. If a role tries to change a record outside its operation, Univents refuses with “This belongs to another operation. You can view it, but not change it.” and nothing is saved. The same applies to locations: a role cannot stretch its operation onto another venue. The owner and admins without a role are never restricted.
Automations apply to the whole workspace. An automation runs across all operations, regardless of who created it or which role they have. So after setting up operations, review which rules touch records outside your operation.
Frequently asked questions
May read access comment? Yes. Comments and direct messages are explicitly allowed — they do not change business data. Anyone who should not write at all gets No access instead of read access.
May read access send invoices? No. Printing and downloading as PDF yes; sending, approving or marking as paid no.
Why don't I see the “Read only” template? Custom roles and templates start with the Scale plan. Below that the page shows a note about the required upgrade.
Does a read seat count as an admin seat? No, it counts as its own read seat. On Scale one is included per admin seat, every additional one costs €19 per month.