Restricting Access

Restrict access to the Contacts and data users can access

Restricting access to the Contacts and data users can access is an advanced topic with many moving parts between FieldEdge and NationBuilder.

Depending on how the users logs in, contacts are assigned differently. To help understand the advantages and disadvantanges of each login type, see our Team Setup guide.

If you would like more help with determining the right method for your security needs, please reach out to our friendly support team.

Restricting Data Fields

NationBuilder does not provide a way to show or hide specific fields. That's why FieldEdge created our App Customization. If you wish to hide certain fields, see App Customization.

Restricting Contacts in Database

Depending on how the users logs in, access to Contacts is restricted differently:

Accountless Login

Accountless users can be assigned all lists (not recommended), specific lists or no lists via the FieldEdge HQ Dashboard. You can find more info here. They will only have access to the Contacts on the lists that have been assigned to them and they can only access those lists via Canvass Walks and Call Time sessions. The Mobile CRM (People tab) is turned of for Accountless users.

NationBuilder Login

While this method provides extra security, it adds a lot of overhead and other complexities to managing lists and access to data due to some limitations of NationBuilder. We hope NB will solve this complexity soon.

If you plan to have casual volunteers use FieldEdge and have decided against Accountless users, but still wish to minimize the number of contacts they have access to, read on...

To achieve this, you can customize a Permission Set to turn off access to NationBuilder on the web and only show the people in your nation who are assigned to them (they are the point person).

Head to the Permission Set you are editing, find the "People" dropdown (right at the top), and switch it to “Assigned”. Now, untick all other options aside from the minimum Permission Set requirements mentioned above.

Important notes about using the "Assigned" feature:

1. To make people visible in FieldEdge (and NationBuilder), you’ll need to ensure that the user is set as the point person for each person on their list. The easiest way to do this is to do a batch update on the list (see below).

2. While a list can be shared with a whole permission set (a group of people), each person on a list can only be assigned a single point person. This means that if using the "Assigned" feature, you will need to create a different list for each user. That list can however contain the same people.

Assign people on your list a point person

NationBuilder currently requires this when using the "Assigned" permission set feature

The “Assigned” permission set option in NationBuilder gives those people the ability to see and interact only with profiles assigned to them in the People section.

If you’re using the “Assigned” feature with FieldEdge, you’ll need to ensure that the user is set as the point person for each person on their list.

While the point person can assigned via the Edit tab of a person, we can can update an entire list at once by using the Batch Update feature:

1. Edit the list (for example, the one you are assigning to a canvasser)

2. Head to the Batch Update tab

3. Find the Point person field and select the canvasser in the list

4. Now, hit “Update All” button to apply the change to everyone on the list.

All of the people in that list are now assigned to the canvasser and will be visible in FieldEdge.

Note: While a list can be shared with a whole permission set (a group of people), each person on a list can only be assigned a single point person. This means that if using the “Assigned” feature, you will need to create a different list for each canvasser. That list can however contain the same people.

A note on NationBuilder Groups + FieldEdge

With NationBuilder's Group feature, you can create one or more Groups of control panel users. A Group can be assigned one or more lists. When restricting access (using the "restricted" permission), a Group can provide access to the people on the Group's Lists.

While this is an amazing feature in theory for restricting access in the field – unforteuntly, as of today, NationBuilder doesn't provide access to the list itself which breaks traditional list based canvassing. We hope in the future this will be rectified so FieldEdge customers can use the power and ease of Groups.