In Explain Everything you can share your projects with others and run collaborations with both users as well as people who don't have an account. With Access Permissions you can control who can join the project and if they'll be able to edit, view, and download it.
Tip: If you're an Admin of a Group Account and would like to control content sharing permissions and feature access in your group, learn how to restrict the ability to share projects and videos for your Group, and how to restrict feature access for the Members of your Group.
Note: The number of people able to collaborate simultaneously is up to 25, but we recommend smaller groups for now — it works best with 8 people. This is important to maintain project's stability. The quality of live collaboration also depends on the quality of your internet connection. We are constantly improving the technical capacity of this feature, so you can count on us gradually reducing those limits.
Available Access permission settings
Project's Access permission consists of two settings:
- Who can access the project
- What they're able to do with it
You can set a general permission for the whole project and separate permissions for every person you've invited by email or username. You can also mix them for more granular control.
1. Who can access | 2. Type of access |
Anyone with the link Anyone at my organization Only specified people |
View only View and download Edit |
Who can access
- Anyone with the link – anyone who has the link or CODE to the project will be able to access it.
- Anyone at my organization – available only for people in Group accounts. Anyone within your Group who has the link or CODE to the project will be able to access it.
- Only specified people – only people whose email addresses or usernames you've entered will be able to access the project.
Tip: To make your project Private, select Only specified people setting and don’t add anyone (or remove everyone that was invited earlier).
Note: If you're on a Class or School plan you won't be able to invite people from outside your organization. This is due to school and student privacy protection. Additionally, Student accounts on these plans can only invite Admins and Teachers to their projects.
Type of access
- View only – people with access will be only able to see the project's contents. All the tools and options, Zoom and the recording button will be unavailable for them. They won’t be able to either edit or download the project. This mode will be the best for presenting live and for sharing notes and sketchnotes so others can view it anytime.
- View and download – people with access will be able to see the project's contents and download the project file for their own use. The audience won’t be able to collaborate live and edit anything in the original project. Choose this one if you'd like your audience to reuse the project file without being able to change the original. This is how you can create and share project templates or homework.
- Edit – people with access will be able to add and change the contents of the project. They'll be able to use all the tools and options. They will also be able to move around on the canvas freely. If you leave the project, a person with the Edit type of access will become the host. The Edit access is the best for a live collaboration on a whiteboard with others. Use it to brainstorm, solve tasks, engage students, or create presentations together.
Tip: You can further customize what people with Edit access can do in the project. Learn about Collaboration Scenarios.
Set general Access permissions
You can set the general permissions of a cloud project to control what will be possible when accessing it with the link or CODE.
- While in a project, select the Invite/CODE button on the top of the screen.
- Select Access permissions from the menu.
- Select one of the options to choose who can access the project.
- Select the icon next to the option to set the type of access for the chosen audience. If you selected Only specified people follow these steps to set up their own type of access.
- While in a project, select the Invite/CODE button on the top of the screen.
- Select Access permissions from the menu.
- Select one of the options to choose who can access the project.
- Select the icon next to the option to set the type of access for the chosen audience. If you selected Only specified people follow these steps to set up their own type of access.
From Explain Drive
- Sign into Explain Drive.
- On the project you'd like to set permissions for, select the ⋮ More icon.
- Select Share.
- Under General Access, select the first dropdown to set who can access the project. If you selected Only specified people follow these steps to set up their own type of access.
- Select the second dropdown to set the type of access for the chosen audience.
- Select Save.
- Select the CODE button on the top of the screen to open the Collaboration menu.
- Select Access permissions from the menu.
- Select one of the options to choose who can access the project.
- Select the icon next to the option to set the type of access for the chosen audience. If you selected Only specified people follow these steps to set up their own type of access.
Set or remove Access permissions for specific people
You can set a separate access permission for each person you'd like to invite. This way you can give certain person higher type of access while maintaining the general access permission. Here you can also remove the person's access to your project.
Note: People invited by email or username can't have lower access permission than the project's general permission. For example, if the project general permission is set to "Everyone with the link can edit", you won't be able to set specific person's access type to "View only".
- While in a project, select the Invite/CODE button on the top of the screen.
- From the Collaboration menu, select Add people.
- If you haven't already, enter the email address or display name of the person you'd like to invite and select Add.
- Select the type of access icon next to the person's name to set it. Repeat for each invited person.
- Whenever you're ready, select Done.
- While in a project, select the Invite/CODE button on the top of the screen.
- From the Collaboration menu, select Add people.
- If you haven't already, enter the email address or display name of the person you'd like to invite and select Add.
- Select the type of access icon next to the person's name to set it. Repeat for each invited person.
- Whenever you're ready, select Done.
When in My Drive
- Sign into Explain Drive.
- On the project you'd like to set permissions for, select the ⋮ More icon.
- Select Share.
- Under Individual Access, enter the email address or display name of the person you'd like to invite. Select the name or email once it appears to add it.
- Once the person is on the list, select the dropdown next to their name to set the type of access for them.
- Select Save.
- Select the CODE button on the top of the screen to open the Collaboration menu.
- From the Collaboration menu, select Add people.
- If you haven't already, enter the email address or display name of the person in the search box. Select the name or email once it appears to add it.
- Select the type of access icon next to the person's name to set it. Repeat for each invited person.
- Whenever you're ready, select Save.