Karbon is designed to provide complete visibility across your team, which extends to email, internal communication, contact details, work items and tasks. From time to time, however, you may not wish to share some communication, or an entire contact and their work details with your entire team. Karbon provides a number of privacy settings that allow you to control the level of visibility provided across your team.
Index
Video overview of privacy
Find out the difference between public, hidden and private contacts and how the privacy level affects the related work items.
Video shortcuts:
Privacy levels for contacts
0:05 Public vs private contacts
0:40 Changing the privacy level
1:15 Adding a colleague to the client team
1:30 Hidden contacts
Privacy levels for work
2:10 Work items for public contacts
2:25 Work items for private contacts
3:05 Adding a colleague to the work team
4:15 Removing a colleague from the work team
4:35 Work items for hidden contacts
Contact privacy levels
You can choose to make any contact private, which means that only members of the client team will have access. There are 3 privacy levels that can be applied to a contact (both for organizations and people): public, private and hidden.
Public contacts
The client details and work are public by default and everyone in the team has access to it.
Private contacts
Only the client team will have access to that private contact and their work. You can recognise private contacts as they will have a padlock icon next to their name in your contact list. Any work items associated with the client will also have a padlock icon after the work item name.
The contact and their work will still show up in global search results, on work lists and on your Kanban board. Colleagues without access can still see the client and work names but no details or communication.
If someone who has not been granted access attempts to view a private item, they will see a message letting them know who to contact if they need access.
There are several ways to add a colleague outside of the client team to a work item for a private contact:
Assign the colleague a task within the work item
Assign the colleague a note that is linked to the work item
@mention a colleague in a note that is linked to the work item
Add the colleague to the associated client team
Reassign the work item to the colleague
Assign the colleague an email that is linked to the work item
Keep in mind that when you assign a colleague to anything related to the work item and not the contact, they will only have access to that work item. Those colleagues as well as the entire client team will have access to any tasks, notes and emails that flow through that contact’s work item.
Hidden contacts
In addition to the rules for private contacts, only the client team will be able to see the contact. Colleagues without access will not know the contact or work related to it exists in Karbon (it will not show up in the global search.)
If you are assigned a task, note or email on a hidden work item, only those with access to that work item will be able to see those tasks in your to-do list. Scheduled work for a hidden client will also be hidden.
Change privacy level
To change the privacy level, go into the details tab of a contact and select edit to choose your level of privacy. Because privacy relates to the contact level, you are not able to change the privacy level on work items.
From there, you can choose who can access the contact's details, work, and communications, and what level of privacy the contact will have.
Best practice video: private contact for personal goals
Create a private or hidden contact for your own personal goals, VIP clients, your Human Resources department or any other personal items that you would want to stay private or hidden.
Video shortcuts:
0:04 Creating a private contact
1:30 Collaboration on a work item for a private client
2:30 Best practices for private contacts
3:05 Granting access to a work item for a private client
Public versus private conversations
Not all conversations are relevant to, or intended for a wider audience. If an email or note is attached to a timeline of a public contact and/or their work, all of your colleagues will be able to see it.
In Triage, you can always check which of your colleagues have access to see the conversation by clicking on the colleague's tab in the information tray.
Shared versus unshared emails
An email is visible to any participants in an email conversation (including BCC and CC recipients), colleagues added through email comments or those with access to a work or contact timeline that the email has been added to.
By default emails are unshared, they can however be shared with a contact’s timeline or a work item. You can link an email to Work directly from an email by clicking Add to work within the email, the Work icon on the action bar or the email's options menu "..." then selecting Add to work or Create work.
Video overview of auto-sharing emails
Find out the difference between shared and unshared emails, and how to auto-share emails to a timeline.
Video shortcuts:
0:01 Shared vs unshared emails
1:30 Share email by including colleague
2:00 Making a shared email private again
2:45 Autoshare emails to timelines
3:15 Find out which colleagues auto-share their emails
4:00 Removing auto-shared email from a timeline
Auto-sharing emails from contacts
If you add the sender of an email as a contact, the email will show up in that contact's timeline automatically.
When you create a new contact, your emails with this person will have the auto-share setting turned on. With this setting turned on, any emails between you and a saved contact will appear on their timeline. If you do not wish to share your emails with specific contacts, be sure to turn off auto-sharing by clicking Turn Off Sharing in the grey box after the Email Address field when creating the contact.
Toggle auto-sharing on / off
If you wish to change the auto-share settings on an existing contact, you can do so by clicking on the link highlighted in blue on the top right side of the contact's timeline and toggle the auto-sharing to on.
Rules for private emails
There are a few other rules to consider about private emails:
If you create a new contact from an email in triage, the contact will automatically become public unless you click Turn Off Sharing
If you create a contact using the global "+" button or from the Contacts area, your email communications will automatically be shared on related timelines unless you click Turn Off Sharing
If you assign an email from a private contact to yourself, the email will appear in your to-do list, but colleagues who are not members of the client team for that contact will not be able to see it
If a public contact is cc'd on an email from a private contact, that email will be visible on the public contact’s timeline
Granting access to a private or hidden work item
There are multiple ways to add colleagues to the work team and grant them access to a private or hidden work item.
Any work created for a private or hidden contact will have the same privacy level as the contact. All members of the client team will automatically have access to any work created for that client. In addition, the work item assignee, members of the work team and any other colleagues with assigned tasks, notes or emails within that work item will also have access to the private or hidden work item.
There are several ways to add a colleague outside of the client team to a work item for a private contact:
Assign the colleague a task within the work item
Assign the colleague a note that is linked to the work item
@mention a colleague in a note that is linked to the work item
Add the colleague to the associated client team
Reassign the work item to the colleague
Assign the colleague an email that is linked to the work item
Only those with access to the work item, organization or contact will be able to link and unlink a note or email conversation to a timeline for a private or hidden work item, organization or contact.
Granting access to a private or hidden contact
To grant colleagues access to a private or hidden contact, they must be on the client team or be the client owner or client manager. In order to grant colleagues access to a private or hidden contact as well as all associated work items, you must:
Add your colleague to the contact's client team
Make your colleague the client owner or client manager for the associated contact or organization
Mention the colleague in a note on that contact's timeline. Mentioning a colleague on an email will grant them access to the conversation but not the client team
Remove access to a private or hidden work item
Removing a colleague from the work team and unassigning them from any tasks, emails or notes within that work item will remove their access to the work item. If they are on the client team, they will still have access to the contact.
Remove access to a private or hidden contact
Removing a colleague from the client team for the contact will remove their access to the contact and any associated work items.
When on the contact, click the details tab. Edit the client team by clicking on edit on the right and then hit the "X" to remove a member.
Remove access to a private email
If you do not want to share a specific email with a private client you will need to go into your Triage > Information tray > Timeline section > deselect those associated with the email you’d like to keep private by clicking on the "X".
Change the privacy of a note
Notes are public by default. If you do not want the note to be public, add it to a private or hidden timeline. Only the colleagues on those timelines will be able to see the note.
Bulk update privacy settings
If you are the firm owner or an administrator and you would like to change the privacy settings of a large group of contacts or organizations, you can contact support through Help & feedback in the main menu or send a request through email to support@karbonhq.com.
They will send you over a sheet where you can inform the support team which user should be the new client owner on the private/hidden contacts and organizations that you wish to update. Once updated, you will be asked to review and approve the changes.
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