Bringing customers or external partners into internal projects is, in practice, often a compromise between two unsatisfying options: either you create a full user account with potentially far-reaching rights, or you send information manually as an email export, with all the drawbacks that brings in terms of timeliness and control. The Access Manager in 1Tool offers a third way: besides users and roles, it also lets you grant access to individual contacts, meaning external people who do not have a regular user account in the system.
Access without a full user account
Many companies have people who regularly or occasionally need to see a specific record, without being given a complete account with all the rights that come with it. That might be a customer who wants to follow the status of their own project, or an external service provider working on a single case. Because 1Tool already manages such contacts as records in their own right, you can grant these contacts targeted access to a specific record directly through the Access Manager, with no detour via a separate user account.
An alternative to full guest accounts and email exports
The obvious comparison is classic guest access or sending extracts by email. Both have downsides: a guest account often comes with more rights than the occasion actually requires, and exports, once sent, are by nature out of date as soon as the record moves on. Sharing with a contact through the Access Manager avoids both problems. Access stays limited to exactly the record that was shared, and what the external contact sees is the actual, current state, not a snapshot from a few days ago.
Where this works well in practice
Typical use cases are customers who should be able to follow the progress of a particular project, external consultants contributing to a single case, or partner companies with whom you want to share a document or folder on a one-off basis. In all of these cases, the specific record is at the centre, not blanket access to the entire system. That makes working with external people easier, without having to compromise on security anywhere else.
A win for both sides
This kind of controlled sharing benefits not only your own employees, who have to handle fewer queries and fewer manual exports, but also the external contacts themselves. Instead of waiting for an email reply, they see the status of the shared record directly, without having to manage yet another password or learn their way around someone else's system. For companies that regularly work with customers or external partners on joint projects, collaboration becomes noticeably more direct, without loosening the internal structure of access rights. Every share remains traceable and can be revoked just as precisely once a project is completed or a collaboration ends.
Frequently asked questions
Does an external contact need a user account to get access through the Access Manager?
No. The Access Manager lets you share directly with an existing contact record, without creating a regular user account.
Can an external contact see more than the specific record that was shared?
Access is granted specifically for the record it was set up for, not for the system as a whole.
Is this feature an alternative to sending exports by email?
Yes. Instead of emailing a snapshot, the contact sees the current state of the record whenever access is shared through the Access Manager.
How do you currently handle access for external customers or partners to individual projects?