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Edit access for users with an account

Basic settings

The Edit access page allows you to set the permissions for a single user or multiple users who should be able to view some of your portfolio pages or collections.

You can assign access to a single page or collection at a time or to multiple pages and / or collections at once.

Edit access permissions

Users and groups to whom you can give access to pages and / or collections

  1. Click the Edit access icon  next to the collection or page for which you want to give access permissions under Portfolio → Shared by me. On the next screen…
  2. You see the collection displayed if you selected one in step 1. You can add more collections by searching for them in the select box if you want to give other collections the same sharing permissions.
  3. You see the page displayed if you selected one in step 1. You can add more pages by searching for them in the select box if you want to give other pages the same sharing permissions.
  4. Advanced options: You have more settings available that apply to all selected collections and pages.
  5. Use the Share with drop-down menu to select with whom you want to share your selected collections and pages.
  6. Click the Save button to keep your changes or click Cancel to abort the action.

If you select individual people or a group with whom to share your portfolio, they will receive a notification. That notification contains a link to your portfolio. If you restricted access for your portfolio to a particular time, that time frame is mentioned in the notification as well.

Notification with time frame in which portfolio is available

Notification with time frame in which portfolio is available

Advanced options

You can choose a number of additional options which are applied to all pages and / or collections that you selected.

Advanced access options

Advanced options for editing access to pages / collections

  1. Click the Advanced options link to see all available options.

  2. Allow comments: This switch is set to “Yes” by default to encourage you to allow others to comment on your pages and collections.

  3. Moderate comments: If you wish to see any page or artefact comment before it is made public, i.e. can be seen by others who have access to the page on which the comment is made, set the switch to “Yes”.


    Comments that are left on portfolios shared publicly or via secret URL by people who do not have an account are always moderated, no matter the decision you make here. They are only made public if the portfolio author wishes to do so.


    If people can’t leave comments when they are not logged in, the site administrator did not allow anonymous comments.

  4. Allow copying: Set the switch to “Yes” if you want to allow the people who can view your page / collection to make a copy of it for themselves. Check the blocks that can be copied.

    When you allow copying on public portfolios or portfolios shared via a secret URL, people who are not logged into Mahara can download the portfolio as a Leap2A export.

    If you edit an institution or site page, you see the additional option Copy for new institution members / Copy for new members when you allowed copying. With this option you can place a page or collection directly into the portfolio of a new user. Existing users still have to copy the page or collection themselves.

  5. Retain view access on copied pages or collections: This option only becomes available if you allow copying. When you set this switch to “Yes”, you as owner of the page / collection will have access to the copied page / collection automatically. However, the owner of the copied page / collection can take that access away at any time.

  6. Access start date/time: You set the time frame from when on all users who have access to your page / collection can view your page or collection. The date here overrides any individual dates you may have set. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

  7. Access end date/time: You set the time frame until when all users who have access to your page / collection can view it. The date here overrides any individual dates you may have set. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

    If you set access dates for individual users or groups of users that differ from the access start and end dates here, you get a warning message after saving your settings so you can review the changes you just made and adjust the dates so that your portfolio viewers do not lose access earlier than expected.

If you have not allowed comments in general, you can still choose to allow them for a certain person or group of people who are in your access list. That way you can regulate very flexibly who shall be able to place comments on a page / collection and who cannot.

Comments per user

Allow comments on a user-by-user basis

Select users

As owner of your portfolio, you are in control with whom you want to share your work. If you have a lot of portfolios, i.e. pages or collections, you may wish to review the sharing options from time to time and see if they need updating.

You select the users or groups with whom to share your portfolio under Shared with.

Share your pages and collections with others

Share your pages and collections with others

  1. In the drop-down menu select with whom you want to share. You have many options:

    • Search for…

      • Friends: Select this option if you want to share your portfolio with a specific friend. Enter the beginning of their name in the text field that is displayed once you selected this option and you can find them.
      • Groups: Select this option if you want to share your portfolio with a specific group. You do not need to be a member of this group. Enter part of the group’s name in the text field that is displayed once you selected this option and you can find it. You then also have the option to decide whether to share your portfolio with everyone in the group, only members or tutors or administrators.
      • Users: Select this option if you want to share your portfolio with a specific user who is not a friend. Enter the beginning of their name in the text field that is displayed once you selected this option and you can find them.

    • General

      • Public: Anybody online who knows the URL(s) can see your selection of pages / collections.

        This option is only available if the site administrator allowed public pages under Administration → Site options → General settions → Allow public pages.

        If you are on a multi-tennanted site, the institution administrator must also allow public pages in the institution settings.

      • Registered users: All users who have an account on the Mahara instance you are using can view your selection of pages / collections.

      • Friends: All your friends on Mahara can view your selection of pages / collections.

    • Institutions: If you are a member of one or more institutions, you can select one here in order to share your portfolio with everybody belonging to this institution.

    • Groups: If you are a member in one or more groups, you see them listed here as a shortcut and can choose them easily.

      You are not able to narrow down the sharing options for the group like you can under the general group option above. When you choose a group here form the shortcuts, you always share your portfolio with everyone in the group.

  2. From: You can choose a start date and time from when the specific person or group of people shall have access to your selected pages / collections. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

  3. To: You can choose an end date and time until when the specific person or group of people shall have access to your selected pages / collections. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

  4. Click the Delete icon  if you want to remove someone from the access list.

  5. Click the Save button to keep your changes or click Cancel to abort the action.

Your friends or individual users with whom you shared your pages / collections receive a notification. Group members also receive a notification that you shared a page with them if the group administrator allowed that. You as page author and member of the group with which you shared your pages / collections do not get notified.

You do not receive a notification when users share their page with the public, all registered users, an entire institution or friends.

If you use the web services plugin, you can also share pages with “favourite users”. For more information, please refer to the specifications for this feature.

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