The Security Centre in Cognexo manages access via Personas—groups of permissions assigned to users. Only System Owners can create or edit personas. Default personas include System Owner and Account Owner with full permissions. Custom personas can be created for specific roles, combining various permissions like content editing or dashboard access. Users can have multiple personas, with combined permissions. The article details permission categories and example persona configurations for common roles.
| Note: Only users with the System Owner persona can create, edit, or assign personas. If you don't have access to the Security Centre, contact your system administrator. |
The Security Centre at a Glance
To access the Security Centre:
- Log in to the Intelligence Portal.
- Click your initials in the top-right corner.
- Select Management from the dropdown.
- In the left-hand menu, click Security Centre.
From here you'll see three sections: Overview, Users, and Personas.
- Overview — a summary of all personas and how many users are assigned to each
- Users — find any user and check or update their assigned persona
- Personas — create, view, and edit persona configurations
The Default Personas
Cognexo includes two built-in personas that cannot be deleted.
System Owner
Typically this persona is assigned to platform administrators who are responsible for the day-to-day running of Cognexo at a configuration level.
Intelligence Portal
These are typically line managers with access to their own team and restricted access to the management portal.
Creating a Custom Persona
If you need to give a group of users a specific set of permissions — for example, SMEs who can view and suggest question edits but not publish them, or line managers who need Intelligence Portal access but not user management — you can create a custom persona.
- In the Security Centre, click Personas in the left-hand menu.
- Click Create New from the dropdown.
- Give the persona a Display Name and, optionally, a description.
- Select the permissions you want to enable (see the full list below).
- Click Create Persona.
| Note: If you change permissions on an existing persona, all users currently assigned to it will immediately inherit those changes. If you only want to change access for a subset of users, create a new persona rather than editing the existing one. |
Assigning a Persona to a User
- In the Security Centre, click Users.
- Find the user using the search box.
- Click on the user and scroll down to Assigned Personas.
- Click + Assign Persona and select the appropriate persona from the list.
- Click Save.
A user can have more than one persona assigned to them — their effective permissions will be the combined total of all assigned personas.
Removing a Persona from a User
- In the Security Centre, click Users and find the user.
- Scroll to Assigned Personas.
- Click the red bin icon next to the persona you want to remove.
- Confirm by pressing Remove in the pop-up.
Full Permissions Reference
The table below lists every configurable permission, grouped by area.
Admin
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Access Admin Site | Access to the Management Portal and admin functionality |
Audiences
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| View Audiences | View audience information and details |
| Edit Audiences | Modify existing audiences |
| Delete Audiences | Delete audiences |
| Create Audiences | Create new audiences |
Campaigns
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Create Campaigns | Create new campaigns |
| View Campaigns | View campaign information and details |
| Edit Campaigns | Modify existing campaigns |
| Delete Campaigns | Delete campaigns |
Content
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Create Draft Questions | Create new questions in draft status |
| Create Active Questions | Create new questions in active status |
| Edit Questions | Edit existing questions |
| Edit Topics | Modify topic metadata (name, description, KPIs, etc.) |
| Approve Questions | Approve draft questions for publication |
| Suspend Questions | Suspend or deactivate questions |
| Create New Topics | Create new topic categories |
| Edit Topic Delivery | Edit topic delivery modes |
Intelligence Portal
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Access Company Dashboard | View the company-level Intelligence Portal dashboard |
| Access Line Manager Dashboard | View the line manager dashboard |
| Access Subject Matter Expert Dashboard | View the SME / topic owner dashboard |
| Access Engagement Summary | View the engagement summary page |
| Access Escalations | View the escalations page |
| Access Registration | View registration rates and unregistered users |
| Access Knowledge Topics | View the knowledge topics page |
| Access Leaderboards | View leaderboards |
| Access Awards & Recognition | View Golden Ticket Awards and recognition data |
| Access Most Improved & Focus Areas | View most improved users and focus area insights |
| Access KPI Overview | View KPI performance |
| Access Learners Below KPI | View users who are currently below KPI threshold |
| Access All Surveys | View all survey results* |
| Access Onboarding | View onboarding survey data* |
| Access Pulse Survey | View pulse survey data* |
| Access Annual Survey | View annual survey data* |
| Access Wellbeing Surveys | View wellbeing survey data* |
| Access Assessments | View assessment results* |
| Access People Search | Use the people search feature |
| See Other Topics (SME) | View Active and Expired Topics tabs on the SME dashboard |
*Survey permissions are set manually on each survey, you may have access to the tab and not the individual survey data. See here - Survey Access and Permissions
Shared Documents
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Upload Documents | Upload documents to share with Cognexo |
User Management
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Trigger Welcome Emails | Send welcome emails to users |
| View Users | View user information and lists |
| Send Question Task | Send questions directly to users |
| Schedule Broadcast | Schedule broadcasts to users |
| Email Registration | Send registration emails to users |
| Email App | Send the mobile app QR code and OTP to users |
| Email Teams | Send Microsoft Teams app invitation emails |
| Clear Question Stack | Clear a user's pending question queue |
| Export User Data | Export user data from the platform |
| Bulk Upload Users | Upload and create users in bulk via CSV |
Example Personas
The following examples show how you might configure custom personas for common use cases.
Content Author — Enable: Create Draft Questions, Edit Questions, Edit Topics, Access Subject Matter Expert Dashboard, See Other Topics (SME). Disable: Create Active Questions, Approve Questions, all User Management permissions.
Read-Only Intelligence Portal — Enable: Access Company Dashboard, Access Engagement Summary, Access Knowledge Topics, Access KPI Overview, Access Leaderboards. Disable: all Content and User Management permissions.
People Team / HR — Enable: View Users, Export User Data, Trigger Welcome Emails, Bulk Upload Users, Access Engagement Summary, Access Registration, Access Escalations. Disable: all Content permissions.