User roles and permissions

Conducting good research is a team sport, and there are a few different roles each teammate might play. Whether you’re managing a Dscout account for your organization or in the thick of conducting interviews, here’s a comprehensive breakdown of what your role means for what you can do on the platform.

Note: Roles and permissions work a little differently when conducting interview sessions in Dscout. For more information, see User roles in interview sessions.

User roles

There are five possible roles a user might have in Dscout:

• Account Owner: The member of your organization responsible for managing your overall Dscout subscription, including plan renewal, new feature access, and more. There is only one Account Owner per Dscout account.
• Admins: Members of your organization who might do some research but mainly monitor user access, billing, and more.
• Researchers: Members of your organization who are in the thick of conducting research. These might be members of your research team, UX designers, or anyone else who wants to get feedback from real users.
• Contributors: Members of your organization who may occasionally conduct research but mostly want to be able to see the research others are conducting. Users may also be assigned this role if they only need access to certain Dscout tools. These users can build and launch usability tests, media surveys, intercept studies, and interview studies, but they only have read/comment access to screeners and diary studies.
• Viewers: Members of your organization (or external stakeholders) who don’t need to conduct research directly but may want to see what research is being conducted. These users cannot build or launch research in Dscout.

Note: If you have any questions about specific roles in your Dscout account, or if you don’t see roles available when you believe they should be, contact your Dscout Account Manager.

Permissions by role

To learn which users can perform specific actions, use the tables below.

Platform access

Permission	Account Owner	Admin	Researcher	Contributor	Viewer
Project access	All projects	All projects	Projects they’re added to	Projects they’re added to	Projects they’re added to (view-only)
Account management settings	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Billing information	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Add new users	Yes	Yes (cannot add Account Owners or Admins)	Yes (cannot add Account Owners or Admins)	No	No
Manage user roles	Yes	Yes (cannot manage Account Owners or Admins)	Yes (cannot manage Account Owners or Admins)	No	No

Screeners

Permission	Account Owner	Admin	Researcher	Contributor	Viewer
Build and launch screeners	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Comment on screeners	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Assign fit categories to participants	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No

Usability tests, media surveys, and intercept studies

Permission	Account Owner	Admin	Researcher	Contributor	Viewer
Build and launch studies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Comment on studies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tag responses	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Access Test mode	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Diary studies

Permission	Account Owner	Admin	Researcher	Contributor	Viewer
Build and launch diary studies	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Leave notes (comments) on diary studies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tag responses	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Interview studies

Permission	Account Owner	Admin	Researcher	Contributor	Viewer
Build and launch interview studies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Moderate interview sessions	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Leave notes (comments) on interview studies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Dscout AI Studio

Note: All access to Dscout AI Studio requires the Dscout AI add-on. For more information, see Dscout AI.

Feature	Account Owner	Admin	Researcher	Contributor	Viewer
Explore your data	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Draft your study	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
AI moderated studies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	View access (same as usability tests, media surveys, and intercept studies)
Dscout MCP	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Read-only tools

Add new users

Account Owners, Admins, and Researchers can all add new users to your organization’s Dscout account. If you’re in one of these roles, you’ll add new users from the Account management page.

If someone already has a Dscout account and just needs access to your project, see Manage project collaborators.

1

Click the name of your Dscout account in the sidebar navigation.

2

Click the Settings icon. The Account management page is displayed.

3

Select the Users tab. The list of users across your account is displayed.

4

Click Add a user in the top left corner of the page.

5

Enter the new user’s First name, Last name, and Email.

6

Select a Role to assign to the user.

Only Account Owners can designate someone as an Admin.

7

(If applicable) Select which Workspaces the new user should have access to.

8

Click Next.

9

Select the Projects the new user should have access to.

Admins are added to all projects by default.

10

Click Add user.

Now, an invitation is sent to the email you entered, instructing the user to create their Dscout login. After creating their account, they’ll have access to the projects you selected. To change a user’s role, return to this page and select a new role from the Change role drop-down in that user’s row:

To remove a user, click the Remove user (trash) icon in that user's row, then click Yes in the confirmation modal:

Flex seats

On some Dscout plans, you're able to adjust which users occupy certain roles on an as-needed basis. This allows you to customize your team's ability to conduct research on a cadence that makes the most sense for you. To change role types, follow the steps under Add new users to access the Users page, then select the desired role type for your users from the Change role drop-down. And to learn more, below are some frequently asked questions around how flex seats work.

How quickly do seats change owners?

When updating user roles, changes take effect immediately! At most, users currently signed in to Dscout may need to refresh their browser to see the changes reflected.

Can I change seats at any time?

Yes, as long as you have seats available. For example, if you need to assign someone a Researcher seat, one must be available on your account. This may require switching an existing Researcher to a lower role to free up their seat.

Are there best practices for changing seats?

If you've exceeded your account's seat limits, we recommend downgrading those who don't need full access to the Viewer role to free up seats for other users. Viewers retain access to the same projects just with fewer permissions. So in short: downgrade user roles first, then upgrade those as needed.

Will users lose data when seats are re-assigned?

No! We never want to remove your data, even after your research is finished. Downgrading users to the Viewer role will not remove their data, though they may be able to do less with it (refer to the table above for more information). However, keep in mind that data is deleted if a user's account is deleted entirely.