Share a subcollection

This article describes how to share a subcollection with other users or teams, granting access to the secrets and accounts inside it.

Cerby Team avatar
Written by Cerby Team
Updated over a week ago

To share a subcollection, you must complete the following steps:

IMPORTANT: When you share a parent collection with other teams or members, you grant access not only to the secrets and accounts inside that collection but also to all its nested subcollections and their items, inheriting all permission settings bottom-down.

  1. Log in to your corresponding Cerby workspace.

  2. Select the Collections option from the left navigation drawer. The Collections view is displayed.

  3. Click the Settings icon from the corresponding subcollection card. A drop-down list is displayed.

  4. Select the Share Collection button. The Share Access dialog box is displayed.
    TIP: You can also access the Share Access dialog box by performing the following actions:

    1. Select the Collection Settings option from the drop-down list. The collection details page is displayed with the General tab activated.

    2. Click the Share button. The Share Access dialog box is displayed.

  5. Enter the name of the member or team in the search bar. The members or teams that match the name are displayed on a list below the search bar.

  6. Select the corresponding member or team from the list. The member or team is displayed in the Members and Teams section.
    TIP: Repeat steps 5 and 6 to select multiple members or teams.

  7. Select the corresponding role on the subcollection and its items from the Role drop-down list:

    • Owner: They can share access, edit, add attachments, and manage the collection and item settings.

    • Collaborator: They can only view and use the collection and items.

  8. Click the Share button. The dialog box closes, and a success message box is displayed.

IMPORTANT: Subcollections inherit the highest item-level permissions in a parent collection and any explicitly set permissions on the secrets and accounts of a subcollection, depending on your role. For example, suppose you have the Collaborator role in a parent collection. In that case, you inherit the Collaborator role in the bottom-down elements. However, if you have another collection where you have the Owner role, then you inherit that role on the items in that collection.

For another example, consider the structure of collections, subcollections, secrets, and accounts in Table 1.

Item name

Item type

Global projects

Root collection

Atlassian

Account

Notion

Account

Global secret

Secret

Marketing

Subcollection

Twitter

Account

Meta

Account

Tiktok

Account

Development

Subcollection

GitHub

Account

Atlassian

Account

API key

Secret

Table 1. Collection and subcollection structure example

Let’s imagine user John Doe has the Owner role over the Meta account, which is shared separately by another user. However, user Rose Poe, owner of the Global projects collection, shares the Marketing subcollection with John Doe, assigning the Collaborator role. Because John Doe had the Owner role previously, he maintains the Owner permissions on the Meta account.

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