New "Standard User" Notes Template Permissions

[jennings]

HubSpot just introduced a new layer of granularity for permissions around the Notes activity type, which allows Notes to be hidden from Users who do not own the Note. Previously, you could see notes on any object you had access to. For some reason, when creating new Users, the Template Permissions Sets now restrict Users to Owned Only by default. This is both a change from previous functionality and different from how Tasks are handled in the Templates. It seems like it would be better for the Template Notes permission to be Full Access/Everything vs. restricted to Owned Only. Why would we want it to default different from previous functionality and different from Tasks?

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @jennings,

These roles are suggestions by HubSpot and are standardized for all customers, so they work well for some and less well for others. I agree that this can feel inconsistent, for other clients this might be a good default selection.

The difference I see between tasks and notes is that notes would be a tool that users use to store information about records they don't want to see widely accessed within the company. Tasks however do usually not have that aspect.

If you would like to request a change to this default role you could do so in the HubSpot Ideas section: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/idb-p/HubSpot_Ideas

Keep in mind that you can always create custom permissions for individual users: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/settings/edit-user-permissions

In Enterprise subscriptions, users can create their own permission sets: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/settings/create-permission-sets

It's really just a suggestion / template, not meant to be an industry standard.

Best regards!

[jennings]

Hi Karsten,

Thanks for the response. When adding new levels of permissions granularity, it is fairly standard practice to default existing users to their original level of functionality (i.e. in this case, to be able to see all notes).

That is what HubSpot did for existing users in this case but for some reason did not carry that over to new users in the standard template. This creates a weird user experience because, unless you are paying A LOT of attention to new feature releases and/or the exact parameters on the Standard User template, any new users created today are going to have different permissions from users created before the feature release.

I agree that Notes and Tasks are different and it is value add to have the ability to differentiate how they are treated because doing so creates new ways Notes can be used (as you describe). I don't at all agree that it makes sense to default Notes to "Only Owned"  when every HubSpot user is used to Notes being visible to all users and cannot possibly yet be using notes in the way you describe.

I'd be very curious to see how the decision to default Notes to "Only Owned" in the Standard User template was made because it does not seem possible that it was well thought out.

I will submit this as an Idea.