# How permissions and data visibility work

Understand the difference between role actions, Personal or Agency-wide data scope, and creator access.

URL: https://help.substy.ai/en/articles/how-permissions-and-data-visibility-work
Language: en

What a member can do, how broadly they can see team data, and which creators they can access are three separate controls. A member needs all applicable access before a control or data set is available.

## Compare the three controls

-   **Role actions:** The role editor groups readable action choices into sections so you can select what the role can see and do.
    
-   **Data scope:** Personal and Agency-wide control how broadly team data is shown.
    
-   **Creator access:** Creator access is assigned separately in Members. A data scope does not grant creator access by itself.
    
## Choose the right data scope

-   **Personal:** Limits employee-scoped performance data to the member's own activity. It does not make every fan or conversation private to that member.
    
-   **Agency-wide:** Can show data across team members for the creators the member can access.
    

Fan-conversation access is checked through role permissions and creator access, separately from Personal data scope. Do not rely on Personal alone to hide conversations handled by other team members.

## When something is unavailable

If a section, action, or data set is unavailable, ask the workspace owner to review your role and creator access.