What it does
Every note has a visibility level — Private, Team, Admin Only, or Shared — that controls who can see it, plus a share dialog for granting specific people access on top of that level. The note's type sets a ceiling on which levels are offered. Visibility is enforced by the database on every read, so the same rules apply everywhere a note could appear: entity pages, the Notes workspace, and search.
Who it's for
Anyone writing notes chooses a visibility level their note type allows. Program administrators and coordinators use Team and Admin Only to separate notes learners should see from internal notes. Note authors use sharing to bring a specific colleague into a note regardless of its level.
How it works
Visibility levels. You pick the level in the note editor, limited to what the note's type allows; each option explains its audience:
Private — only you, the author, can see the note. Blocked for any note type with Requires review turned on.
Team — visible to people with access to the record the note is attached to. For a note on a person's profile, that means the person themself and faculty in the program. For a note on a program, it is people with access to that program; for an institution note, members of that institution.
Admin Only — visible to program directors and coordinators. The person the note is about does not see it.
Shared — a label meaning the note is meant for specific recipients you add through the share dialog.
Sharing with specific people. From a note's actions, select Share to open the Share Note dialog. Search for a person under Add recipient, and use the Can edit switch to choose whether they can edit or only view. The dialog lists everyone the note is already shared with — Shared with (n) — showing each person's permission, and you can revoke any share at any time. Recipients see the note under the Shared with Me tab of the Notes workspace.
What a share grants. An explicit share grants access on top of the visibility level — even a private note becomes visible to the people it's shared with. Edit permission lets a recipient change the note's content; view-only shares cannot. Shares can carry an expiration date, and expired shares stop granting access automatically.
Editing and deleting rights. Only the author and edit-share recipients can change a note. Only the share's creator can revoke it. Deleting a note is reserved for people who can edit it, and is always a soft delete. A note submitted for review, or already reviewed, is locked for editing until it leaves that state, regardless of who could otherwise edit it.
Before you start
Know who the note is about and who should not see it before you save — Team visibility on a profile note is visible to the person the note is about.
To share a note, you must be its author; a colleague you add as an editor can change the content but can't add more recipients.
Do this
Open the note you want to share from its list or detail view, then select Share on the note's actions → the Share Note dialog opens.
Search for a person under Add recipient → matching people appear in a dropdown below the search field.
Turn on the Can edit switch in the dialog if the recipient should be able to change the note, or leave it off for view-only access → confirm the switch matches the access you want before selecting the person.
Select the person's row → the dialog adds them to the Shared with list with the permission you set.
To remove access later, reopen the dialog and select the delete icon on that person's row → they no longer appear in the shared list.
You're done when
✓ The recipient appears under Shared with (n) in the dialog with the correct Can edit or Can view badge.
✓ The recipient can find the note under the Shared with Me tab of the Notes workspace.
✓ A share you removed no longer shows in the dialog, and the recipient loses access on their next read.
Boundaries and limits
Visibility is enforced at the database layer, not just the interface — a note you cannot see is excluded from every list, search result, and export.
A note's type caps which visibility levels are offered; Requires review removes Private from the choices.
A Team-visibility note attached to a person's profile is visible to that person. Use Admin Only for notes the person should not see.
Admin-only notes are not visible to faculty who lack an administrative role, even if they supervise the person the note is about. Share the note with them directly if they need it.
Changing visibility later applies immediately, but people who already read the note under the old level saw its content then — the platform cannot retract what was already read.
The share dialog supports sharing with individual people. The underlying access model also recognizes group, role, and program shares, but there is no interface for creating those today.
Only the note's author can create shares on it; edit-share recipients can change content but cannot re-share the note.
Shares are enforced with their expiration: an expired share stops granting view and edit access without anyone having to revoke it. The share dialog does not currently offer a field to set one when creating a share.
A note submitted for review or already reviewed is locked for editing until it leaves that state, on top of the normal author/edit-share rules.
Share access checks apply to the note's change history too — someone who can see a note can also see its history.
Common questions
Q: I set a note on a learner to "Team" — can the learner read it? A: Yes. Team visibility on a profile note includes the person the profile belongs to. Choose Admin Only if the note is for administrators alone.
Q: Why is Private grayed out for this note? A: Its note type has Requires review on, which removes Private from the choices. Pick Team or Admin Only instead.
Q: Can I share a private note with one colleague without opening it up to the whole team? A: Yes. Leave visibility as Private and add the colleague in the Share Note dialog. Only you and the people you explicitly share with will see it.
Q: Can a person I shared a note with pass it on to someone else? A: No. Only the note's author can create or revoke shares.
Q: What's the difference between the "Shared" visibility level and actually sharing? A: Access comes from the share records you create in the Share Note dialog. Shared is just a label signaling the note is meant for specific recipients; on its own it grants no access.
Q: If I revoke a share, does the person lose access immediately? A: Yes. Access is checked on every read, so a revoked share stops working right away.
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