What Are Collaborators & Document Permissions?

Project Permissions lets you bring more people into Trunk Tools without exposing unrelated or sensitive project information. You can give each participant Full access, or scope their access down to specific integrations, modules, folders, or files.

Permissions apply to two participant types:

Users — typically members of your organization or existing project team.
Collaborators — typically external participants, such as owners, subcontractors, consultants, or joint-venture partners.

Both support the same access controls. The Collaborator designation simply makes external participants easier to organize — existing external people don't need to be recreated as Collaborators.

Note: Project roles (Manager, Member) don't determine document access. Someone can keep their existing project role while receiving more granular document permissions.

Who Can Do This

✅ Business Admin — can configure access and invite Users or Collaborators.
✅ Project Manager — can configure access and send invitations within their assigned projects.
— Project Member — cannot manage access.

Before You Begin

Confirm Project Permissions is enabled for the project.
Identify which integrations, modules, folders, or files each participant needs.
Decide whether the participant should be a User or a Collaborator.
Review the agent limitation below before adding a limited participant to an agent.

Set Access for an Existing User

Step 1: Open Project Access

Open Project Access from the project navigation, then select the Users tab.

Step 2: Manage Access

Open the overflow menu for the person you want to update and select Manage access.

Step 3: Choose an Access Level

Choose Full access or Limited access. If you select Limited access, choose the permitted integrations, modules, folders, or individual files.

Step 4: Save

Save the changes.

Invite a User with Limited Access

Step 1: Start the Invitation

Open Project Access and begin the User invitation flow, then enter the person's email address.

Step 2: Select Limited Access

Select Limited access before sending the invitation, then choose the information the person should be able to search.

Step 3: Send

Send the invitation.

Note: The restriction is applied when the invitation is accepted, so there is no interim period with Full access.

Invite Collaborators

Use Collaborators for people who need Trunk Tools access but are not part of your organization or core project team.

Step 1: Open the Collaborators Tab

Open Project Access and select the Collaborators tab.

Step 2: Enter Email Addresses

Enter one or more email addresses, separating multiple addresses with commas.

Step 3: Choose an Access Level

Select Full access or Limited access. For Limited access, choose the permitted integrations, modules, folders, or individual files.

Step 4: Send

Send the invitation.

Note: When multiple Collaborators are invited together, each receives the same access scope. The same Collaborator email address can be invited to multiple projects.

Choose the Right Level of Access

Limited access can be configured at several levels:

Integration: Permit one connected system while excluding others.
Module: Permit content such as RFIs, drawings, submittals, or daily logs.
Folder: Permit a specific folder within the available project documents.
Individual file: Permit only selected documents.

Use the broadest scope that satisfies the project's security requirement. Highly granular file-by-file access takes longer to configure and review.

Verify the Participant Experience

To confirm a configuration works as intended:

Sign in as the limited participant in a separate browser or private window.
Open the filter modal and confirm that only permitted content is available.
Ask a question about information inside the permitted scope.
Ask a second question about a restricted module or document.
Confirm that Trunk Tools does not return information from the restricted source.

For example, limit a Collaborator to Submittals, confirm that Submittals are available, then ask a question about RFIs — the RFI query should return no restricted information.

Current Limitations

Permissions are configured in Trunk Tools and are not inherited from external systems.
There are no reusable permission templates or predefined access categories (such as "Owner" or "Project Engineer").
An existing person's settings cannot be copied to another person, and existing participants cannot be edited in bulk.
There is no dedicated summary view of a person's current access.
Selecting individual files from a large set does not currently include file-name search.

Note — Agent access: Permissions do not currently persist to agents. If a limited User or Collaborator is added to an agent, that person can gain access to source documents surfaced by the agent's output. Review the participant's scope before adding them to any agent.

Best Practices

Use Full access by default when there is no security or project requirement to restrict information.
Use Permissions to address a defined IT, security, contractual, or project-participation need.
Document the intended scope before configuring highly granular access.
Configure restrictions during invitation whenever possible.
Test the participant experience before relying on the setup.
Recheck access whenever the participant's responsibilities change.

Getting Help

Project Permissions is currently an early-adopter capability with hands-on onboarding. Reach out to the Trunk Tools team to enable the feature, confirm the intended access model, and guide the initial configuration.