Can't get back to the Viewer role

Hello,
I was managing the team here and some people I would like to go back to the Viewer role, since I don’t need them as editors anymore. The thing is there is only a Viewer Restricted option.
Name | Team Permission | Design Role
Person 1 | Viewer | Viewer
Person 2 | Can edit | Editor
Person 3 | Can View 1 File | Viewer - restricted (Can’t change this one to Viewer)

Is this restricted to a file or to prototype only? Am I doing something wrong?

Cheers.

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Hey @mangojambo Viewer-Restricted just means that the user can’t gain edit access on any files within the Org unless updated by an admin. This will remove them from the Org billing.

If you want them to still have edit access on some files and not others you’ll have to downgrade them to a viewer on each file. This would keep them as an editor on any files where they do have edit access and thus still be billed to the Org.

Hopefully that makes sense.

https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052677454-Manage-organization-members-and-guests#view-access

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Thank you for your reply, Josh.

Is there a way to make them normal Viewer again? Why is Viewer-Restricted the only other option?

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How can I downgrade the to a viewer on each file?

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Hey,

This option is removed because a user can upgrade themselves to editor while they have a viewer role. We wouldn’t want them to be able to upgrade themselves after the admin has taken the action to remove their editor license.

The only difference between the viewer and viewer-restricted roles is an admin has to approve an upgrade to editor request from users who have a viewer-restricted permission.

Hope this helps!

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That’s interesting. I assumed that all users that have a viewer role require an admin to approve an upgrade to editor. I didn’t know that viewers are able to upgrade themselves to editor whenever they want.

Thanks for the explanation!

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Hi,
However this prevents us from fully exploiting the billing business model (at least without admin manual interaction).
For example, what if the edits made by the people of my team are only once every x months ?
If I wanted to optimize the billing while not restricting my coworkers, I would reset all the members of the team to “Viewer” each month and then get billed if they edit something in the current month (by auto promoting themselves to editor which is what I prefer).

However, with the current system, It means that I’d have to set them to viewer-restricted every month and then receive an upgrade request for each user wanting to work on something. It’s super cumbersome and also prevents the team member from working until their request gets manually accepted.

The other option is to keep them as editor so they can edit whenever their want but I will get billed even if they didn’t edit anything that month.

I have a business license and every so often without me knowing someone moves to an editing role on the member’s view. They’ve not requested access and I wouldn’t have granted it, they’ve only edited a Figma basics in the activity log. However, if I didn’t notice it we could get billed for additional editor accounts that aren’t even used.

Does anyone else find this a sneaky way to bill people without them knowing?

Do you have an Organization/Enterprise plan? Is the “Figma basics” file a user drafts? Does Figma charge guests of the organization who can edit drafts?

Hello! That is not quite accurate, viewer-restricted users are blocked from sharing drafts. This is a huge problem in my organization, I would love to have it changed or managed separately.

I understand the differences between Viewer and Viewer-Restricted, however the option selection is inconsistent.

As an Admin, why can I assign some users a Design Role of Editor, Viewer, or Viewer-Restricted, but other users only Editor and Viewer-Restricted.

I understand the purpose of those roles, but why is Viewer unavailable as an option for an Admin role to assign a team member?

Is “Viewer” available only for users that at some point in time created or been an editor of a file? Whereas “Viewer-Restricted” has never created or been an editor of a file?

There is no mention why both or only one option is available to Admins.

3 Likes