Access Levels
Every document in Arketic carries exactly one access level. That level is the single thing that decides who can see the document — in the Knowledge Base, in My Documents, in search results, and in AI answers.
There are five levels: Personal, Team, Department, Organization, and Confidential.
The access level travels with the document, not with the page you uploaded it from. A file uploaded from My Documents and a file uploaded from the Knowledge Base follow exactly the same rules.
The five levels at a glance
Each document shows its level as a coloured badge in the document list and in the detail panel.
| Level | Badge you see | Who can see the document |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | Personal — grey, padlock icon | Only the person who uploaded it |
| Team | Team — blue, people icon | Members of the team the document is assigned to |
| Department | Dept — purple, building icon | Members of that department, managers of that department's hierarchy, Admins and Executives |
| Organization | Organization — green, globe icon | Everyone in your organization |
| Confidential | Confidential — amber, shield icon | Admins and Executives only |
In the document list the Department badge is shortened to Dept to save space. It is the same level as "Department".
What each level means
Personal
The document is visible only to the person who uploaded it. Nobody else in the organization can open it, find it in search, or receive it in an AI answer.
Personal really is private. Even Admins and Executives cannot see someone else's Personal documents. If you need a colleague to reach a file, do not leave it on Personal.
Use it for: drafts, personal notes, files you are still working on.
Team
The document is visible to the members of the team it is assigned to. People outside that team do not see it, even if they work in the same department.
If you are not in any team, team documents do not appear for you.
Use it for: material that only one working group needs.
Department
The document belongs to a specific department, chosen when the level is set.
Who can see it:
- Members of that department
- Department Managers — for the departments in the hierarchy they manage
- Admins and Executives — across every department
A Department Manager who manages one part of the organization does not see another department's documents. A member of the Sales department does not see documents filed under Technology.
Use it for: department procedures, team guidelines, internal forms.
Organization
The document is visible to everyone in your organization, regardless of role, department, or team.
Use it for: employee handbooks, company-wide policies, shared templates, announcements.
Confidential
The document is visible to Admins and Executives only. Everyone else — including Department Managers — is blocked from it: it does not appear in their document list, it does not appear in their search results, and the AI will never quote it back to them.
Confidential is the strictest shared level. Use it only for genuinely sensitive material such as financial reports, legal documents, or contracts. Everything you mark Confidential becomes invisible to Department Managers as well.
Choosing a level when you upload
In the Upload Document window there is a Permission Level dropdown, with the helper line "Choose who can view this document".
| Option in the dropdown | What it does |
|---|---|
| Personal - Only you can access | Keeps the document private to you |
| Department - Department members can access | Files the document under one department |
| Organization - Everyone in organization can access | Shares it with the whole organization |
| Confidential - Restricted access, authorized users only | Limits it to Admins and Executives |
Organization is selected by default, so check this field before you upload anything you don't want everyone to read.
When you pick Department, a second field appears — Target Department, with the helper line "Select which department this document belongs to". The Upload button stays disabled until you choose a department. Admins and Executives can pick any department; Department Managers see only the departments they are allowed to use.
Team is not offered while uploading. The upload window shows four options. To put a document on the Team level, upload it first and then change its level from the document's detail panel.
Step-by-step upload instructions are on Uploading documents.
Changing a document's level
These steps use the Knowledge Base page, which is open to Admins, Executives, and Department Managers. If you are a regular Member, you won't see the Knowledge Base in your sidebar — change the level of a document you uploaded from My Documents instead.
- Open the Knowledge Base and click the document's row to open its detail panel.
- Find the Permission field — it shows the current badge and a Change link.
- Click Change. A dropdown appears with all five levels: Personal, Team, Department, Organization, Confidential.
- If you choose Department, a second dropdown appears — pick the department from Select department....
- Click Save. (Click Cancel to leave the level as it was.)
You'll see the confirmation "Permission updated successfully", and the badge updates straight away.
Changes apply immediately. There is no separate publish or approval step. The moment you save, the new level is in force — widening a level exposes the document at once, and narrowing one removes other people's access at once.
Who can change a level
| Role | Documents whose level you can change |
|---|---|
| Member | Documents you uploaded yourself |
| Department Manager | Documents you uploaded yourself |
| Executive | Any document |
| Admin | Any document |
Executives have the same document access as Admins. An Executive can browse every department, see Confidential documents, upload files, and change any document's access level.
Access levels and AI answers
Access levels are not just a filter on a page — they apply everywhere the document could surface.
When an assistant is set up to use the Knowledge Base, it searches only the documents you personally are allowed to see. The rules are identical to the ones applied to the document list.
In practice:
- A Confidential financial report answers questions for an Admin or an Executive, and returns nothing for anyone else.
- A Department document about IT procedures is used when an IT member asks, and ignored when someone from another department asks the same question.
- An Organization handbook can be quoted for anyone.
- A Personal document is only ever used in its owner's own chats.
Access levels cannot be worked around. You will never receive content above your access level, not through the document list, not through search, and not through an AI answer.
Filtering by access level
On the Knowledge Base page, the left panel is headed Access Level and lets you narrow the list to All Documents, Personal, Department, Organization, or Confidential. Choosing Department also opens a Departments folder tree so you can drill into a single department.
Whatever you filter by, you only ever see the documents your own access level allows.
Full details are on Searching the Knowledge Base.
Practical examples
| Document | Sensible level | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Employee handbook | Organization | Everyone can find it; the AI answers policy questions from it for anyone |
| IT department procedure | Department → IT | IT members and their manager find it; other departments don't |
| Quarterly financial report | Confidential | Only Admins and Executives can open it or get answers from it |
| Draft proposal you're still writing | Personal | Nobody else sees it until you change the level |
| Sprint checklist for one working group | Team | Only that team's members see it |
Good practice
- Start restrictive, then broaden. It is much safer to open a document up later than to discover it was public all along.
- Check the Permission Level field on every upload — it defaults to Organization.
- Prefer Department over Confidential for material that a whole team legitimately needs. Confidential hides the document from Department Managers too.
- Review levels when people or teams move. A document filed under a department stays there until someone changes it.
- Use Personal for drafts, not for storage. Nobody can help with a file that only you can see.