View your program as a different role

View your program as a different role

If you’re an Owner or Admin who also holds a space-level role (Program Admin or Program Facilitator) in a program, you naturally see admin tools and the space role’s experience stacked together. View-As-Role lets you step down to just the space role’s view — what a regular Program Admin or Facilitator sees, with admin tools hidden — for one program in one browser tab at a time.

It’s the right tool when you want to make sure your Program Admin / Facilitator experience is what you think it is, without losing your admin access elsewhere.

Before you begin

  • You need an organization-level role (Owner, Admin, or Implementation Admin)
  • You need a space-level role (Program Admin or Program Facilitator) in the program you want to step down in
  • Sessions are scoped to one browser tab — you can keep your admin view open in another tab

This isn’t for stepping into someone else’s account — for that, see View your program as a participant.

Start a View-As-Role session

Open the program. The bar at the top of the page is the Admin Space Access banner.

If you hold a space-level role in this program and you’re currently in admin view, the banner says something like:

You’re viewing as Admin. Switch to your Facilitator view.

Click the Switch button. The page reloads in your space role view: the same content, but without admin tools, and the banner switches to a different label that confirms you’re in role view.

What changes in the new view

You see exactly what a regular member with that role sees:

  • Admin shortcuts and edit modes disappear from inline content
  • Settings sidebars on activities and events are hidden if your space role doesn’t allow them
  • The left sidebar’s per-row admin actions follow your space role
  • You stay in the same program and the same browser tab

The rest of upcoach — other programs, the Admin Area, Reports — works as usual in other tabs. View-As-Role is per-tab and per-space. It doesn’t touch your other sessions.

Stop a View-As-Role session

There’s no in-tab Switch back button by design — once you’re in the space role view, there’s nothing in the role that would let a regular Program Admin or Facilitator “become admin again”.

To return to admin view in the same tab:

  1. Open Admin Area > Spaces from the sidebar
  2. Click the same program

Admin Area always opens programs in admin view, so this clears the View-As-Role session for the tab and shows the admin banner state again.

How View-As-Role composes with View-As-User

The two features are independent:

  • View-As-Role changes which role’s view you see in one program, while staying signed in as yourself
  • View-As-User signs you in as another participant across the entire app

You generally don’t combine them — they cover different needs. If you have one active and start the other, the experience depends on which one took effect last; for predictable behavior, exit a View-As-User session before starting a View-As-Role one.

For viewing as a specific participant, see View your program as a participant.

When sessions end

Sessions are tab-scoped and tied to your browser session:

  • Closing the tab ends the session
  • Sessions automatically expire after 24 hours
  • Removing your space-level role in that program (from the Members section or the Users table) ends the session immediately for that program
  • Signing out ends every active session

What you can’t do with View-As-Role

  • You can’t escalate — the session only lowers your effective access, never raises it. A request that includes a forged “give me Program Admin” payload is ignored. The server resolves your space role from your actual space_user row, not from anything in the request.
  • You can’t view as a role you don’t hold — if you’re only an Admin (no space role in this program), there’s no Facilitator view to step down to. The banner instead asks you to add yourself a space-level role first.
  • You can’t view as Participant or Sponsor from this flow. Those are locked space-role views — you experience them automatically when you enter a program where you hold Participant or Sponsor. See Understand Admin Space Access.

What to do next