When starting with Filestage, understanding the difference between Project Collaborators and Reviewers can be tricky!

In a nutshell, reviewers can only access the files in their review step and can review those files, while project collaborators can access all files in a project and manage those files. Reviewers do not need to log in to access the files, but team members will need to log in to access the project.

Reviewers

A reviewer is someone you invite to give feedback. This person can be a client, boss, co-worker, freelancer, or friend.

Reviewers do not have to sign up to have access to your files
Reviewers can see only the review step they were invited to. They do not have access to any other files in your project.
Reviewers can access all the files in a review step either via email invitation or a review link.

Reviewers can always:

view files in the review step, they’re invited to see
share the review link with others

Depending on the permissions that you give your reviewers, they may also be able to:

comment on a file
attach files to their comments (logos, documents, sounds, or design drafts)
download a file
finish their review to request changes or approve a version
Upload files *only available certain plans.

A reviewer can never:

see files, comments, or versions in a different review step
upload or delete a file
upload or delete a version
invite and remove team members

More information about the permissions of reviewers and how to set them can be found here.

Project Collaborators

A project collaborator has a personal Filestage account and an individual project overview. Project collaborators are able to create projects, upload files, and invite clients and co-workers to give feedback.

Project Collaborators can:

create new review steps
invite reviewers to a review step
invite team members to be a project collaborators
upload new files or versions
delete files or versions
comment on files in any review step
download the files
see the complete version history of a file, including all past comments

To review a project as a project collaborator, a team member must be invited to that particular project. Projects are private by default; you must invite team members to the project so they can view it and all the review steps, comments, versions, etc.

💡 What's next? Once you understand the difference, see how to Manage reviewer permissions.

Let us know if you have any questions by reaching out to us on chat or emailing us at support@filestage.io! We're always happy to help!