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View-as: support without a password

When a member reports something you cannot reproduce from your own account, view-as renders their workspace exactly as they see it. You start it from the Workspaces tab, pick a member, and the app reloads inside that workspace under that person's view. Your own identity never changes; you are looking through their window, not logging in as them.

Starting a session​

To start view-as you supply three things:

  • The workspace and the member whose view you want.
  • A reason, which is required and written to the log.
  • A time limit, from 1 to 60 minutes (30 by default).

Two people are off-limits as targets: a member of a workspace you did not select (you can only view a user inside a workspace they actually belong to), and another operator (platform admins cannot be viewed-as).

Read-only by default​

A view-as session starts read-only, and that is enforced on the server. The api refuses writes for the whole session, so a stray click cannot change anything. It is not a UI courtesy that a determined action could slip past.

While a session is live, a banner rings the entire screen and sits across the top:

  • The border is amber in read-only mode.
  • It names who you are viewing and which workspace.
  • It counts down the time left.
  • It carries an Enable editing button and an Exit button.

When the timer runs out the session ends on its own and returns you to /admin.

Arming write mode​

If you need to fix something in place, the Enable editing button turns on write mode. It asks you to confirm first, then the banner turns red so the color alone tells you edits are now real. Turning on write mode is its own logged event, separate from starting the session. Every change you make in write mode is attributed to you, not to the member. You can drop back to read-only at any time with Back to read-only, or leave entirely with Exit.

The trail it leaves​

View-as is built to be visible, not covert. Two records are written:

  • A line in the target workspace's own activity feed, so the workspace sees that an operator viewed it, why, and when. Arming write mode adds a second line there.
  • An entry in the operator console's View-as Log, an append-only list of every session: operator, target, workspace, reason, mode, request count, and the start, expiry, and end times.

Because the reason is mandatory and both trails are append-only, there is no way to look inside a workspace quietly.