Update Access & Roles
Use this guide when Amplitude roles or project permissions need to change. Updating access allows you to adjust permissions without removing and re-adding users, which preserves their activity history, audit trails, and owned assets.
Role and permission changes take effect immediately in Amplitude. Users don't need to log out - permissions update on their next page load or action.
When to Update Access
Update user access when:
- A role changes: Data Analyst promoted to Team Lead; Manager moving to individual contributor
- Project scope expands or contracts: New products launch; agency wins/loses client; team member takes on additional products
- Module access changes: Organization purchases Govern, Experiment, or Accounts modules that require new permissions
- Temporary elevation: User needs Admin for one-time task (tracking plan deployment, integration setup)
- Security or compliance requirement: Audit reveals user has more access than needed; principle of least privilege enforcement
- Organizational restructure: Team mergers, department changes, or reporting line shifts
- SSO/SCIM group mapping changes: Identity provider group updates require Amplitude role adjustments
Pre-Update Assessment
Before making changes, assess:
Clarify the change request
- Role change or project scope change? Determine if adjusting organization role, project list, or both
- Permanent or temporary? Document planned revert date if temporary elevation
- Which projects? List specific projects to add or remove
- Module permissions needed? Identify if Govern, Experiment, or Accounts access is required
- Reason for change: Business justification, security requirement, or organizational change
Review current state
- Go to Settings → Members & Groups and open user's account
- Note current:
- Organization role (Admin, Member, No Access)
- Project assignments and roles (Admin, Manager, Membe, Viewer)
- Add-on module permissions (Govern, Experiment, Accounts)
- Last login date
- Screenshot for "before" record
- Document which assets they currently own (dashboards, notebooks, metrics, cohorts)
Identify impact of changes
If reducing permissions (downgrading role, removing projects):
- Check if user owns dashboards, notebooks, metrics, cohorts, tracking plans in projects being removed
- Transfer critical assets before downgrading if necessary
- Ensure another Admin exists for projects losing Admin access
- Verify downstream dependencies (integrations, scheduled reports, data pipelines)
If expanding permissions (upgrading role, adding projects):
- Confirm business justification and approval
- Verify user needs the elevated access for their job function
- Document expected scope and duration
- Set calendar reminder if temporary
Obtain approval
For role elevations, project additions, or module access grants:
- User's manager or department head
- Data governance lead if adding Govern access
- Security or compliance if adding Admin or organization-level rights
- Product owner if adding access to specific product projects
- Save approval for compliance audit trail
Change Execution
Step 1: Access user management
- Sign in as Admin or Organization Owner
- Go to Settings → Members & Groups
- Locate the user by name or email
- Click on their name to open the user profile
Step 2: Adjust organization role (if needed)
If organizational responsibilities changed:
- In Organization Role section, select new role:
- Admin: Full organization control (billing, SSO, integrations, all projects)
- Member: Standard user with project-level permissions only
- No Access: Organization-level access revoked (retains only explicit project permissions)
- Consider impact:
- Upgrading to Admin: User gains access to billing, SSO configuration, user management, all projects, and organization settings
- Downgrading from Admin: Loses organization-level privileges; retains only explicit project permissions
- Setting to No Access: Requires explicit project permissions to access any data
- Save changes
Best practice: Use Organization Admin sparingly. Most users should be Members with project-level permissions.
Step 3: Modify project access (if needed)
If project scope changed:
- In Projects section, review current project list
- Adding projects:
- Click + Add Project or check boxes for new projects
- Select appropriate role for each project:
- Admin: Full project control (settings, tracking plan, integrations)
- Manager: Can create cohorts, dashboards, and manage team reports
- Member: Can create personal dashboards and analyses
- Viewer: Read-only access to shared content
- Removing projects:
- Uncheck boxes for projects to remove
- Or set project role to No Access
- Changing project roles:
- Update dropdown for each project individually
- Save changes
Best practice: Avoid "All Projects" access unless truly needed. Explicit project grants provide better auditability.
Step 4: Adjust module permissions (if needed)
If add-on module access changed:
- In Add-On Permissions or module-specific sections:
- Govern: Tracking plan editor, data quality rules
- Experiment: A/B test creation and analysis
- Accounts: Account-level analytics and journeys
- Enable or disable module access per project as needed
- For Govern specifically:
- Tracking Plan Editor: Can approve/block events
- Tracking Plan Viewer: Can view but not edit plans
- Save changes
Step 5: Save and verify
- Click Save or Update User
- Refresh and verify:
- Organization role updated correctly
- Project list shows correct additions/removals
- Project roles reflect changes
- Module permissions are accurate
- Screenshot for "after" record
- Check Access Log to confirm change was recorded
Step 6: Notify the user
Send email or Slack message to user explaining:
- What changed: New role, updated project list, module permissions added/removed
- Why: Business justification or organizational change
- When effective: Immediate or future date
- What they can now do: New capabilities or restrictions
- Duration: If temporary, when access will be reverted
- Contact: Who to ask if questions or issues
Post-Update Validation
User confirmation
- Ask user to log in and confirm expected project access
- Verify they can see new projects or cannot access removed projects
- If upgraded to Admin, verify can access organization settings
- If downgraded, verify cannot access previous Admin features
Asset review
If project scope reduced:
- Confirm dashboards/notebooks under removed projects were transferred or are no longer needed
- Verify user can't edit assets in removed projects
- Check that shared dashboards still work for other users
If upgraded to project Admin:
- Verify can access project settings
- Confirm can manage tracking plan (if Govern enabled)
- Test integration management permissions
Functional testing
Test specific changes:
- Govern access: Can user approve/block events in tracking plan?
- Experiment access: Can user create/edit experiments?
- Admin role: Can user access billing, SSO, or user management?
- Viewer role: Verify user cannot create new content, only view shared
Documentation
- Update access log with details:
- User email and name
- Date of change
- Organization role: old → new
- Projects: added/removed with roles
- Modules: granted/revoked
- Reason and approver
- Temporary or permanent
- Update team roster or org chart
- Add note to ticketing system
- Update RACI matrix if responsibilities changed
Monitoring
- Set follow-up reminder for 1-2 weeks to verify change working as expected
- If temporary elevation, set calendar alert to revert on planned date
- Include in next quarterly access review to verify still appropriate
- Monitor audit logs for any unusual activity after permission increase
Bulk Update Operations
For updating multiple users at once:
Via SCIM/SSO
If using automated provisioning:
- Update user attributes in identity provider (Okta, Azure AD, etc.)
- Verify SCIM sync completes within expected timeframe
- Check Amplitude for updated roles and permissions
- Document which IdP groups map to which Amplitude roles/projects
Via API
For programmatic updates:
- Use Amplitude's Organization Management API
- Authenticate with organization API key
- Call appropriate endpoints for role/project updates
- Verify responses and handle errors
- Log all API operations for audit trail
Manual bulk updates
If multiple users need the same change:
- Document all users requiring the update
- Process each user individually (Amplitude doesn't have native bulk UI)
- Use consistent approach for each
- Screenshot each before/after
- Document all changes in single access review ticket
Troubleshooting
User can't see new projects:
- Verify projects were saved correctly
- Have user log out completely and back in
- Check if SSO/SCIM is overriding manual changes
- Confirm projects are active and not archived
User still has old role permissions:
- Confirm save completed successfully
- Have user clear cache and reload Amplitude
- Check if SSO attributes are reverting the change
- Contact Amplitude support if persists
User lost access to dashboards they created:
- If projects were removed, dashboards in those projects become inaccessible
- Re-add project temporarily to export dashboards
- Or have another Admin with access export/transfer them
Upgraded to Admin but can't access billing:
- Organization role may not be set to Admin
- Verify "Organization Admin" not just project Admin
- Some billing features may be Owner-only
- Contact Amplitude support
Module permissions not working:
- Verify organization has purchased the module
- Confirm module is enabled for the specific project
- Check if user needs both organization AND project-level module permission
- Have user log out and back in
SCIM keeps reverting manual changes:
- SCIM provisioning will override manual role changes
- Make changes in identity provider instead
- Document SCIM role mapping for team reference
- Or temporarily disable SCIM sync for manual override (not recommended)
Best Practices
- Document every change with reason, approver, and date
- Screenshot before and after for compliance audit trails
- Notify users immediately after access changes
- Set revert reminders for temporary elevations
- Use least privilege: Grant minimum access needed for job function
- Review quarterly: Verify all users still need current access levels
- Prefer SCIM/SSO: Automate provisioning when possible
- Test after changes: Verify user has expected permissions
- Coordinate with security: Align role changes with security policies
- Maintain separation of duties: Avoid granting excessive Admin access
Common Use Cases
Promoting Data Analyst to Team Lead
- Obtain approval from department head
- Review current projects and identify gaps
- Upgrade organization role from Member to Admin (if needed for team management)
- Add projects they'll now manage
- Grant Govern access if they'll approve tracking plans
- Set project role to Admin for teams they'll lead
- Document promotion with effective date
- Notify user of new responsibilities and access
Downgrading departing Admin (pre-offboarding)
- Confirm departure timeline with HR
- Identify assets owned (dashboards, metrics, cohorts, tracking plans)
- Transfer ownership to replacement or manager
- Downgrade organization role from Admin to Member
- Reduce project roles to Viewer for final weeks (read-only access)
- Keep access active until official last day
- Document downgrade and planned full removal date
Temporarily elevating for integration setup
- Obtain approval with specific task and revert date
- Current state screenshot
- Upgrade to project Admin for relevant project only
- Grant necessary module permissions (e.g., enable integrations)
- Notify user to complete task by specified date
- Set calendar reminder to revert on completion date
- After task complete, downgrade back to previous role
- Document temporary elevation in audit log
Expanding scope (agency wins new client)
- Confirm new client covered by contract/SOW
- Obtain approval from account owner or procurement
- Add new project(s) to user's access list
- Set appropriate role (usually Manager or Member)
- Verify user can access new projects
- Document with contract or SOW reference
- Notify agency of expanded access
- Update vendor access documentation
Reducing scope (project sunset)
- Confirm project is being deprecated or sunset
- Identify all users with access to the project
- Transfer any critical dashboards or metrics to other projects
- Remove project from user's access list
- Verify user no longer sees project in Amplitude
- Document project sunset and access removal
- Update team documentation
- Consider archiving project if supported
Moving user between teams/departments
- Confirm organizational change with HR or manager
- Review current project access and determine new needs
- Add projects for new team/department
- Remove projects from old team/department (unless overlap needed)
- Adjust roles to match new responsibilities
- Update organization role if team lead responsibilities change
- Transfer ownership of assets if applicable
- Document organizational change
- Notify both old and new managers
- Update team roster and org chart
Granting Govern access for tracking plan ownership
- Confirm user will manage tracking plan quality
- Obtain approval from data governance lead
- Enable Govern module access for relevant projects
- Set to Tracking Plan Editor if they'll approve/block events
- Set to Tracking Plan Viewer if read-only needed
- Train user on tracking plan workflows if first time
- Document grant with governance approval reference
- Notify data engineering team of new tracking plan owner
Seasonal contractor access adjustment
- Contractor returning for seasonal work (e.g., holiday analytics)
- Review previous access and projects
- Re-enable projects for current season
- Set appropriate time-limited role (usually Viewer or Member)
- Document contract start and end dates
- Set calendar reminders for access removal at contract end
- Notify contractor of access grant
- Track in vendor management system
Compliance-driven access reduction
- Security audit identifies excessive permissions
- Document current access levels
- Work with user's manager to determine minimum required access
- Remove unnecessary projects
- Downgrade roles where Admin not needed
- Revoke unused module permissions
- Screenshot before and after states
- Document compliance requirement driving change
- Report changes to security/compliance team
- Schedule follow-up review in 90 days