Getting started as a user in an organization
If you are part of a team and you’ve been invited to Buffer as a user within an organization, this guide can help you get set up and ready to work with the tools and social channels you have been given permission to access.
In this article:
- What are "organizations"?
- Getting your invitation
- Access levels and permissions
- Working within your dashboard
What are "organizations"?
As an individual Buffer user, you have your own organization with the ability to add your own personal social channels that only you have access to. You might also be part of another organization as a user with access to that organization's social channels. Learn more about the levels of user permissions below.
Notes
- You will always access an organization’s social channels and tools on your own Buffer dashboard and you will never need to log into another Buffer account.
- You will have access to all of the business features of that organization even if you personally have a different plan. Most users of an organization are personally on a free plan. However, when they switch over to the organization they've been invited to, they'll see access to the features available on their organization's business plan.
- Missing access to some tools? Learn about adding Buffer tools to your organization.
Getting your invitation
When someone invites you to their organization, they are prompted to add your email address and set up permissions for which channels you can access. Buffer will then send you your email invitation. If you do not already have a Buffer account, we will create one for you. The email you receive will give you instructions on how to set up your new account and set a password. If you don’t receive your email invitation, please reach out to your organization owner and have them check the spelling of your email address. Also, check your spam and junk folders to see if the invitation may have landed there.
Access levels and permissions
Your organization owner will set up your access to the organization and to social channels. Your access level and permissions are explained below.
📝 It’s important to note that even with admin access, you won’t automatically have access to all channels; you still need to be invited to any channels you should see within each tool. If you have admin access but haven’t been invited to any channels, you won’t be able to create posts or respond to comments. However, as an admin, you are able to invite yourself to any channel at anytime.
| Tool | Admin access | Full posting access (channel specific) | Approval required access (channel specific) |
| Account settings |
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| Publishing |
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| Engagement |
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| Analytics |
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Working within your dashboard
Once you’ve accepted your invitation and you’ve set up your account (if you didn’t have one already), you can now see your own individual organization and the new organization by navigating to your account menu. You can switch between the two organizations depending on where you’d like to work.
📝 Notes
- If both organizations have the same name (such as the default “My Organization”), you can hover over each organization to see which channels are connected. The owner can rename the organization using this guide.
- If your organization owner hasn’t set you up with access to any channels yet, you’ll see a message saying they need to grant you access. We suggest contacting the owner and asking them to set up your permissions using this guide.
Scheduling posts in the publishing dashboard
If this is the first time you’ve used Buffer’s publishing tool, we recommend visiting our guide for scheduling posts. If you’ve scheduled posts before, keep in mind that you will have access to many other features with the organization’s business plan that you may not have used previously if you were on other plans.
Working with drafts
All users with channel permissions are able to create draft posts in the drafts area. The drafts area is great for crafting ideas for posts, as well as creating final posts that you'd like to submit for approval. The option to request approval on drafts, as well as the ability to approve draft posts, will depend on permissions. Learn more on how to create and approve draft posts here.
Viewing metrics and working with reports in the analytics dashboard
All users can view metrics in the dashboards. All admins can view metrics in channels they have permission to access, plus create reports and view campaigns. If this is the first time you’ve used Buffer’s analytics tool, we recommend visiting our guide to Getting started with Buffer's analytics features.
Engaging with Instagram and Facebook comments
Team members with Full Posting access for an Instagram business account or Facebook Page within your Buffer organization can respond to the comments that come into that social channel.
If you or another user in your Buffer organization has Approval Required access for an Instagram business account or a Facebook Page within your Buffer organization, they will not be able to access or respond to the comments that come through to that account.
Connecting or refreshing channels
If you have admin access via the social network itself, you can connect and refresh (reconnect) channels within the organization. It’s very important to be sure you’re connecting channels in the right organization. You can switch organizations in the account menu as shown above. Follow this guide to learn more about connecting and refreshing channels.
📝 As an Admin, once you connect a social channel, you will have Full Posting Access to it.
If you notice that some of the channels you have access to have been locked, this is likely because the owner of the organization downgraded their account. When a plan is downgraded, the account is moved to the Free plan with access to only three social channels and no additional users. This is the reason those channels become locked for you.
In this case, you should chat with the organization owner and see if they had intentionally downgraded the account. It’s possible they didn’t know that downgrading their account would stop you from being able to access those channels or tools.