Project Roles in ODK Central

Support
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1. What is the issue? Please be detailed.
I have created a Project on ODK Central and I am giving access to general public to collect and download the data they are collecting on their own. However in the 'Project Roles', the Project Viewer can also see the Versions section. Is it possible to hide this section from the 'Project Viewers'?

2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue?
If we can define an intermediate role, maybe this issue could be addressed.

3. What have you tried to fix the issue?
I tried reading the documentation and realised that at the moment there are only 3 roles defined, and the Project Viewer can download everything, including the the xlsform.

4. Upload any forms or screenshots you can share publicly below.

Screenshot 2024-01-09 at 12.22.14 PM
Screenshot 2024-01-09 at 12.22.14 PM1252×448 33.9 KB

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For collecting data from the general public I would think you would want to use Public Access Links - have you taken a look at that functionality? https://docs.getodk.org/central-submissions/#public-access-links

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Hi @abhijit_ekbote,

So you want to have a role that is like Project Viewer where someone could see/download the submissions of the form, but with a bit less access where you just don't want them to be able to also download the form?

(@danbjoseph I'm interpreting this question as being about after the Public Access Link/public data collection step, where maybe they want the public to be able to audit the data.)

I tried this out just now, seeing if it were possible to create a custom role with the verbs you need. Verbs are how Central manages access under the hood, but we mostly just expose the notion of Roles through the API. It is technically possible to make a new role with a different combination of verbs, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work out for your case.

  1. Because everyone filling out the form needs read access to the form source in the first place, we don't really have a way to say you can get the form to fill out with a client but you can't download it otherwise.

  2. We also assume that if you're on that page in Central with details about the form including the submissions, you have full read access of the form, including metadata about the form and the actual xlsform.

    • The version tab specifically makes this assumption (see code) that if you can see the full form page, you can see the versions tab.
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Thanks Dan, I was aware of the public access link. However my question was more towards knowing if there was a way I can modify the 'role' and not give access to downloading the xlsform itself, while giving download access to the filled-up form only.
Thanks again,
Abhijit

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Thanks Ktuite, for your kind explanation. That answers everything and the logic behind it too.
Best,
Abhijit

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