Source Access¶
This page shows you how to narrow a source so that only some of your audiences draw on it. By default every audience draws on every activated source; access rules are how you keep, say, an engineering repository's facts out of the material written for Sales.
What a scope is¶
Access rules are not set per file. Each integration is divided into scopes, and a rule applies to a whole scope. How finely an integration is divided depends on the connector:
| Connector | One scope is |
|---|---|
| GitHub | One repository, covering both its markdown files and its codebase briefs |
| Slack | One channel |
| Teams channels | One channel |
| Teams chats | All chats together |
| Confluence | One space plus top-level page: every page nested under the same top-level page of a space |
| Notion, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive (Teams), Intercom | The first two folder levels of an item's path: everything under the same second-level folder shares a scope |
| Google Meet transcripts, Teams meeting transcripts, Uploads | The whole integration |
An integration's Access tab lists the scopes its active assets fall into. Activate more assets and new scopes appear as needed.
How a rule works¶
- Every scope is open until you restrict it. Open means every audience can draw on its facts. There is nothing to set up for the common case.
- Restricting a scope names the audiences allowed. Pick the audiences that should see the scope's facts; every other audience stops drawing on them.
- A new audience is excluded from restricted scopes until you add it. Creating an audience does not widen any rule. If a new audience should see a restricted scope, open the Access tab and add it.
- The organization's Default audience appears in the list like any other audience and is allowed or excluded the same way.
- Access is per audience, not per person. Someone who belongs to two audiences sees the union of what those audiences are allowed.
Restrict a scope¶
- Open Sources from the admin sidebar.
- Open the integration and switch to its Access tab.
- The tab is a grid: one row per scope, one column per audience. Untick an audience to stop it drawing on that scope. A fully ticked row is open to everyone, including audiences created later; at least one audience must stay ticked.
Rules are saved as you make them and apply to everything Mention writes from then on.
What a rule changes, and what it does not¶
A rule governs what Mention draws on from now on:
- Articles, lessons, and answers written for an audience use only the facts that audience is allowed to see. A new entry whose material sits behind a rule comes back not ready for an audience that is not allowed it.
- When a member asks a question, Mention reuses a recorded answer only if every fact it cites is open to that member's audience. Otherwise it answers live from the facts the audience is allowed, and that live answer is not recorded, so the question keeps its single organization-wide answer.
- The glossary and topic discovery draw only on sources open to every audience. A term that appears only in a restricted scope is still listed, but its definition is written from the name alone.
A rule is never retroactive. Articles, lessons, and recorded answers written before you changed a rule stand as they are; Mention does not rewrite or retire them. If an existing article should stop carrying something you have just restricted, remove the entry from the audience's contents and add it again so it is written under the new rule.
Contradiction detection stays organization-wide, and the Conflicts page shows admins everything regardless of rules.