If your Bridge account has multiple authors and you want to prevent them from modifying each other's content, Bridge Support can enable a feature that limits content editing to the original author.
This means that anyone with authoring permissions—whether through the Bridge author role or a custom role with authoring enabled—will only be able to edit their own content. The only exception is that Account Admins can edit all content, regardless of ownership or editor status.
There are pros and cons to using this feature. On the plus side, leaving authoring open to all reduces administrative workload, allowing authors full freedom to create and edit. However, this freedom can lead to inconsistencies in course naming and quality control, making things feel a bit like the 'Wild West.'
On the other hand, restricting authoring permissions ensures more control and oversight, but it may increase administrative burden, as it creates a dependency on higher-level personnel to approve and manage content updates.
In this example, I’m Megan Pratt, and I’ve authored the course 'Introduction to Zendesk Software' in my Bridge account.
In the course, I can see the option to edit, indicated by the pencil icon in the top right corner of the content within Bridge.
When the 'Limit content editing to owners' option is enabled, Megan Pratt will not see the pencil (edit) icon when accessing a course authored by Holly Edwards, such as 'Fundamental First Aid Training.
If that feature is not enabled, Megan Pratt would be able to edit the course because the manager role includes authoring permissions.
Similarly, if the feature is disabled, Megan Pratt would see the pencil icon and be able to edit the course, 'Fundamental First Aid Training.
It's important to note that if the owner of a course is terminated, the course will only be accessible for editing by the Account Admin.
The Account Admin can then transfer ownership of the course through the Course Management interface.
You can also add content editors using the API. While the additional authors won’t appear in Bridge, they will have editing capabilities.
To add an additional author, you need to make a POST request (this requires an Account Admin-level token) to the following URL:https://{{domain}}.bridgeapp.com/api/author/course_templates/:course_id/authors
The body of the request will look like this:
The user_id used in this call refers to the Bridge user_id assigned to individual users. You can find this ID in the URL when viewing the user's profile.
In the example below, Megan Pratt has a user_id of 41.
You can also find this information by using the 'Export All Users' option in the main navigation. The user_id will be listed in column A of the exported file.
Currently, it’s not possible to set up a group to assign content editors; this must be done at the individual user level via the API.
To view which users have been assigned as authors, you can run a GET request on the same endpoint.
If you’re unfamiliar with APIs or need further assistance with this feature, please contact Bridge Support.