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Permissions

Chapter 10 of 10

Control exactly who—or what—can access your application's resources.

About Permissions

Rumata provides a powerful, granular permission system that gives you control over access at multiple levels, from projects and factories down to individual resources and their permitted actions.

Instead of giving everyone full access to your application, you can decide exactly what each person, team, or workflow is allowed to do.

For example, you can allow a teammate to view a database without modifying its records, give another team permission to manage specific workflows, or authorize an automated workflow to access only the resources it needs.

All of this is managed directly within Rumata, keeping collaboration and resource security in one place.

Before you start

Open your factory workspace and navigate to System Explorer → Access → Permissions.

Rumata organizes access through Groups, which help you manage permissions for people and other authorized resources.

You'll also find Manage access controls throughout System Explorer, allowing you to configure permissions for individual resources.

1. Understand how Rumata permissions work

Rumata's permission system is designed to give you detailed control over your software.

Rather than granting broad access to an entire application, you can manage permissions for specific resources and the actions available on them.

What can you control?

Depending on the resource, permissions can cover areas such as:

  • Databases: Control access to specific database resources and their available operations.
  • Workflows: Decide who can view, modify, execute, or manage particular workflows.
  • Activities: Control which groups can use reusable operations.
  • Storage: Manage access to specific buckets and stored resources.
  • Keys & Secrets: Restrict which authorized resources can use sensitive credentials.
  • Services: Control access to backend resources and their available management operations.

Available permissions vary by resource type.

Permissions for people and workflows

Rumata's permission system isn't limited to human users.

People and teams can receive permissions based on their responsibilities, allowing different collaborators to work on the same application without needing unrestricted access.

Workflows can also be granted permissions, allowing automations to access authorized resources as they execute.

For example, a workflow that processes customer orders might need permission to access customer records and update order information, but it doesn't need unrestricted access to every database or storage resource.

This allows you to build automated processes while keeping their access limited to what they actually need.

2. Create and manage groups

Groups make it easier to manage access for multiple collaborators without configuring permissions for every person individually.

For example, you could create separate groups for developers, designers, and operations teams, each with different levels of access.

Create a group

  1. Open System Explorer → Access → Permissions.
  2. Select Groups.
  3. Click New.
  4. Enter a descriptive Name and an optional Description.
  5. Click Create group.
  6. Open the new group to manage its members and permissions.

Find an existing group

  1. Open Groups.
  2. Use Search groups to find the group you need.
  3. Select the group to review its members and available invitation controls.

You must separately assign the permissions the group needs.

Create a named group, then grant resource permissions separately. Illustrative interface reference; your resources and values may differ.

3. Invite teammates to collaborate

You can invite other Rumata users to join groups and collaborate on your application.

Invite a teammate

  1. Open Permissions → Groups.
  2. Select the group you want the teammate to join.
  3. Enter their exact Rumata nickname in Invite by nickname.
  4. Click Invite.
  5. Ask your teammate to sign in to their Rumata account and open Invitations.
  6. They can review the invitation and select Accept or Decline.

Once the invitation is accepted, the teammate becomes a member of the group.

Check your result

Confirm that the teammate appears in the group and can access the intended resources.

An invitation doesn't activate a Rumata subscription.

4. Grant access to individual resources

One of Rumata's key advantages is the ability to manage permissions at a granular level.

You don't have to give someone access to an entire application just because they need to work with one component.

For example, you might allow a teammate to inspect a database while preventing them from changing it, or grant access to one workflow without sharing every workflow in the factory.

Configure resource permissions

  1. Open the resource you want to manage in System Explorer.
  2. Select its Manage access control.
  3. Choose the group you want to authorize.
  4. Review the available permissions for that resource.
  5. Select the actions the group should be allowed to perform.
  6. Save your changes.
  7. Verify the permissions using the intended collaborator's account.

Example

Imagine your application has a customer database and several workflows.

You might configure access so that:

  • Developers can inspect and modify the resources they maintain.
  • Support staff can access the customer information required for their work.
  • Operations managers can review workflow activity without modifying unrelated resources.

Each group receives only the permissions necessary for its responsibilities.

5. Give workflows permission to access resources

In Rumata, workflows can receive permissions just like people, allowing them to interact with authorized resources during execution.

This is particularly useful when building automations that work with databases, storage, services, or protected credentials.

Rather than giving an automation unrestricted access, you can authorize only the operations it needs.

Configure access for a workflow

  1. Open the resource the workflow needs to access, such as a database, storage bucket, or secret.
  2. Select Manage access.
  3. Review the available groups and resource permissions.
  4. Grant access through the appropriate group associated with the workflow's execution identity.
  5. Select only the actions required for the intended automation.
  6. Save the permissions.
  7. Run the workflow with suitable test data and verify that it can perform its intended operations.

Example: Automated order processing

Imagine you've created a workflow that processes new customer orders.

It may need permission to:

  1. Read relevant order information from your database.
  2. Update the order's processing status.
  3. Access a stored API credential to communicate with an external payment service.
  4. Write the result back to the appropriate database resource.

The workflow doesn't need access to unrelated customer records, other workflows, or every secret in your project.

By granting targeted permissions, you can automate the process while limiting unnecessary access.

6. Keep team access separate from application users

There's an important difference between people collaborating in Rumata and customers using your published application.

Rumata workspace permissions

These control access to your development resources, such as factories, databases, workflows, storage, and backend services.

They determine what your teammates and authorized automations can do inside Rumata.

Your application's user permissions

These control what customers or end users can see and do inside the application you've built.

For example, a customer portal may have administrators, employees, and customers, each with different access to information and features.

These application-level rules must be implemented and enforced by the application's authentication and backend authorization.

Likewise, your application's customer roles don't automatically grant access to the Rumata development workspace.

7. Review and troubleshoot permissions

If a teammate or workflow can't access a resource, check the specific permission configuration before granting broader access.

Troubleshoot missing access

  1. Confirm that you're working in the correct project and factory.
  2. For a teammate, verify their Rumata nickname and that they've accepted the group invitation.
  3. Open Permissions → Groups and check the intended group membership.
  4. Open the resource's Manage access settings.
  5. Verify that the correct group has permission for the requested action.
  6. For workflows, check the execution identity and its assigned resource permissions.
  7. Test the action again after resolving the issue.

Precise control, without limiting collaboration

Rumata's permission system is designed to let people and automations work together securely.

You can organize teammates into groups, control access to individual resources, define permitted actions, and authorize workflows to interact with the resources they need.

Whether you're collaborating with a small team or managing a complex application, Rumata gives you the flexibility to control who—or what—can access each part of your system.