Public and private projects
Choose who can discover a project, change its visibility, and understand what happens to existing participants.
Project visibility answers one question: who in the workspace can discover and join this project? Use a public project for work meant for the wider workspace. Use a private project when only its participants should see the project.
Choose the right visibility
| Visibility | Who can see or join | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Public | Workspace members can see and join the project. | Roadmaps, shared planning, and work the whole workspace may need. |
| Private project | Existing project participants can see the project. Workspace membership alone is not enough. | Client work, confidential planning, and focused team projects. |
Public means workspace-public. It does not publish the project on the internet.
Canvas access remains a separate layer. Someone can open a directly shared canvas without seeing its project, and a canvas can be private even when its project is public. Read Canvas permissions before changing both layers.
Change project visibility
- Open the project or a canvas inside it.
- In the header, open the project visibility control.
- Choose Public or Private project.
- Review the project member list after the change.
Who can change visibility
The project owner can use the visibility control in the header. In Project settings, a disabled visibility setting can show View owner; open it to identify the owner and ask them to make the change. Workspace administrators do not automatically receive every project-owner control.
What happens to members
Changing visibility affects people differently according to how they joined the project.
- When a private project becomes public, ALLO gives workspace members access to the project. This is a visibility change, not a direct invitation from the person who changed the setting.
- When a public project becomes private, people who already joined remain participants. Workspace members who could enter only because the project was public are removed.
- A pending invitation is not the same as joined participation. Check Manage members when a person's result is unclear.
If someone must retain access before you make a project private, add them as a project participant first and confirm that they joined.
Check canvases separately
Making a project private does not close every independent route into its canvases. Direct canvas invitations and active share links continue to be managed at the canvas layer. Review canvas sharing when the goal is to remove a person's access completely.
The reverse matters too. A public project does not guarantee that every project member can open every private canvas inside it. Canvas-level permissions determine access separately from project visibility.
When the result looks wrong
Someone disappeared after the project became private. They probably had public workspace access without joined participant status. Add them through Manage members if they should belong to the project.
Someone still sees the project after it became private. Check whether they had already joined or were invited as an external collaborator.
Someone still opens a canvas after losing project access. Check direct canvas invitations and share links. Project visibility does not cancel those paths.
You cannot change visibility. Use View owner when it appears and ask the project owner to make the change. If an authorized owner still cannot save it after refreshing, contact support.