Castaway Cloud is a SaaS product and this allows for excellent collaboration features. Advisors, customers and others required to contribute, can access the same file and work more efficiently together. At the same time and, as long as there is internet access, from different locations.
Real-time collaboration is powerful and a team working on common goals can achieve them faster.
There are several things to consider when deciding who should have access to Castaway Cloud internally and externally. Access, privacy, collaboration and security have been the focus of our engineering these permission standards. We have provided the structure for you to now determine your own policies and procedures around your Organisation's practices.
Access to Castaway - Internal staff/ colleagues
Internal access to Castaway allows for permissions to be applied to organisation members, likely only those with organisation domain email addresses. Internal access allows for project/ file access across the whole organisation. Please refer to THIS ARTICLE which details how to add colleagues to your Organisation.
The following terms apply to internal access:
Our Company - Financier Software Pty Ltd, Trading as: Castaway Forecasting, products include: Castaway Cloud and Castaway Desktop [legacy product, in deprecation]
Organisation - This is the company or overall group account that includes all of the users (internal and external), files, permissions, account management and commercial subscription arrangements with our company
Organisation/ "Org" Owner - The Org Owner has the highest organisation administration/ reporting functions and is also responsible for maintaining the commercial relationship and subscription, including billing, with our company. Theoretically anyone in the Organisation can set up a Castaway Cloud subscription (themselves or on behalf of the resultant Org Owner), only the Org Owner can cancel subscriptions
Create User - In this space, Org Owners and Administrators can invite internal users/ colleagues to the account as either Administrators or Analysts
Administrator - This user can manage Groups, Projects and Brands and can assign and manage roles for Analysts. Administrators do not have access to Organisation account and subscription management. Administrators can manage Invited Users (Guests)
Analyst - Analysts can access and manage Groups, Projects and Brands. Analysts cannot manage other Users or any aspect of the Organisation or account. Analysts cannot manage Invited Users (Guests)
Project - A Project is one file. Typically one entity, one company, one forecast modal or one Consolidation file. Projects are sold in a variety of Plan packs
Plan - Each organisation will subscribe to a Plan. Our company offers the following Plans: Plan3, Plan10, Plan20, Plan50 and Plan100. Plan pricing and inclusions are detailed HERE. You can add and remove projects above your Plan. You can change your Plan (increase or decrease). Org Owners, Administrators and Analysts can add Projects to an Organisation's account. Org Owners can manage Plan changes
Private Project - Projects can be selected as "Private" which will hide the project from others in an Organisation. This is appropriate when projects are sensitive or, for example, if a firm is preparing their own forecast and there is a need for the organisation's own file/s to be kept private
Organisation Member - this is a member of the project-owning organisation.
Access to Castaway - External individuals
External access to Castaway allows for permissions to be applied to individuals outside the organisation. External access applies only to individual projects, not the Organisation. Please refer to THIS ARTICLE which details how to invite Guests to your projects.
The following terms apply to external access:
Guest - Referred to in-app as an "Invited User". Guests are external users with access to specific projects only. Guests do not have access to other files and information in an organisation's account. Guests can be given the following 2 permissions for a Project: Active and Read-Only
Active - Active status allows the Guest to operate a Castaway model the same way the project owner in the originating Organisation can operate the model. There are no restrictions for Active Guests. Only Active Guests can be given approval to consolidate. This can be done by checking the "Allow Consolidation" box when inviting the Guest
Read-Only - Read-Only Guests can access the Castaway project, access all feature pages - Overview, Forecast, Analysis, Reports and Storyboards - but the Read-Only Guest cannot make any changes to the data.
Things to be aware of to avoid disappointment and re-work:
- Individuals who are part of an Organisation already subscribing or evaluating Castaway Cloud should either wait to be invited to the Organisation's account or identify the Org Owner and request to be invited. If you are an individual in an Organisation already with a Castaway Cloud subscription or evaluation account, please do not start your own account separately. This will likely result in disappointment, because you will experience permanent loss of any work you create as you are later transferred to your correct Organisation.
- There is a process to follow when registering for a Castaway Account or inviting others (internal and external) to your Castaway Account. In every case, an email will be sent to the invitee to follow steps to first accept the invite, then set up their account access. Therefore it is critical to take care to enter email addresses correctly when either registering for a Castaway Cloud evaluation or inviting colleagues and Guests. It is also critical to advise your invitees that the invitation is inbound, because invitation tokens last 45 minutes before they expire.
- Guests are automatically granted 10 years' access to the file they have been invited to. Guests can be added via the Castaway Cloud Overview screen, going to the Invited Users modal and clicking on Manage. Guests can be removed/ deleted from projects by the project owner at any stage by following these same steps to get to the Invited Users page. Once there, locate the Guest you wish to delete and click on the delete icon. If an error has been made and a Guest has been accidently deleted, follow the steps to re-invite them.
- Guests cannot be added to Private projects. Should you wish to add a Guest to a Private project, the project "Accessibility" will need to be changed from "Private" to "Global". This is done via the Overview screen, Project Details modal, then "Edit".
- The organisation owning the project pays the project file subscription fee, regardless of who has access to it externally. Individual projects can be transferred to another organisation as long as the receiving organisation has a Castaway Cloud subscription and follows instructions to accept the transfer.
- To apply the "Private Project" feature, go to the Overview screen, in the Project Details modal, select "Edit", go to Accessibility and toggle between Global and Private as required. If you want to remove "Private" mode from a project, toggle back to Global. To make a Private project visible to others, go to the Overview page, select the Private Users modal and Manage. Check the box next to the individual you wish to include and then click on "Update Private Users". To remove access, follow these instructions and uncheck the box next to the individual whose access you wish to revoke. If your colleagues is not on the list to choose from, they will need to be invited to the organisation's account, via "Create User"
- Inviting an existing member of your Org to be a Guest will not be successful. Unless the project is deemed "Private", the Org Member already has access to the file and you can discuss this with your colleague. If the project is "Private", the Org Member will not have access unless they are provided access by the Project owner. This is enabled/ disabled in the Overview screen, via "Private Users", then Manage.
- If you experience problems inviting people, or you see a popup advising invitations cannot be sent for a particular reason, it is likely that the individual you are inviting already has a Castaway account in some form. In this case, if you can't resolve it internally, please contact our Customer Success team via support@castawayforecasting.com, advising what you are trying to do and what you can see on the screen.