Private boards and board roles

Every board is open to everyone in the workspace unless you make it private. A private board, and everything on it, can only be seen by the people you add to it and by the workspace's owners.

Each person on a board also has a board role that decides what they can do there. Board roles are separate from workspace roles: you can make someone an admin of one board without making them a workspace admin.

Who can see a board

Choose this when you make a board, or later in the board's Settings → Members:

• Everyone in the workspace: everyone in the workspace can see the board and its issues. This is how boards work unless you change it.
• Private: only people added: only the people on the board's Members page, and the workspace's owners, can see it.

For anyone else, a private board doesn't exist. It isn't in the sidebar or the board list, and its issues don't show up in search, My issues, the dashboard, the inbox or notifications. Links to it open a "not found" page. They can't assign its issues to anyone, and nobody can mention or assign them there. Its pages and its chat channel are private too.

Where a page they can read mentions an issue on a private board, they see Private issue with a lock instead of its title.

Board roles

Role	What they can do
Admin	Everything a member can, plus change the board's statuses, WIP limits and labels, its settings, who can see it, and its members. They can archive the board; only workspace owners can delete it.
Member	Create, edit, move and archive issues, add files, and comment.
Viewer	See the board and its issues, comment and follow issues. They can't change issues.

A few people always have more:

• Workspace owners can see and manage every board, private or not, without being added.
• Workspace admins are admins of every board they can see. They see a private board only when someone adds them.
• Whoever makes a board is its admin.

On a board open to everyone, everyone is a Member unless you give them another role. Use this to make someone a board admin, or to keep someone to viewing.

Your workspace role still decides things that aren't about one board, such as who can make new boards, connect integrations or see agent costs. See Members & roles.

Add or remove people

1. Open the board, choose Settings, then Members.
2. Choose Add people, search for people and check the ones you want. People invited to the workspace who haven't joined yet are listed with an Invited tag; they keep the role when they join.
3. Pick their role (Member unless you change it), then choose Add.

To change someone's role, pick it from the menu next to their name. To take someone off a private board, choose × next to them: they lose access straight away, and notifications about the board leave their inbox. On a board open to everyone, × sets them back to Member.

A private board always keeps at least one admin, so you can't remove or demote the last one. Workspace owners and admins are always admins; their role can't be changed.

Only the board's admins (and workspace owners and admins) can add or remove people and change roles.

Make a board private

1. Open the board, choose Settings, then Members.
2. Under Who can see this board, choose Private: only people added.
3. Choose who keeps access. You and the board's admins are already checked; workspace owners always keep it. The dialog says how many people keep access and how many lose it.
4. If the board's chat channel is connected to Slack, choose whether to Disconnect from Slack or Keep connected. Kept connected, its messages keep going to that Slack channel.
5. Choose Make private.

To open it again, choose Everyone in the workspace and confirm. Board roles stay as they were.

You can also make a board private when you create it: under Who can see it, choose Private: only people added. You'll be its only member until you add people.

What follows the board

• Chat channel: the board's channel becomes a private channel with the board's members, and stays in step when people are added or removed. To use another channel as the board's channel, pick one that already has the same people: a private channel whose members are all on a private board, or a public channel for a board open to everyone. Only a workspace owner can link a channel that doesn't match.
• Pages: the board's documents follow the board.
• AI tools, the API and agents: an API token or MCP connection sees only the boards its owner sees. An agent works with the access of the person who started it. Starting a board's agent, by a run or by @-mentioning it, takes the Member or Admin role on the board; viewers can't.
• Webhooks and chat notifications: events from a private board only go to webhooks and Teams or Discord channels set up by someone who can see the board.
• Exports and calendars: a workspace export includes only the private boards the person exporting can see, and a calendar feed only shows issues its owner can see.
• Email to issue: on a private board's address, an email from a workspace member who isn't on the board counts as from outside the workspace. See Email to issue & channel.
• Slack: creating an issue from Slack only offers boards open to everyone.
• Help desk: linking a ticket to a private board's issue, or creating one there, with #deckbell KEY-123, takes the Member or Admin role on the board.

Audit log

Changes to a private board stay in the workspace's audit log. Workspace admins who aren't on the board see Private board instead of its name and its issues' and pages' titles. Workspace owners see everything.

From AI tools and the API

Board admins (and workspace owners and admins) can also see and change a board's members, roles and visibility through the API and the MCP server, with the same rules.

In the apps

The Deckbell apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and Windows show the lock on private boards and only list the boards you can see. What you can change follows your board role there too.