Accessing Child Sites

Each Child Site is a full-featured site, with its own files, permissions, and settings. Each child site is isolated from every other child site, but parent site users can access a child site.

Users are able to access a child site whenever any of the following is true:

• They are a Site Administrator of the parent site (also known as a "parent Site Administrator").
• Their user account in the parent site has been been granted Folder Permissions to the child site.
• Their user account in the parent site has been been granted admin access for the child site.
• Their user account exists in the child site.

Parent Site Administrators

Parent Site Administrators can connect to any child site and act as a Site Administrator of each parent site. They can also directly access and change the contents of any child site through the underscore folder within the parent site.

Connect to Child Site

Site Administrators on your parent site are able to connect to each child site by logging into the parent site web interface. A menu appears next to the logo of the parent site to provide access to child sites for parent Site Administrators.

When a parent Site Administrator connects to a child site, they have full Site Administrator access to the child site. Child site settings policies prevent changing managed settings within the child site.

Activities performed by a parent Site Administrator who has connected to a child site through the connection menu will appear in the child site's logs. This is because they are connected directly to the child site and are working within that child site.

Browsing Child Site Contents

Parent site administrators have access to the contents of every child site through the _ folder (The Underscore Folder) of the primary site. Each child site appears as a subfolder under the _/Sites folder in the parent site, and parent Site Administrators can make any changes to the contents of each child site's sub-folder.

The _/Sites system folder is available to a parent site administrator through any official Files.com SDK, or by accessing it through FTP or SFTP.

When a parent Site Administrator changes the contents of a child site through by browsing the child site's contents in the parent site, those changes appear in the parent site's logs.

Other Parent Site Users

Parent Site Administrators can grant other parent site users folder-level permissions that apply to the child site. The permission levels for a child-site folder are identical permissions for a parent-site folder.

Parent Site Administrators can designate any parent site user as a Site Administrator or read-only administrator of the child site.

Child Site Users

Users with logins in a Child Site can connect to the site through its address with any of the enabled protocols. They can connect with the site's custom subdomain or custom domain, if one exists.

Users created within a Child Site have no access to the parent site or to any other child sites. This even applies to child Site Administrators.

Only user accounts created within a child site can access the child site for protocol transfers. Any users granted permissions to a child site from a parent site cannot use protocol transfers to connect to the child site.

Using SSO with Parent and Child Sites

Configure SSO providers only on the site where your users are defined.

If a user belongs to the parent site, they authenticate through the SSO provider configured in the parent site, even if their access is limited to Child Site paths. It is not necessary to also configure the same SSO provider for any Child Sites the user has access to.

Each site’s SSO providers apply only to the users defined in that specific site.

Permissions Audit Export

The permissions audit export lists the permissions that have been granted to users. When it's run for a parent site, all permissions for the parent site and all of the child sites are included. When the export is run in a child site, only permissions that apply to the child site are included.