Account Access vs. Account Administrators

In the coming months, users will no longer be able to create Account Administrator relationships. (These were also known as Account Executives at one point.) However, account owners can still share access with other users using our new Account Access tool instead.

Users with existing Account Administrator relationships should see What if I use the Account Administrator tool? below.

How does Account Access compare to Account Administrators?

Giving users access to your account without giving them your password is an important security feature, especially when so many of our customers work with short-term contracted Web developers. We've accomplish this previously through a tool called Account Administrators, but over the upcoming months are moving to a new tool called Account Access.

Though both of these tools let owners give other users access to their accounts, they work very differently. To get an idea of the differences, check out the comparison chart below:

Another Way to Explain the Differences

Naturally, both of these tools are more than the features they provide: there's also the experience you have with it as the user.

Account Access lets owners give other users access to all of their supported products' accounts (more info). We limit some features to eliminate potentially malicious use (like modifying the account owner's information), but other users can use most products just like the account's owner. With a sufficient Access level, they can also purchase GoWebsite products in the owner's account.

Account Administrators gave users piecemeal access to a small groups of products. This access was further limited to a pre-defined set of actions within the applications that had to be configured correctly to make sure the accessing user could get the work done that the account owner needed.

What we found, though, was that the Account Administrator system frustrated a lot of users with its granular controls. Most users just wanted to give their Web professional access to the entire account, hence why we designed Account Access to do just that.

For more information about Account Access and its features, see What is Account Access?.

What if I use the Account Administrator tool?

Existing Account Administrator relationships will be impacted in the following ways:

• If you're the account owner in an Account Administrator relationship, setting up Account Access removes your Account Administrators and they will no longer have access to your account through the Account Administrator system. However, you can instead give them access through Account Access.
  
  Accepting Account Access requests (i.e. they're the account owner giving you Account Access) will not change your Account Administrator relationships.
• If you use the Account Administrator system to access other users' accounts, Account Access will not change those relationships.