Types of Zoho Cliq users

Types of Zoho Cliq users

Zoho Cliq has two types of users: Internal users and external users.

Internal users:

Internal users are users who belong to your organization.  These users in Zoho Cliq are your team members, colleagues, or employees within your company. As internal users, they all use the same Zoho Cliq space, making it easy to chat, share files, and collaborate in one shared area.

Channels/Chats used: 

Who manages the organization's users? 

Limitation in usage 

  • The number of users that can be added to an organization depends on the plan chosen by the organization, as well as the number of licenses purchased.

  • The internal users can be classified into active and inactive users based on the permission and license management opted by the admin. When a user is marked as inactive or is a free user, they will not be able to use Zoho Cliq.

Admin controls

  • The admin can restrict users from performing certain actions at the organization level by applying policies and configuration settings for different modules. Admins can also set permissions depending on the role of the user.

Data ownership

  • Data ownership will apply to the org admins or super admins. 

External Users: 

External users are users who do not belong to your organization. They can be categorized as follows:

  • External contacts

  • Guest users

  • External users in Networks

External contacts 

These external contacts stay in their respective orgs, sharing a space where you can interact with each other through invite. Even though they have their own Zoho Cliq setup connected to their organization, they can interact with your org members.
Note: External users will have an active Zoho Cliq account within the same data center.

Channels/Chats used:  

Who manages the external users?

Each individual in Zoho Cliq can manage their external contacts and add them as participants to group chats and external channels if permitted.

Limitation in usage 

  • External users will not be able to see files shared by the org users if the admin has disabled the policy.

  • The channel admin can restrict external users from performing certain actions.

Admin controls

  • The admin should enable the respective policies required in the admin panel.

Data ownership

  • In external channels, the organization that creates the channel retains ownership of the data.
  • For direct messages and group chats involving external users, all organization participating in the discussion share control and ownership over the data.
Guest Users  
Individuals without a Zoho Cliq account can still communicate and collaborate through invites to join your conversations. They don't need to have their own Zoho Cliq account. This makes it incredibly easy to chat and collaborate with them.

Channels/Chats used: 

Who manages the guest users?

  1. Individual users can add and manage guest users.

Limitation in usage

  • Guest users can send messages, share files, and react with emojis.
  • An organization can invite up to 10,000 guest users, with each group guest chat accommodating a maximum of 50 such guests.

Admin controls

Data ownership

  • Data ownership will apply to the organizational admins of the user who sent invitations to guests.

Users in Networks

An organization can create and manage external collaboration spaces known as Networks. Within these Networks, there are two categories of users: organizational members responsible for network management and external users who can be invited to collaborate within these networks. These external users may or may not belong to another Zoho Cliq organization but will be part of your network.

Channels/Chats used: 

  • Channels, Group Chats, and 1-1 Chats

Who manages the non-org users in networks?

  • The network admin can add and manage non-org users in a network. 

Limitation in usage

  • There are no restrictions on the actions performed by non-org users or org users in networks. However, permissions will vary based on the role.

Admin controls

Data ownership

  • Data ownership will apply to the network admin.