Session Grants

Session grants let you temporarily elevate a participant's permissions during a live session. They're the mechanism behind "granting speaker access" and are essential for running webinars, panels, and interactive sessions.

What Is a Session Grant?

A session grant is a temporary addition to a participant's capabilities. When you grant someone speaker access, they receive capabilities like microphone and camera — even if their base capability level (e.g., "authenticated" or "guest") wouldn't normally allow it.

Session grants:

• Are temporary — they last for the current session only
• Are additive — they add capabilities on top of the participant's base level, never remove any
• Are stored in the participant's metadata and synchronised across all connected clients

Two Types of Session Grants

Drop-Based Grants

Drop-based grants are automatically managed by the system. When you place a participant in a speaker seat (a drop configured with speaker permissions), they automatically receive the capabilities associated with that seat. When they leave the seat — either by being moved, sent to gallery, or shuffled — the grant is automatically revoked.

This is the simplest way to manage speaking permissions:

1. Design your Ripple with designated speaker seats
2. Place participants in those seats when you want them to speak
3. Move them out when their turn is over

No manual granting or revoking needed.

Explicit Grants

Explicit grants are manually given by a facilitator. These persist until you specifically revoke them, or until the participant leaves the session. They are not tied to any particular seat.

You create explicit grants by:

• Right-clicking a participant's drop and selecting Make Speaker
• Right-clicking their entry in the People list and selecting Make Speaker
• Approving a raised hand (which creates an explicit grant)

Granting and Revoking

Granting via Context Menu

Right-click a participant's drop or their entry in the People list to see grant options. Selecting Make Speaker gives them microphone, camera, and screen-sharing capabilities.

Revoking via Context Menu

Right-click a participant who has an active grant and select Remove Speaker. This removes all explicit session grants from that participant.

How Grants Interact with Other Features

Speakers-Only Mode

In speakers-only mode, only participants with facilitator-level access or an active session grant can unmute. Granting speaker access is how you let specific people speak during a webinar or panel.

Hand Raises

When you approve a raised hand, an explicit session grant is created. See Hand Raise Management for details.

Breakout Zones

Session grants persist across zones. If you grant someone speaker access in the main area and they move to a breakout zone, they keep their grant.

Tips

• Use drop-based grants for structured sessions — design speaker seats and move participants in and out as needed. The automation saves you manual work.
• Use explicit grants for ad-hoc speaking — when someone raises a good point in chat and you want to bring them into the conversation.
• Grants are visible — participants can see when they have been granted elevated permissions, so they know they can speak.
• Revoke when done — explicit grants persist until revoked. If you're running a strict panel format, remember to revoke grants after each speaker finishes.