EdTech · Coaching & Development SaaS

Individual Development Plan, organisation-level permissions for collaborative IDPs

A role-based permission system for an existing coaching SaaS, letting organisations edit team members’ development plans safely, without breaking ownership.

Org-Based

Access Control

Owner + Role

Editing Logic

Editable / Read-Only

Access Modes

This engagement implemented a structured organisation-level permission system for managing Individual Development Plans (IDPs) inside an existing coaching and development SaaS platform. It introduced a scalable permission model so organisation users — coaches or administrators — can view and edit team members’ IDPs based on configurable access rules, while ownership stays with the original user.

Key Results Achieved

Safe collaboration on development plans, without losing ownership

Coaches and admins can edit team IDPs under configurable, role-based rules.

Role-Based

IDP editing & viewing

Ownership-Safe

Collaboration model

Configurable

Per-organisation access rules

The approach

Challenge & solution

The challenge

The platform needed organisations to collaborate on their members’ development plans — but existing logic tied editing to ownership, with no safe way to grant coaches or admins controlled edit access.

Business challenges

Let organisations manage their members’ IDPs
Keep IDP ownership correctly tied to the original user
Give admins configurable control over who can edit
Preserve a safe, consistent editing experience

Technical challenges

Add a permission layer to the organisation-user relationship
Enforce read-only rendering for users without edit rights
Signal when an IDP is being edited on behalf of another user
Apply menu-level access controls and frontend editing safeguards

Our solution

A scalable permission model was added at the organisation-user layer: a dedicated ‘Can edit IDP’ toggle grants controlled editing without affecting ownership, with read-only fallbacks, editing indicators, menu-level access routing, and frontend safeguards keeping workflows consistent.

Core features delivered

‘Can edit IDP’ permission toggleA configurable toggle on the organisation-user relationship grants controlled editing rights.
Ownership-safe editingIDP ownership stays with the original user while authorised org members collaborate.
Read-only fallbackUsers without edit rights get a clean read-only rendering of the IDP.
Editing-on-behalf indicatorsThe UI clearly signals when an IDP is being edited as a coach or on behalf of another user.
Menu-level access routingNavigation and menu access adapt to each user’s organisation permissions.

Key Results Achieved

Architecture & technical build

Coaches and admins can edit team IDPs under configurable, role-based rules.

Architecture & technical build

The permission architecture was layered onto the existing organisation-user model, keeping ownership logic intact while adding configurable, role-based editing — with frontend-controlled safeguards for consistency.

Architecture overview

Organisation membership-based access control
Owner + role-based IDP editing logic
Editable / read-only role states
Menu-level access routing by permission

Key technical components

Permission layerA ‘Can edit IDP’ toggle on the organisation-user relationship.

Access-state renderingEditable vs read-only IDP views by role.

Edit-mode safeguardsFrontend-only editing restrictions and on-behalf indicators.

AI plan generationOpenAI generates customised development plans; Stripe handles billing.

Tech stack

Outcomes

Results & impact

Early outcomes

Organisations can safely edit members’ IDPs under configurable rules brOwnership remained correctly tied to the original user
Read-only views, indicators, and menu access kept workflows consistent

Business impact

A scalable permission model the platform can extend
Safe multi-user collaboration inside the same development plan
A foundation for deeper organisation and coaching features

Product screens