Data ownership & handoff

When you run dembrane for a client, the recordings, transcripts and reports are theirs, not yours. This page is about making that explicit and honouring it: naming the data owner, moving work into the right place, and eventually handing the whole workspace over.

You’ll need it when you’re setting up an external-client workspace, when a project that started in your internal workspace now belongs in the client’s, or when an engagement ends and the client wants to take over. Naming a data owner and moving projects is workspace admin / owner work; transferring a whole workspace is a dembrane staff action. All of it assumes your org is a partner.

Naming a data owner#

You name the data owner when you create an external-client workspace, by giving the client organisation name, the data-owner email, and a confirmation of the partner agreement. All three are editable afterwards.

dembrane uses the data-owner email to recognise the owner: when the signed-in user’s email matches it, their workspace list shows a “you are the data owner” marker - a privacy-respecting signal (it doesn’t expose the email to everyone) that tells the client this workspace’s data is theirs. The data owner is also auto-invited as a free observer, so they can watch from day one.

The agreement is what makes the handoff trustworthy: the promise that the data is the client’s and that you’ll hand it over cleanly when asked. For the wider picture - GDPR posture, anonymisation, EU-sovereign options - see data ownership & compliance.

Moving projects#

Work doesn’t always start in the right place.

• Move a project between workspaces - say, lifting one out of your internal workspace into the client’s external-client workspace - from the project’s Settings - Overview - Move project. Owner/admin only. You can also bulk-move conversations between projects. See projects.
• Transfer a whole workspace to a different owner - the partner-to-client handoff, below.

Handing a workspace off#

Many partner engagements end with the client taking over. Because an external-client workspace already stands on its own - its own billing, its own data owner, optionally its own whitelabel - handoff is mostly a matter of transferring ownership. That transfer is a dembrane staff action, so it runs through dembrane rather than a button in your settings.

A typical handoff:

1. Make sure the work is all in the right workspace - move any stray projects in first.
2. Upgrade the client from observer to external, or bring them into their own organisation, so they have the access they’ll need.
3. Ask dembrane staff to transfer the workspace to the client.

Related#

• Data ownership & compliance - internal vs external, GDPR posture, anonymisation.
• External-client workspaces - where the data owner is named and billing stands alone.
• Observer & external collaborators - the data owner’s starting role, and upgrading it.
• Projects - moving projects between workspaces.
• Becoming a partner - the agreement that underpins all of this.