Describe Your Web Site Users Worksheet (R04)

This site-wide reference document guides teams to describe who the website serves and why. It asks you to define the resources and services users need, why they would bookmark the site, and how administrators, managers/moderators, content creators, privileged users, power users, and casual users differ. Clarifying these user types improves governance for web content and mobile apps, and it supports compliance with accessibility guidelines.

For public sector or state and local governments, align the experience with WCAG 21 Level AA and the Americans with Disabilities Act, including Title II obligations for effective communication. Plan alternative text, screen reader compatibility, reasonable modifications, and equivalent facilitation. Address archived web content, preexisting documents, preexisting social media posts, third-party content, and password-protected documents so all audiences can view content appropriately.

Translating roles into permissions is crucial. If your site embeds analytics, define Tableau site roles and project permissions across projects and groups. Use permission capabilities to control publish capability, overwrite capability, view content, delete content, and the ability for an Explorer to publish.

Manage groups or users using a permission dialog and the effective permissions grid at both the project level and content level. For workbooks and data sources, specify data source credentials, connect capability, extract refresh, and whether a published data source allows saving a copy, publishing as, or embedding a password versus prompting users. Lock asset permissions where needed to keep data sources published and governed.

This user reference often lives in an Excel worksheet for easy collaboration. Use Excel for the web or the Excel desktop app to share an Excel file via a OneDrive share link for real-time co-authoring. Apply sheet protection to protect a worksheet: set locked cells and unlocked ranges, add a sheet protection password or range password, and allow select unlocked cells, format cells, insert rows, delete columns, use Autofilter, sort and filter data, edit objects, and work with PivotTables, PivotCharts, and PivotTable reports.

Configure data validation, conditional formatting, and sheet views; show or hide sheet tabs to match content types. If needed, unprotect the sheet, confirm the password, and adjust permission rules so you can allow all users appropriate access while maintaining effective permissions.

Use cases include redesigning a municipal service portal, launching a member-only knowledge base, or governing analytics dashboards and data sources for a product support site.

Proposal Kit can help operationalize this document through document assembly, automated line-item quoting for project estimates, an AI Writer to build supporting documents, and an extensive template library. Its ease of use streamlines producing the policies, worksheets, and content plans that bring these user definitions to life.

Additionally, this user reference becomes more valuable when it drives concrete governance anchored to a technical standard. Translate each audience segment into a clear site role and permission policy: who can publish content, who has web editing and web authoring rights, and what the all users group is allowed to view. These decisions reduce rework, shorten onboarding, and create a predictable workflow across projects and groups. They also make audits easier by showing how responsibilities map to platforms and content types throughout the lifecycle.

Operationally, teams often maintain the register in an Excel worksheet. Use the Review tab to apply worksheet protection and protect sheet settings, setting strong passwords and documenting the password to unprotect the sheet in a secure vault. Define unlocked ranges for contributors and keep governance cells locked.

The sheet views feature helps each team filter the same data without clashing with others' work. These small controls preserve data integrity while enabling day-to-day collaboration.

Proposal Kit supports this effort by assembling consistent policies, matrices, and role definitions, then aligning them with estimates through automated line-item quoting. Its AI Writer helps produce supporting documents that explain how to publish content responsibly and sustain web editing standards. With an extensive template library, teams can quickly tailor guidance for each site role and the entire user group, ensuring a coherent governance package that stakeholders can use immediately.

To turn this reference into action, establish a measurable roadmap. Start with a short discovery workshop to map each user type to outcomes, then translate those outcomes into permission capabilities. At the project level, define who has publish capability, overwrite capability, and web authoring versus web editing rights; at the content level, specify who can view content or delete content.

Use the permission dialog and effective permissions grid to verify that groups or users match policy, and that the all users group only receives read access where appropriate. For analytics, set site role defaults on the Tableau site so only designated owners can publish content, publish as, or save a copy, and require data source credentials, connect capability, extract refresh, and whether to embed password or prompt users for each published data source.

Operationalize this governance in an Excel worksheet hosted on OneDrive to enable Excel for the web, real-time co-authoring, and sheet views feature. Build guardrails with data validation and conditional formatting so contributors pick approved content types and flag missing fields. Organize sheet tabs by projects and groups, then summarize assignments with PivotTables and PivotCharts.

On the Review tab, document permission rules and use worksheet protection to protect sheet settings. Store the password to unprotect the sheet securely and use strong passwords. Keep key governance fields in locked cells while allowing teams to select unlocked cells for updates.

These practices reduce onboarding friction, cut rework, and make audits easier. Teams can migrate preexisting documents and third-party content faster, publish content confidently, and keep web content quality high across mobile apps and other channels.

How do you write a Describe Your Web Site Users Worksheet (R04) document?

Describe Your Users Site-Wide Reference Document. This document is meant for a description of the people your site will serve. We hope you can explain what purpose your site serves to its users and how to convey to them the proper information and tools to use it effectively. What resources or services should your site provide?

Why would someone bookmark your site? Please indicate on this list what types of users your site will serve. Add comments below if necessary.

Administrators capable of changing anything. Managers/moderators performing maintenance tasks. Content creators producing data for certain areas.

Privileged users with access to protected areas. Power users who will use your site constantly. Casual users who will visit your site infrequently.