Managing Participant Roles and Permissions

Roles determine what each person can do in a StretchMeet meeting. Setting the right roles keeps large meetings orderly and lets you share hosting responsibilities. This article explains the roles and how to manage them.

The four roles

• Host — full control of the meeting: start/end, admit/deny, mute, remove, lock, manage breakouts and recording. Every meeting needs at least one.
• Co-host — nearly all host powers. Use co-hosts to share the workload — managing the lobby, muting, and helping run breakouts.
• Attendee — a standard participant who can speak, share video, and (when allowed) share their screen. Most participants are attendees.
• Viewer — watch-and-listen only. Perfect for webinars and large sessions where most people shouldn't be on camera or mic.

Assign a role when inviting

When you generate a join for someone, you can set their role up front — for example, creating a co-host join for a teammate who will help run the meeting. Attendee is the default if you don't specify.

Change a role during a meeting

1. Open the participant list in the live meeting.
2. Find the person whose role you want to change.
3. Choose a new role — for example, promote an attendee to co-host, or move a talkative guest to viewer.
4. The change takes effect immediately.

Hosts and co-hosts can change roles; attendees and viewers cannot.

Choosing the right role

• Presenters and facilitators → host or co-host.
• Active discussion participants → attendee.
• Audience in a webinar or all-hands → viewer.

A realistic example

A marketing team runs a monthly all-hands for 60 people. The presenter is the host. Two team leads are co-hosts so they can admit latecomers and answer questions in chat. The 55 audience members join as viewers, keeping the session quiet and focused. During Q&A, the host promotes a couple of viewers to attendee so they can unmute and ask their questions live, then moves them back to viewer afterward.

Tips

• Always have a backup host. Assign at least one co-host so the meeting can continue if the host drops.
• Default big audiences to viewer. It dramatically cuts down on accidental noise and interruptions.
• Promote for Q&A, then demote. Temporarily raise a viewer to attendee to let them speak, then return them to viewer.
• Give facilitators co-host early. Assign it before the meeting starts so they can help from the first minute.

Troubleshooting

• I can't change someone's role. Only hosts and co-hosts can manage roles. Confirm your own role first.
• A promoted participant still can't speak. They may need to unmute themselves or grant mic permission in the browser after the role change.
• There's no host in the meeting. If the original host left without assigning a co-host, you may need to end and restart the meeting, or have an admin reopen it.

FAQ

Can there be more than one host?
Effectively yes — assign multiple co-hosts to share full control.

What's the difference between attendee and viewer?
Attendees can speak and share video; viewers watch and listen only. Use viewer for audiences.

Do role changes carry over to breakout rooms?
Roles apply within the meeting. See Running Breakout Rooms for how participants are assigned to and managed within breakouts.