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Observer

An Observer watches an event or session without participating. Common use cases:

  • Training of trainers — a junior trainer shadowing a senior trainer.
  • Audits — a quality or compliance auditor reviewing a delivery.
  • Internal review — a manager observing a training they commissioned.
  • Research — a researcher studying delivery patterns.

What you can see

As an Observer, you have read access to the event or session and its content. You can:

  • See the event/session pages.
  • See the attendees (where the event configuration allows).
  • See the content delivered.
  • See the agenda and the running tasks at a high level.

You typically cannot:

  • Add comments, submit feedback, or otherwise interact.
  • See operational content meant for staff (briefings, internal notes).
  • See other observers' notes (if any are captured).

The exact permission set is configurable per instance.

Why this role exists separately

An Observer is deliberately not a Delegate — they have no tasks, they are not expected to engage, and their presence should not affect the attendee dynamics.

An Observer is deliberately not a Manager or Host either — they have read-only access and cannot influence the event.

Workflow

Observer-specific tasks are rare. If your event has observer checkpoints (e.g. "submit your observation notes after the session"), those will appear in your task list. Otherwise, you have no tasks to complete.

Federation note

Observers, like Service Providers, typically do not run their own FedMS instance — they have an account on the host instance for the duration of the observation engagement.

Next steps