Every Workiva customer is organised in the same way. An organization holds all of the customer’s workspaces, each workspace enables one or more solutions, and each person in a workspace holds a role that determines which features that person can use. These three layers, rather than a published licence metric, are what a software asset manager can inspect to understand how many people use Workiva and for what. This article describes them, the difference between the two licensing models the Support Center mentions, and the way Workiva staff appear in customer accounts.
Editions
Workiva does not publish edition names for the platform as a whole. The Support Center instead distinguishes two licensing models, each with its own role vocabulary.
- Solution-based licensing model. This is described as the current model. Workspace roles include Editor, Viewer and Limited Starter, and workspaces enable solutions such as XBRL and Filing.[5][2]
- Classic license model. An organization “not on the current solution-based licensing model” has different non-administrative roles, and the Support Center keeps a legacy roles table with Professional, Standard and Starter roles.[5]
Catalog rows: Solution-based licensing model; Classic license model; Current model is solution-based; other organizations have different roles.
The Support Center does not say how an organization moves from the classic model to the solution-based model, how roles map to billed units under either model, or whether the models carry different prices. The Wdata roles article shows that the two vocabularies are treated as equivalent for data access: Viewer, Starter and Limited Starter give read-only access, while Editor, Professional and Standard give read/write access.[10] Catalog row: Wdata read-only versus read/write roles.
Metrics
Organization
An organization connects all workspaces at a company, and a company typically has one organization.[1] At this level Org Admins add and manage users and apply settings that are enforced across all workspaces. The Overview page of Organization Admin shows the organization name, the organization ID and the list of solutions in the organization.[1] That list is the closest public indication of what a customer has bought, and an asset manager can compare it with the order form. Catalog rows: Organization; Organization contains all workspaces.
Workspace and solution
Workspaces separate documents, data and processes so that the right people have the right access, for example separate workspaces for Financial Reporting and SOX teams.[2] Solutions enable additional functionality in a workspace. Workspace Owners can add solutions, but only Org Workspace Admins can also remove them, and restricted or “V3” solutions are changed through Workiva Support.[3] When the chosen solution is database capable, the customer contacts its Customer Success Manager to create the workspace.[3] A workspace cannot be archived if Wdata is enabled in it, or if it is the only workspace of the person archiving it.[4]
Catalog rows: Workspace; Workspace solution; Only Org Workspace Admins can remove solutions; Database-capable workspaces are created with Workiva; A workspace with Wdata cannot be archived.
Workspace member
A person must first be added to the organization, after which a Workspace Owner adds the person to a workspace and assigns roles and groups.[7] Every user in the organization is an organization member by default, which lets the user be added to a workspace.[6] Whether an organization member who belongs to no workspace counts towards a subscription is not documented. Catalog rows: Workspace member (role-based user); Every organization user is an Organization Member.
Counting and floors
Administrative roles
At organization level there are three main administrators. Org User Admins add, update and remove users. Org Workspace Admins create and manage workspaces and their members. Org Security Admins manage sign-in and session options, access restrictions, single sign-on and SCIM provisioning.[2] Further organization roles include Org Chain Security Admin, Data Access Admin (reserved for Workiva Support Users) and the Workiva AI User role.[6] To see the organization settings at all, a person needs the Org User Admin or Org Security Admin role.[1]
At workspace level the Workspace Owner role manages members, groups, files and settings, but cannot edit files unless the same person also holds the Editor role.[5] Catalog rows: Organization settings need an admin role; Workspace Owner cannot edit files without Editor.
Non-administrative and feature roles
The three non-administrative roles of the solution-based model give graduated access to files, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, Wdata and processes. Workiva advises giving a user only one of the Editor, Viewer and Limited Starter roles in a single workspace.[5] Feature-specific roles sit on top of these. The Support Center lists Content Manager, Copy Manager, Data Sharing Manager, Task Admin, Section 16 Access and Section 16 Filer, Filing, XBRL, Sustainability reporting, Chain Security Admin, Chain Builder and several GRC roles.[5] Some of these roles gate solution-specific features: the Sustainability reporting role, for example, gives access to the features of a Sustainability Reporting workspace.[5]
For Chains, the Chain Builder role opens only the Chains homepage, and a person’s abilities come from permissions assigned to the user groups they belong to.[11] Catalog rows: One of Editor, Viewer or Limited Starter per workspace; Chain Builder role only opens the Chains homepage; Sustainability features need the Sustainability reporting role.
Legacy roles
In an organization on the classic license model, a Workspace Owner needs the Professional or Standard role.[5] The legacy tables list document, data collection and other abilities by Professional, Standard and Starter role. Catalog row: Classic model Workspace Owners need Professional or Standard.
Virtualization and partitioning
The workspace is the partition. Security restrictions such as IP and email domain access and single sign-on are set at the organization level, while file permissions and groups are set in each workspace.[2] An organization-level setting decides who can create a workspace, so an inventory should check whether workspace creation is open to all users or limited to Org Workspace Admins.[3]
Cloud and BYOL
Roles apply to a hosted service; there is no installed component whose licences must be matched to hosts. Roles also decide access for people outside the customer. A Service Provider Admin portal exists for service providers that manage several customer organizations, and Workiva documents that a Service Provider Admin can add users to multiple organizations and workspaces at once, choosing whether the users authenticate through the provider’s or the client’s organization.[13] Whether those users are counted against the customer or the provider is not stated in the article.
Programs
Workiva Support Users
At account creation, the only Workiva Support Users granted access are the Workiva Customer Success Manager and, if applicable, the Onboarding Project Manager, and it is customary for the Customer Success Manager to remain a member for support.[8] The corporate administrator can remove any Support User in Organization Admin, and Workiva Support Users and employees are prohibited from adding themselves to accounts, so that adding one requires action from at least two people.[8] When creating a workspace, a customer is told to set an expiry date for Workspace Support Users’ memberships.[3] Organization Admins can view activities to monitor which users were added, who added them and from which IP address.[8] Catalog rows: Workiva Support Users; Workspace Support Users are Workiva staff; Support Users cannot add themselves.
Custom roles early adopter program
Custom roles let a workspace define its own role configurations instead of using only system roles. The feature is part of an early adopter program that Workiva alone can activate, and it is provided for technical testing and evaluation until 2026-10-28, a period Workiva may adjust.[9] A customer should treat any role configuration built on it as provisional. Catalog rows: Custom roles early adopter program; Custom roles are an early adopter program; Custom roles beta ends 2026-10-28.
Out of scope
This article does not cover the order form, pricing, the Wdata quotas, Customize Workiva, or the licensing of individual solutions, which are covered in the related articles. Workiva states that its services are governed by separate signed or clickwrap agreements, and these agreements are not public.[12] The Support Center articles used here show when they were last edited only for some pages, so a recent change in role names or models may not yet appear in the sources cited.