How to impersonate your mySites.guru team members
When you give a team member custom permissions, the obvious next question is “what does that actually look like for them?” Impersonation answers it. As the account owner you can sign in as any team member, see mySites.guru exactly as they see it, and switch back with one click, without ever knowing their password.
Sign in as a team member
Open the member on your Team Members page and click Sign in as. You are taken to the dashboard as them. When you are done, click Exit Impersonation at the bottom of the left menu to return to your own account. No logging out, no logging back in.
Where is the Sign in as button?
Go to your Team Members page and click the member. Sign in as is in the row of buttons at the top of their page, next to Send username, Send password reset and Block.
The button only appears once the member exists, so it is not there while you are still filling in the invitation.
What do you see while signed in as them?
Their account, with their restrictions. If you limited them to some sites under Site access, the sites list and the menu counts show only those sites. Any area you set to None is gone from the left menu, the Tools list and the Cmd-K search, and opening one of its pages gives you the “You don’t have access to this” page they would get, naming the area. In areas you set to View, the action buttons are greyed out, and hovering one shows the tooltip the member gets. A member on Custom permissions also has a table at the top of their Your Account page listing all 14 areas and the level you gave them.
This is the fastest way to check a permissions change before you tell a client or colleague it is done. Set the matrix, save, click Sign in as, and try the thing they asked for. If they say a button is greyed out, you can see the same button and the same reason.
Remember that while you are signed in as them you are acting as them. Anything you do is limited by their permissions, and anything their permissions allow, you can do.
How do you get back to your own account?
While you are impersonating someone, the left menu has an extra section at the bottom headed Impersonation, in red so you do not forget where you are.
Click Exit Impersonation and you are back in your own account.
Who can impersonate whom?
Only the account owner, and only the members of their own account. The Team Members page is restricted to account owners, and the impersonation link checks that the member belongs to your account before it switches you. Team members cannot impersonate each other or you.
Every impersonation is written to your activity log with the member’s name and username, so there is a record of when you signed in as whom.
Does it work for accountants?
Yes. Impersonation works on every account type, including the Accountant Portal. Sign in as your accountant and you see the invoices page they see. The accountant lockdown applies to you too while you are them, so any other page you try sends you back to the invoices, which is a good way to confirm for yourself that your bookkeeper really cannot see your sites.
Video walkthroughs
Tim recorded these on his Basic Joomla Tutorials Channel. They predate custom permissions and the current Team Members page design, but the impersonation flow is the same.
For a deeper look at team management, watch this one:
Further Reading
- Team members with site and feature permissions
- A login for your accountant, not your sites
- Passkeys for secure login to mySites.guru
Team tools like this are covered in our agency management guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does impersonation in mySites.guru let an account owner do?
Do you need the team member's password to impersonate them?
Who can impersonate a team member?
Is impersonation logged?
Can I impersonate my accountant?
Written and edited by a human, with AI assistance. Our approach to AI
