Get access to live participant specific permissions

[Vondry]

Which package/packages do you use?

• @stream-io/video-react-sdk
• @stream-io/video-react-native-sdk
• @stream-io/video-client

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

• As admin, moderator (or basically whomever), i would like to find out if specific participant has specific permissions.
• Use case is that I have custom participant lists in which i need for each participant information whether the specific participant has eg. send-audio and if not, i would like to grant this permissions or remove it (if the permission is there).

Describe the solution you'd like
I would like to get access on participant specific permissions in the same was i know participant role.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I did not find out any way how can I effectively query user specific permissions.

[oliverlaz]

Hi @Vondry, thanks for raising this request. Unfortunately, this is an intentional restriction coming from our backend, as computing capabilities of each participant could be a potentially expensive operation in calls with hundreds of participants.

For your use case, I'd recommend you use roles instead of capabilities, i.e.:

• host - has send-video and send-audio capabilities
• speaker - has only send-audio capability
• user - doesn't have the capability of sending audio or video

Would this help?

[Vondry]

@oliverlaz thanks for the reply, but unfortunately not much. Let me elaborate a bit on our use case.

1. We have list of participants in call (0-100 participants in our case)
2. As someone who has rights (admin OR moderator) I would like to grant OR revoke some users specific capability eg. send-audio (but it can be also video or screenshare) and this is problematic because we need to see realtime user capabilities in order:

• to show "GRANT" button for granting eg. send-audio IF user does not have already the capability
• to show "REVOKE" button for revoking eg. send-audio IF user already has it the capability
• we could use some local state in browser or device - assuming that by default user does not have specific capability - but if user uses different browser or device, this is information would be lost and using persistent storage for this seems a bit too much

[oliverlaz]

Hi @Vondry, I completely understand, but at this moment, our backend does not provide this information for remote participants.

I would still suggest you use role for this. That way, you'll have the information on whether to show the necessary buttons on the UI. The downside is - permissions become implicit in the codebase, as they'll be abstracted away by the role itself.

[Vondry]

@oliverlaz but even if i create specific role which will either have or not have the permission. How does that solve my problem for admin or moderator knowing what button (either "grant", or "revoke") to show based on current user's role situation?

• If i setup eg. speaker role with permission send-audio, i can show by default "revoke" button, but if i reload the page, all the state is lost, because user has already revoked permission and my admin will again show initial "revoke" button. Or am I missing something?

[oliverlaz]

hey @Vondry, I don't think that the state would be lost, as you could be maintaining the role on call membership level.
This will persist even after reloads, as long as the call_id remains the same:

• https://getstream.io/video/docs/react/guides/joining-and-creating-calls/#update-call-members

[Vondry]

Hi @oliverlaz, thank you, just to make sure. You are suggesting to create for example roles:

• speaker with permission send-audio
• ...

and then I will use updateCallMembers function call to add predefined role (how can i remove role?). This will trigger event so that corresponding user will receive/loose role so that i can either enable or disable corresponding button eg. microphone button.

Furthermore admin of the call will be able to also see up-to-date list of roles per user, correct?

[oliverlaz]

hi @Vondry, correct. With updateCallMembers, you can promote/demote any participant in the call. The remaining users should receive a call.member_added (for the initial setup), and then call.member_updated once they receive a role update.

Of course, on your side, you should keep a map of <role, capability>, eg,

{
  speaker: ['send-audio'],
  host: ['send-audio', 'send-video', 'screenshare'],
  user: [ ], // assuming the user role has no permissions to publish
}

[Vondry]

Hi @oliverlaz, i wanted to specify user roles in a bit more granular way eg:

• { talker: ['send-audio'], presenter: ['send-video'], presenter: ['screenshare']}

But seems that using updateCallMembers i am always able to add only 1 role (so user can have at most 2 roles). I did not find any other way how could i really dynamically toggle user roles with different capabilities.

Do you please have any suggestions?