Organizing Teams Across Separate Systems
When managing multiple design systems with Setup 2, thoughtful collaboration and access control are essential. With each system having its own documentation, governance, and contributors, the structure becomes more flexible—but also more complex.
This chapter will walk you through how to set up roles, manage access, and streamline collaboration in a multi-system workspace, so each team can work independently while staying aligned.
Roles & Permissions: Who Does What
Supernova uses role-based access control at both the Workspace and Design System levels. In Setup 2, this is especially valuable, as each design system can have its own contributors, consumers, and governance. By assigning roles per system, you can isolate access to only what’s relevant for each team—whether internal or external—ensuring security, clarity, and autonomy across your design ecosystem.
- Workspace Roles – Define access across the entire workspace, including multiple design systems.
- Design System Roles – Allow granular control within individual design systems, meaning a user can have different levels of permissions for different design systems within the same workspace.
Assigning Roles to Match Responsibilities
Here’s a quick breakdown of the available roles in Supernova and how they can be used effectively in this setup:
- Owner: Full control over workspace settings and permissions.
- Admin: Oversees workspace members, manages pipelines and global configuration.
- Editor: Can edit tokens, components, and documentation. Ideal for core contributors.
- Contributor: Can draft changes and suggestions, but cannot publish.
- Viewer: Read-only access for stakeholders, external vendors, or consultants.
💡 Pro tip:
A user can have different roles in different design systems, which makes it easy to tailor access per team, project, or external collaborator.
Collaboration & Approval Workflows
Each design system can have its own workflow. This ensures teams can iterate independently while maintaining quality and control. Supernova’s Approval Workflows help teams stay aligned and ensure that only vetted content makes it into production.
By enabling page statuses—Draft, In Review, and Approved—your team can follow a clear editorial flow when updating documentation.
Here’s how a structured collaboration flow could look:
1️⃣ A Contributor proposes changes to documentation or metadata.
2️⃣ The update enters the “In Review” status for feedback.
3️⃣ An Editor reviews and, if approved, moves it to “Ready for Publish.”
4️⃣ The changes go live, ensuring high-quality, validated updates.
This approach is especially useful when multiple teams are contributing at the same time—reducing confusion, preventing overwrites, and maintaining system integrity.
Staying in Sync: Notifications and Comments
With multiple design systems in play, communication is key. Supernova’s built-in commenting and notification features help keep everyone aligned.
This ensures feedback loops stay short and contributors always know what’s happening—without needing to manually chase updates.
Restricting Access with Invite-Only Design Systems
When scaling a multi-brand or multi-product design system, ensuring the right people have access to the right content is essential.
In Setup 2, it's common to have systems that are only relevant to specific teams, product areas, or external collaborators. Supernova’s Invite-Only Design Systems feature allows you to restrict access at the design system level, giving you precise control over who can view or contribute to each system.
Use this setting when:
- A design system is in early development or confidential.
- You’re working with external contributors.
- A system supports a narrow product area or experimental track.
How to enable it:
- Go to the design system's Settings > Access Control.
- Toggle access to Invite Only.
- Add the specific users you want to include.
Once enabled, only those invited will be able to access the system—keeping things secure and focused.
🔑 Key Takeaways
- Use Workspace Roles for global access and Design System Roles for precise team control.
- Invite-Only Design Systems keep early-stage or sensitive projects private.
- Enable Approval Workflows in each system to maintain quality and accountability.
- Leverage comments and notifications to drive async collaboration across systems.
➡ What’s Next?
Curious how a unified design system setup works in practice? If you’re considering managing multiple brands or platforms within a single system, head back to Chapter 3 to see how real teams are using Supernova’s Brand feature to streamline collaboration and delivery.
📖 → Jump to Chapter 3: Single Design System Setup
Already confident in your structure and ready to automate? Head to Chapter 5 to learn how to scale your system with code automation, from exporting tokens to syncing across platforms.
