# Assigning monitor stewards

Assigning stewards to a discovery monitor scopes the day-to-day discovery work — promoting staged resources, approving classifications, working the Action Center — to a specific set of users without granting them control over the monitor's configuration.

This guide covers the two ways to assign stewards on the monitor configuration form: enabling **system steward inheritance** and adding **explicit stewards**. For the underlying model, see [Monitor stewardship](/content/docs/platform/authentication/monitor-stewardship/index.html).

Monitor stewardship requires Fides Cloud or Fides Enterprise.

## Prerequisites [Permalink for this section](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/assigning-monitor-stewards#prerequisites/index.html)

- A configured integration with at least one monitor. See [Data Monitoring](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/data-monitor/index.html) to create one.
- Users with a role eligible to be assigned as a steward (Owner, Contributor, Data Steward, Viewer, or Viewer + Approver). See [Role-based access control](/content/docs/platform/authentication/role-based-access-control/index.html).
- For inherited stewardship: the integration must be [linked to a System](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/adding-systems-manually/index.html), and that System must have [data stewards assigned](/content/docs/platform/authentication/system-stewardship/index.html).

## Inherit stewards from the linked system [Permalink for this section](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/assigning-monitor-stewards#inherit-stewards-from-the-linked-system/index.html)

Inheritance is the recommended default. It keeps the people who own a System in sync with the people who review its discovered data, so you don't have to maintain two separate lists.

1. Open the monitor's configuration form (`Integrations → <integration> → <monitor> → Configure`, or use **Add Monitor** when creating a new one).
2. Locate the **Inherit system stewards** toggle.
3. Leave it **on** (the default for new monitors). Every current data steward of the linked System will be a steward of the monitor.

Fides keeps the inherited set up to date automatically. If you add or remove a data steward on the linked System, the monitor's inherited stewards change to match. If you re-link the integration to a different System, the inherited set is recomputed against the new System.

To stop inheriting, switch the toggle **off** and save. Inherited stewards are removed from the monitor; any explicit stewards you have assigned are unaffected.

## Add explicit stewards [Permalink for this section](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/assigning-monitor-stewards#add-explicit-stewards/index.html)

Use explicit stewards to assign someone who is not (or should not be) a steward of the linked System — for example, a privacy analyst who reviews discovery results for one specific datastore but does not own the System overall.

1. On the monitor configuration form, locate the **Monitor Stewards** field.
2. Pick one or more users from the list. The list includes any user whose role is eligible to be a monitor steward.
3. Save the monitor.

Explicit stewards are managed by hand and are never modified by inheritance. Removing a user from the **Monitor Stewards** field removes only their explicit assignment — if the same user is also an inherited steward, they remain a steward via that path.

## Combining explicit and inherited stewardship [Permalink for this section](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/assigning-monitor-stewards#combining-explicit-and-inherited-stewardship/index.html)

The two sources are independent. A user can be both an explicit steward and an inherited steward of the same monitor at the same time, and the two assignments are tracked separately. This lets you:

- Keep inheritance on for everyday governance, and add a small number of explicit stewards for monitor-specific reviewers.
- Disable inheritance entirely on a sensitive monitor and curate the steward list by hand.
- Pre-assign an explicit steward whose System-steward status is not yet finalized, without losing the assignment when their System role changes.

## What stewards can and can't do [Permalink for this section](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/assigning-monitor-stewards#what-stewards-can-and-cant-do/index.html)

Monitor stewards can act on the monitor's **results** — see [Decisioning Staged Resources](/content/docs/data-mapping/guides/helios#decisioning-staged-resources/index.html) in the Action Center guide.

Monitor stewards cannot modify the monitor's **configuration**: they cannot change its schedule, its classification parameters, its integration, or its steward assignments, and they cannot delete the monitor. Those actions still require a user with broader permissions.

For the full breakdown, see [Monitor stewardship](/content/docs/platform/authentication/monitor-stewardship/index.html).