User roles - overview of permissions and what they do

Custom user roles are used for two purposes: Grouping users and managing permissions. In this article you can find an overview of all custom user roles, and what rights they give to a user when you assign them.
 

General information

A custom user roles sits "on top" of primary user roles. This means that, if a primary role gives a user the right to access something, a custom user role cannot take this permission away from them. If you want to learn more about primary user roles and what they do, check out this article.

Overview of custom user role permissions

Analytics

This will give users with this custom user role access to the Analytics section in the Control Environment. Users with this role can:

• View the Dashboards
• Request and download exports
• Request and download post field analysis data

Forum moderation

With this custom user role, users will get general access to the Control Environment, where they can:

• See community content and moderate it (access to "Forum overview" and individual topic moderation)
• Create new content
• Use advanced filters and search

Note: If you are using a SSO-login, a user will not have a password. So to be able to log in to the Control Environment their password needs to be changed/defined in their user profile page before they can actually access.

Users

This custom user role will allow a user to view the user overview in Control

Note: For assigning/unassigning/creating/deleting custom user roles, a user needs to have the rights located in "custom roles".

Inbox

This custom user role will give a user the right to

• Visit and send private messages from the inbox in the Control Environment
• Mass-pm users in the Control Environment (send up to 50 pm at the same time)

Platform

With this custom user role, a user can access the Platform section in Control and all actions available in those pages

Profile fields

This custom user role gives permission to access and change/delete/create profile fields

Ranks

Owning this custom user role will enable a user to access and change/delete/create ranks

Badges

By assigning this custom user role, you will give a user permission to access and change/delete/create Badges

Custom roles

This custom user role will give a user the right to:

• Access and change/delete/create custom user roles
• Assign/remove custom user roles for individual users

Note: This custom user role is very powerful, as it manages permissions and a user could abuse it to give him-/herself more rights (and take over your community). So handle this with care.

Emails

Having this custom user role gives a user permission to access Phrase management (adding, changing, removing text strings on the community and email notifications)

Visibility

When a user has this role, he/she can adjust the visibility of the platform (making the community private access via password / offline / change forum description)

SSI Settings

This role gives permission to add / change / delete the SSI settings (adding, changing, removing SSI code for Header & Footer)

SSO Settings

With this role a user gets access to the SSO login setup (if applicable for your community)

Embeddable Widgets Setup

This custom user role gives permission to set up and change the look and feel of the embeddable widgets

Upload files to posts

When users have this custom user role assigned, they will be able to upload files to their posts (in both the Front- and Back-end).

Note: This only is relevant if file uploads generally have been disabled for all users

Appearance

With this custom user role a user can:

• Change the styling of your community
• Create/change the favicon and share image

How to Provide Any Registered User with Control Access/Permissions

1. Go to Control > General Settings > Custom User Roles > Add role.
2. Create a title for this role (e.g. Moderation - Customer Care).
3. Enable the permissions you want this role to have access to (in our example, we want Bob from Customer Care to have access to ‘Forum moderation’, ‘Users’, and ‘Inbox’).
4. Click Save Changes.
5. Go to User overview, find the user, and enable your new custom role on their profile.

⚠️ If your community uses SSO, you’ll need to ‘reset’ the password of a registered user (on their user profile within Control) before you can provide them with permissions.

More tips & tricks

Here you can find more interesting articles around custom user roles and what to do with them:
Hidden areas on the forum - a step-by-step guide
Primary user roles - what they stand for

Of course, should you have any questions or feedback, please let us know!

Cheers,

Julian