Managing Roles and User Permissions

Introduction

Product Description

The Alpha|Stack Roles and Permissions feature is a comprehensive user access rights system that controls which parts of the application your users can access by allowing you to define categorical groups of permissions called roles. You define roles by adding any number of individual permissions to either pre-existing roles or to any new roles that you create. We designed the Roles and Permissions feature to be flexible and robust, so there are several steps that you should become familiar with to become proficient at managing user access rights. Spending a little time reading through this document will help you get caught up on the ins and outs of configuring permissions within Alpha|Stack and making sure your users are accessing resources applicable to their responsibilities within your organization.

Conventions

This section describes the specific conventions used in the manual. Items include:

  • References to information the user must input or supply when interacting with Alpha|Stack.
  • The methods in which notes, cautionary text and warnings within the manual are indicated.

User Entry

The manual references information a user must type into the system according to the following rules:

Text the user must type inHow the command is represented
Keys the user must press<Enter>
Combination keys the user must press (for example, Ctrl, Enter)Keys are separated by a plus (+) symbol. For example: <Ctrl> + <Enter>

Roles

Defining Roles

Overview

Roles are nothing more than groups of permissions that can be applied to users. When a role is applied to a user, they will have access to the Alpha|Stack features attached to the role. This section will highlight the steps necessary for creating and assigning roles.

Creating a Role

Your system has been configured with a minimal set of roles that will allow you to grant permissions to users in the system. It is not a requirement for you to add additional roles, but you may discover after having used the system for a while that you would like to customize permissions for certain users in the system; that&#39;s when knowledge of the role management feature will come in handy.

:::caution Please Note You must be assigned the appropriate level of permissions within Alpha|Stack to perform the steps within this section. Contact your administrator if you do not have the required level of access rights. :::

:::note To view the list of currently configured roles and add or change the roles set of permissions, follow the steps outlined below. :::

StepAction
1.After logging into Alpha
2.The list of roles configured for your system will be displayed. Click the Create icon in the top right corner of the page.
3.In this example, we will create a Role that has a single permission that would be suitable for a support desk representative and give it the name: Support Rep. Begin by entering the ROLE NAME, then scroll down to the SUPPORT permissions section and check both boxes on the Can Create Tickets row. After selecting the appropriate items and entering the name, click on the SUBMIT button to save your changes as shown in the image below.
4.Upon successful creation of the role , a notification will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. You may dismiss the notification by clicking on it, otherwise it will dismiss itself after a few seconds.
5.A crucial part of creating a new role involves granting access to the page the corresponding permission relates to. Page access is controlled by the section titled VIEWABLE ROUTES within the Create Role page. Scroll down now to find the VIEWABLE ROUTES section:
6The other selections for viewable routes are dependent upon which permissions you attached to the role. In our example above, we gave this role the Can Create Tickets permission, so you need to scroll to or search for, <Ctrl> + <F>, the following routes and select the Allowed checkbox as shown below. Once selected, you should click the SUBMIT button once again to save your changes. You have successfully created a role that can now be added to a real user in the system! The next section will cover updating a user&#39;s permissions.

User Permissions

Managing User Permissions with Roles

Overview

As mentioned in the opening section, a role is a categorical set of permissions – or permission set – that can be named whatever you like. Typically, the role name will give some clue as to the purpose of the set of permissions that are attached to the role, and it serves as nothing more than a way to keep your permissions organized. Once you have defined your own set of roles or you are comfortable with using only the pre-configured roles that come with Alpha|Stack, you can begin attaching roles to individual users. Remember, roles are what grant users access rights to various features within the application, so it is important to assign roles that are appropriate for everyone&#39;s responsibilities within your organization. Most of the roles are straight forward. For example, sales reps should be granted the Sales role so they have access to request site surveys or create sales contracts, installers should be granted either one of the Voice or Field Operations roles so that they can manage their work queues, and so forth. You should spend some time familiarizing yourself with each role prior to assigning one or more roles to users.

Assigning a Role

This document does not cover all of the details necessary to set up users; it is assumed that one or more users have already been set up in Alpha|Stack, and you have some responsibility within your organization to control access rights for those users. This section will deal specifically with assigning roles to users. If you are unsure about what a role is or what the implications would be for assigning a role to a user, please refer to the previous section entitled, Defining Roles.

:::caution Please Note You must be assigned the appropriate level of permissions within Alpha|Stack to perform the steps within this section. Contact your administrator if you do not have the required level of access rights. :::


:::note To view the list of currently configured roles and add or change roles for a user, follow the steps outlined below :::

:::success Tip As opposed to clicking links, most tables in the system have a context menu that will present additional options. Right-clicking (or two-finger tapping for Mac users) on the Users table will give the additional options of View, Edit, or Delete for each user in the list, limited by your permissions. You can skip steps 3 & 4 below by opting to edit the user in this manner. :::

StepAction
1.After logging into Alpha
2.The list of users that have been added to your system will be displayed. Click the name of a user you want to manage permissions for.
3.After clicking on the user name in the table, the site will navigate to the View User page:
4.To begin adding one or more roles to the user, click on the Edit icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
5.The page will transition to edit mode. Find the drop-down list control entitled ROLE and click it to display the options. In this example, Aaron is a sales representative, so we will select the Sales role, by using the down arrow, <>, or by scrolling with the mouse wheel and then clicking on the role entitled, Sales.

:::caution Note The Employee role is a convenience role that allows for quick configuration for a typical user. It grants permission for users to login to the application, clock in or out, if they are set up as an hourly employee, and perform basic functions such as review schedules on the calendar. Unless you have otherwise configured a base role to perform these standard application functions, go ahead and select Employee now. :::

Managing User Permissions with Roles, continued

StepAction
6.The ROLE drop-down should now look like the following.
7.Click the SUBMIT button to apply the role and assign permissions to the user. Upon successful user update, a notification will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. You may dismiss the notification by clicking on it, otherwise it will dismiss itself after a few seconds.
If the user has never logged into the application, they&#39;re all set with access rights that correspond to their respective responsibilities. If the user is currently active in the system, send them a message to log out and log back in for the new permission to take effect.

:::warning You should double-check the Master Account toggle settings. For limited access users, it should be set to "NO" as shown in the image below.

Master Accounts are specialized accounts that are intended to have full access to every feature in the system for administrative purposes. Setting this flag to "YES" will override any and all roles that have been assigned to the user. :::