Defining Roles

Ektron contains an Administrators User Group. Any user who is a member of that group automatically has full administrator privileges. The Roles feature lets you assign limited or specific administrator privileges to users who do not require full administrator privileges. For example, you can let certain users create, redirect, or remove tasks but deny them other privileges normally granted to administrators. See Also: Guidelines for Using the Folder-User Admin Role

The Permissions Table lets you control which users can manage a folder’s properties, its content, library items, and create or edit collections. (See Also: Managing Folder Permissions) Together, the Roles feature and the Permission Table give you the ability to assign administrative privileges to users who are not members of the Administrators group.

Best Practice

When creating new user groups to use with roles, assign names as a mnemonic aid for the role, especially for folder-specific rules. For example, the Marketing Folder Admins user group could be used for all role members who can administer the marketing folder.

Using the roles screens

Using the Roles Screens

Use the Roles screens to assign limited administrator privileges. To access the Roles screens, go to the Workarea and select Settings > Roles.

NOTE: In the Roles screens, you can select users or groups. However, you can never select the Administrators group, because that group already has all permissions.

-^-Show me the roles screen descriptions

Screen	Lets you give a user or user group the ability to	For more information, see
System-Wide Roles
Alias-Admin	This user has all the permissions that a member of the administrators group has, such as the ability to Turn aliasing on and off View all manual aliases Activate or deactivate manual aliases Change the primary alias Create automatic, community, and RegEx Regex aliases	Creating User-Friendly URLs with Aliasing
Alias-Edit	View and assign a manual alias to content View secondary aliases	Permissions for Working with Aliasing
Analytics Viewer	View Web Traffic Analytics reports Analytics button on the View Content Screen Analytics from the Web site's Access point menu Analytics from a PageBuilder page	Viewing Analytics Data
Business Rule Editor	Create or edit Business Rules and Rulesets	Creating Business Rules for Your Web Site
Collection and Menu Admin	Create, edit and delete Collections and Menus via the Content tab NOTE: To manage permissions for creating collections and menus via the folder’s New > Collection or New> Menu option, use folder permissions. See Also: Managing Folder Permissions	Creating a Collection;Permission to Use the Menus Feature
Collection Admin	Create, edit and delete Collections via the Content tab NOTE: To manage permissions for creating collections via the folder’s New > Collection option, use folder permissions. See Also: Managing Folder Permissions	Creating a Collection;
Collection Approver	If approval is required for a collection, approve changes to it, including the deletion of a collection.	Setting Up Collection Approval
Commerce Admin	Access the eCommerce screens in the Ektron Workarea.	Conducting eCommerce
Community Admin	Lets role members perform the following community activities: Set system default preferences View and create new Activity Types Agents Messages Enable or Disable Notifications	Notifications
Community Group Admin	Create, edit and delete and manage all community groups.	Community Groups
Community Group Create	Create and manage community groups. A user with this role can only manage community groups he has created.	Community Groups
MasterLayout-Create	Create and edit PageBuilder Master Layouts.	Creating a PageBuilder Master Layout
Menu Admin	Create, edit and delete Menus via the Content tab. NOTE: To manage permissions for creating menus via the folder’s New> Menu option, use folder permissions. See Also: Managing Folder Permissions	Permission to Use the Menus Feature
Message Board Admin	A user with this role can approve pending comments or delete existing comments on a message board. Message board comments for users and community groups are administered on the Web site. Message Board comments for content can be administered on the Web site or from the Content Report screen in the Workarea.	Content Rating and MessageBoard Server Control
Metadata-Admin	View, create and edit metadata definitions	Working with Metadata
Multivariate Tester	Perform multivariate testing	Optimizing Page Layout with Multivariate Testing
Personalization Admin	Perform tasks on Personalization roles screens Edit the Widget Space, Synchronize Widgets and Target Content Configuration screens	Permissions that Affect Personalization on page 1
Search-Admin	Create and edit Synonym Sets and Suggested Results	Suggested Results Synonym Sets
Smart Forms Admin	Create or edit Smart Forms	Working with Smart Forms
Synchronization Admin	Access the Workarea > Settings > Configuration > Synchronization screen, which lets the user perform all synchronization activities, such as manage sync configurations and profiles run a sync perform content and folder-level sync	Synchronizing Servers Using eSync
Synchronization User	Access the View All Synchronization Configurations screen View Sync logs Run a sync Sync content and folders	Synchronizing Servers Using eSync
Task Create	Create tasks	Task Permissions
Task Delete	Delete tasks	Task Permissions
Task Redirect	Redirect tasks	Task Permissions
Taxonomy Administrator	Create and manage taxonomies	Taxonomy
Template Configuration	View, create, update, and delete system templates	Working with Templates
Translation State Admin	Change the translation status of content	Mark Translation Statuses
User-Admin	Create, view, edit, and delete users and user groups	Managing Users and User Groups
XLIFF-Admin	Use the Language Xport feature, which copies content into XLIFF files that can be submitted to a translation agency. Can change the translation status of content.	Using the Language Export Feature Mark Translation Statuses
Folder Specific Roles
Folder-User Admin	View and edit folder properties. These users can update properties, permissions, the approval chain, metadata, Web alerts, purge history, etc. For example, create a user group and give it permission to manage the top-level marketing folder. Members of the group can do everything to that folder and its subfolders, but lack authority over other folders. See Also: Guidelines for Using a Custom Role	Managing Folder Permissions
Move or Copy	Move or copy content. An Ektron best practice is to create a User Group for this purpose, then assign the group to this role. Ektron recommends against assigning the role to individual users. After assigning the User Group here, go to the folders whose content these users will be allowed to move or copy, and assign to that User Group at least Read Only and Traverse permissions. See Also: Managing Folder Permissions	Moving or Copying Content
Custom Permissions	Used by a developer to extend the standard features of the CMS.	Guidelines for Using a Custom Role

Guidelines for using the Folder-User Admin role

Guidelines for Using the Folder-User Admin Role

When setting up users and groups for administrative access over folders, keep these guidelines in mind.

After being identified on the Manage Members for Role: Folder User Admin screen, users or groups must also be given at least Read-Only permission for individual folders on the Folder Properties > View Permissions for the Folder screen. See Also: Managing Folder Permissions
You must use the same identity on the Manage Members for Role: Folder User Admin and Folder properties screens. If a user group is listed for the role, use the same group when assigning folder permissions, not simply a group member. Conversely, if individual users are listed on the role screen, they must be specified in the folder permission.
Ektron strongly recommends adding only user groups to the Folder User Admin role, not individual users. If you set up an individual user as a role member, he could accidentally receive administrative rights to other folders.

Guidelines for using a custom role

Guidelines for Using a Custom Role

The custom permissions role lets your Web developer create a site page, and then restrict access to that page’s content (or areas with a page) to users assigned to a custom role.

Items you could show and hide could be as simple as a content block. But they could be more complicated, such as displaying buttons and fields for one user group, and something completely different for another.

Custom roles have no effect inside the workarea.

-^- Examples of custom roles

Examples of Custom Roles

Most of your site visitors belong to different political parties, while some are not registered with any party. By checking the user’s ID against custom roles, you could present registered voters with selections for their party’s primary, and prevent unregistered voters from participating.
Your CMS site visitors fall into two categories: suppliers and buyers. You could check the current user against a custom role and show buyers one set of data and suppliers a different set.
On your eCommerce site, registered students see a list of coupons that are not displayed for anyone else. Or, only registered adults can order age-controlled items, such as tobacco or alcohol.
Control your pages’ background colors, images, and skins based on custom roles. For example, mothers get family-oriented background images while teenagers get rock images and related styling.

-^- Setting up a custom role

Setting up a Custom Role

Set up user groups and add to them users who will have some level of access to the custom page. See Also: Creating a New User Group
To continue the above example, create one group of auditors (who will have read-only access), and another group of administrators (who will have edit access).
Create a folder to hold the content that will appear on the custom page. Use the folder’s permission table to assign users and groups appropriate access to the folder’s content. See Also: Managing Folder Permissions
Go to Workarea > Settings > Roles > Custom Permissions.
Click Add Custom Roles. The Manage Custom Roles screen appears.
Enter a name for the custom role.
Click Save. The Manage Custom Roles screen appears, displaying the new custom role.
Click the name of the role you created. The Manage Members for Role screen appears.
From the Show dropdown menu, select the type of users you want to add to the role.
Click Add Role Member.
Check the box next to the users or groups that you want to add to the role.
Click Save. The Manage Members for Role screen appears.
Your Web developer creates the custom page.
You create content to appear on the custom page. Place the content in the folder you created in Step 2.

-^- Information about custom roles for your developer

Information about Custom Roles for your Developer

The API provides two methods that determine if the current user is logged in, and if he is a member of the Administrators group. The methods let you test customizable roles with conditions outside the standard Is-Logged-In / Is-Admin tests.

API methods are listed below.

Method	Returns
GetRolePermissionSystem(RoleName As String, nUserId As Long)	a Boolean value indicating if the user belongs to the system-wide custom role
GetRolePermissionFolder(RoleName As String, nFolderId As Long, nUserId As Long)	a Boolean value indicating if the user belongs to the custom role for the given folder.

Method

Returns

GetRolePermissionSystem(RoleName

As String, nUserId As Long)

a Boolean value indicating if the user belongs to the system-wide custom role

GetRolePermissionFolder(RoleName

As String, nFolderId As Long, nUserId As Long)

a Boolean value indicating if the user belongs to the custom role for the given folder.

Administrator role privileges

Administrator Role Privileges

Administrator privileges include access to the screens that appear when you select Settings > Configuration.

Administrators can also

edit folder properties (including Web alerts, metadata, permissions, and the approval chain)
manage aliasing features, such as turn aliasing on or off, activate and deactivate manual aliases, and create automatic aliases
manually alias content
add, edit, or delete a calendar
add, edit, or delete a business rule
create, view, edit, and delete metadata definitions
create, view, edit, and delete taxonomies
create, redirect, and delete tasks
require a collection to go through an approval process
export content for translation to another language using XLIFF
run an eSync
access the eCommerce Module