Create Custom Roles and Assign Them to Users – OpenCities

This task is for users with the OC System Administrator role.

Each user on your site will have a role that determines what actions they can take for your site. We have created many roles that meet most of your content management needs. However, you can create your custom roles if you want to restrict specific groups of users to sections of your site or content types.

With roles, you can:

Create roles with specific content management and editing access
Use page permissions to restrict a group of users from accessing sections of pages or specific content types
Use workflows to allow a group of internal users to approve workflow stages

The benefit of creating custom roles is that you can control what content types and pages your users can create or edit and what features they can access. For example, you may want to create a role specifically for your library team with access to advanced content management, WYSIWYG Editor options, file management, and content labels. With page permissions, you could also restrict these users to specific content types and the library section of your site.

See how it's done

How to Create a Role

To create a new role:

Go to More > Roles.
Select Create New Role, or select one from the left-hand menu to edit it.
Give the role a name and internal description so administrators can see who it can be assigned to.
Check the Active checkbox under Status to ensure the role is active. If a role is inactive, users with this role cannot log in.
We have divided all the tasks a user can perform into six categories. From each drop-down menu, select the Tasks you want to include in this role or the whole section to include all tasks in that category.
Once you've finished, select Save.

After you have created the role, you can assign it to your users.

Role Categories and Tasks

The following explains what each task enables a user to do. Remember that you can select whole sections to enable the tasks within them. Please note that all tasks also allow viewing of the Insights Dashboard.

Task	Function
Manage content
Basic content management (create, edit, delete etc.)	Includes permissions to: Create, update, and publish pages Delete their own pages Change review, publish, and deactivate dates Hide content from search and navigation Preview content
Advanced content management (Archive, restore, change page owner etc.)	Includes permissions to: Create, update, and publish pages Delete or Rollback pages Change review, publish, and deactivate dates Hide content from search and navigation Preview content Archive and restore pages Move pages in the site tree Change ownership of pages Undo content checkouts Share or unshare content Manage comments Add custom words to the dictionary
Basic WYSIWYG editing (Cut, copy, undo etc.)	Includes permissions in the WYSIWYG Editor to: Format text, including: Inserting paragraphs Text alignment Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, subscript, superscript text Indent text Symbols Horizontal rules Paste and clean text Use the format stripper Cut, copy, and paste content Undo or redo changes Find and replace Spell check Insert: Documents Forms and OpenForms (if SSO is enabled) Glossary items Images Links Featured links Rotating Banners Tables Media Fees and charges
Advanced WYSIWYG editing (View HTML mode, use XHTML validator, apply CSS etc.)	Includes permissions in the WYSIWYG Editor to: Format text, including: Inserting paragraphs Text alignment Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, subscript, superscript text Indent text Symbols Horizontal rules Paste and clean text Use the format stripper Cut, copy, and paste content Undo or redo changes Find and replace Spell check Apply CSS Paste HTML Use the Accessibility checker Use the content selector Use the xhtmlvalidator View the HTML tab Insert: Documents Forms and OpenForms (if SSO is enabled) Glossary items Images Links Tables Media Fees and charges Rotating Banners Image galleries Featured links Shared content Plugins Content lists Maps Calendars Accordions or tabs
Manage files
Basic file management (Create, edit, delete etc.)	Includes permissions to: Create, edit, and publish files Change review, publish, and deactivate dates Hide files from search and navigation Preview files
Advanced file management (Archive, restore, edit publish date etc.)	Includes permissions to: Create, edit, and publish files Change review, publish, and deactivate dates Hide files from search and navigation Preview files Change ownership of files Delete or Rollback files Archive and restore files Manage folders Undo file checkout
Content Labeling
Allows the user to add new labels to a page/file that does not exist in the global list. This will add the label to the global list as well.	Includes permissions to: Add new content labels to pages or files through the Content labels field. This will also add the new label to the global list in admin.
Add or remove content labels from the global list	Includes permissions to: Add, remove, and manage content labels from the list found through More > Content Labels.
Manage forms
Manage Seamless Forms (Create, edit, delete etc.)	Includes permissions to: Create, edit, or delete standard forms
OpenForms Author (create, edit, delete forms, workflows and custom documents) (only applicable if SSO bridge is in use)	Includes permissions to: Create, edit, or delete OpenForms
OpenForms Reporter (See and export responses, files, and custom documents) (only applicable if SSO bridge is in use)	Includes permissions to: View OpenForms responses Export OpenForms responses
OpenForms Reviewer (Assignable as a reviewer to any workflow step) (only applicable if SSO bridge is in use)	Includes permissions to: Review responses for forms set up to go through a review workflow after submission
OpenForms Admin (Manage admin and Integration settings. Assign local users and workspaces) (only applicable if SSO bridge is in use)	Includes permissions to: Manage OpenForms admin tasks, including: Themes Lists Snippets Integrations Field sets Lists Users Email snapshots View and export OpenForms responses Create, edit, or delete OpenForms and workflows
OpenForms Account Owner (Manage external users, access billing and security tools, access all admin, author, and reporter tools) (only applicable if SSO bridge is in use)	Includes permissions to: Manage OpenForm Account Owner tasks, including: Plan settings Billing Security External and local users Integrations Manage OpenForms admin tasks View and export OpenForms responses Create, edit, or delete OpenForms and workflows
Workflow approvals
Approve content in workflow	Includes permissions to: Preview content Send workflow notifications
Edit content in workflow	Includes permissions to: Edit content that is in a workflow
Manage subscriptions
Manage page and list subscriptions	Includes permissions to: Manage subscriptions at More > Subscriptions
Manage Fees and charges
Manage Fees and charges	Includes permissions to: Import fees into More > Fees and charges Create fees manually in More > Fees and charges Edit or delete fees in More > Fees and charges

Assign the Role

As long as a role is active, you can assign it to as many users as needed. After creating a role specifically for the library team, you would need to assign it to all users in that team.

Go to More > Users > Admin Management. A list of all current users will appear.
Select the user's name from the list, or use the search function to find them.
Under Roles, select the newly created role from the list and remove any roles that you need to.
Once you've finished, select Save. The roles they've been assigned will appear next to the user's name and email in the list of users.
Repeat steps 2-4 for each user you need to update.

You may need to create new users for team members who haven't had access to your site before.

What's Next?