Creating custom roles for your users is easy, but you may want some guidance about what kind of roles you need. There are many reasons for creating custom roles, and you may want to do it before your users start creating content. Here are some custom roles we've often seen:
- Adding advanced editing permissions to the basic publisher and editor roles
- Mirroring OpenForms roles when SSO bridge is in use
- Using department-specific roles and page permissions to restrict aspects of your site tree
- Roles for different workflow approvals
Advanced editing access
The OC Publisher and OC Editor roles give users the most basic access to editing content on your site. While this is beneficial, as these users cannot accidentally delete or archive existing content, the downside is that they cannot access the full suite of options in the WYSIWYG Editor, and OC Editors cannot create new content.
You can create a new role that has Advanced WYSIWYG editing checked to get around this. You'll find this task under Manage content, but make sure you don't give users access to the complete section. After you Save this role, give it to users who already have the OC Publisher or OC Editor roles. This gives users advanced WYSIWYG access while retaining restrictions around archiving and deleting content.
Mirroring forms roles when the SSO bridge is in use
If you're using Single Sign-On between OpenCities and OpenForms, it may be helpful to create OpenCities roles that mirror those in OpenForms. This will allow you to create roles specific to OpenForms, without granting those users permissions in OpenCities.
The OpenForms roles mirror these permissions:
| OpenForms role | OpenCities permissions |
| Author |
|
| Reporter |
|
| Reviewer |
|
| Admin |
|
| Account Owner |
|
Roles and page permissions
You may have users who need complete editing access but should only be working on specific sections of the site tree. For example, you may have a content team for your library department, and you want to restrict those users from editing anything outside of the library content.
To achieve this, you can create a custom, department-specific role with complete editing access (including creating, editing, archiving, and deleting content) and any other permissions they need, but then add page permissions to your site tree. This will restrict those users from editing anything outside of the library content.
Roles for specific workflows
A common example is creating custom roles for different workflows. Many cities and councils have workflows for specific content types, such as events or news articles. Creating a custom role for each of these allows you to ensure the content goes through the workflow correctly and keep track of who in your staff is approving or rejecting content.
To create roles for workflows, you simply need to create a new role, add the permissions under Workflow approvals, then specify that role in the Approvals tab of the workflow.
This is also helpful for MyCity workflows, ensuring that content submitted by your community members adheres to accuracy and your site's content guidelines.