8.4 Roles and Privileges

The parts of Beacon described below are generally only available to the Site Administrator.

This video gives background and context to the topic.

Definitions
Roles are the means by which access Privileges are assigned to users. Privileges determine which parts of Beacon a user may access and the tasks they may carry out according to their role requirements.

Privileges are allocated to Roles (not people). Roles should be considered as being equivalent to 'jobs', whereas users are people. When the person carrying out a particular job changes, the Roles allocated to their User Record will need to be updated and another user may need to be assigned to the Role. The Role itself, and the Privileges attached to the Role, should not normally need to be changed.

To display a list of Roles, click Roles and privileges from the Home Page.

When a U3A adopts the Beacon System, the following default Roles are already set up:

Administration Group Leader Groups Coordinator Membership Secretary Treasurer

Click on a Role Name to view the Role Record and associated Privileges.

When editing a Role, click all the boxes that the Role requires and press the Save Role button to commit the changes. If a Role is no longer required, you can press the Delete Role button to remove the Role from the system.

Adding a new Role
Click Add Role from the list of roles or an existing Role Record. Give the Role a name and tick the box if it is a committee Role, before pressing the Save Role button.

Assigning Privileges to a Role

Under the Privileges heading, assign the Privileges required for the Role.

For good security, always assign the minimum privileges necessary to carry out the required administration/functions of the role (avoiding the ‘nice to have’ options).

Clicking on a row or column header will toggle all privileges in that row/column.

To remove privileges, simply untick the corresponding checkboxes. 

• Privileges refer to distinct parts of Beacon and are subdivided, as applicable, with separate access rights for viewing records, creating new records, changing existing records and deleting. Note that the privilege to view will be required for anyone who needs to create, change or delete a record.
  
  
• Separate privileges are assigned to operations such as downloading documents, sending emails, etc. Users will not be able to send emails if their roles are not assigned the Email: Send
  
  
• Group operations sometimes apply separately to 'all', 'as leader' and 'as member'. Roles that are assigned 'all' privileges can access the records for all groups. Those assigned 'as leader' can only access the groups of which the user is a leader. Those assigned 'as member' can only access the groups of which the user is an individual member.
  
  
• Operations such as 'Member classes' refer to setting up membership classes, not the selection of classes in Member Records, for example. Operation names often correspond to similar names on the Home Page.

Press the Save Privileges button to commit the allocation of Privileges to a Role.

Note that roles are additive in that you can assign more than one role to a User and they will have the combined Privileges of the Roles. This can be useful if you want a role that extends an exiting role with an extra Privilege. For example, to give a Group Leader the ability to see the whole membership list define a role Group Leader Plus with just Members list ticked. Then assign both Group Leader and Group Leader Plus Roles to the Group Leader concerned.

Privileges Available

Refer to the Privileges Map and default Privileges to see how the tick boxes on the Role Record page (below) relate to operations within Beacon. The default privileges lists the default Roles when a new Beacon site is created.

These are the recommended default Privileges for with these Roles - However a lot is dependent on who does what duties in your U3A.

 

Recommendation

When setting up the Roles and Privileges for the first time, it can help you understanding of Roles and Privileges if you do the following:

1. Create an ‘ordinary’ System User for yourself (if you don’t have one already).
   
   
2. Allocate one or more Roles to your ordinary user account.
   
   
3. Log out of Beacon and log back in using your ordinary user account so that you can explore the functionality available with the Role to see if it meets your requirements. This way you can easily identify if you have missed something or need to change anything before allocating it to the real role holder.
   
   
4. After you have finished testing, log back in as Admin and re-allocate the real Roles to your ordinary user account.

Revision History

v1	2020-04-04	Graeme Bunting	Original version
v2	2020-05-18	Graeme Bunting	Reference to Beacon User Guide removed. Links to Privileges Map and Default Privileges Map added.
v3	2021-11-20	Graham Tigg	Pointed our assigning multiple roles are cumulative with an example.
v4	2021-12-14	David Powers	Video added
v5	2024-07-02	Graeme Bunting	New privilege added - Email notify when New Members joins online