Effective user management is crucial for maintaining data security and operational efficiency in any business system. Unleashed's Role Permissions feature provides a robust framework for controlling what your team members can access and modify within your account. This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know about creating and managing roles to keep your data secure while empowering your team to work effectively.
Understanding the Role Hierarchy
Unleashed employs a hierarchical role system built on parent-child relationships. When you create a new role, it becomes a "child" of an existing "parent" role, inheriting all the permissions that the parent possesses. This inheritance model ensures consistency and prevents privilege escalation, as child roles can never have more access than their parents.
Once you create a child role from a parent, the parent role's permissions become locked and cannot be modified. This design choice maintains system integrity but requires careful planning. The recommended approach is to customize roles from the top down, starting with the broadest permissions and gradually filtering out access as you create more specialized child roles.
Every account begins with a default "Superuser" role that provides comprehensive access to nearly all features and pages within the platform. The only exceptions are the Unleashed API Access page (reserved exclusively for the Account Owner) and billing functions. This Superuser role serves as an excellent foundation for creating more specialized roles within your organization.
Manage Roles
The process of creating a new role is straightforward but requires strategic thinking about your team's needs:
Go to Settings > Security > Roles.
In "User Role", enter a unique name for the role.
Use the Parent drop-down menu to select a parent role.
Click Add.
The new role will immediately appear in your roles list and can be assigned to users and its permissions further configured.
To edit a role's name:
Go to Settings > Security > Roles.
Click on the "Role Name" field.
Update the role's name.
Click away from the "Role Name" field.
When a role is no longer needed or used, it can be deleted:
Go to Settings > Security > Roles.
Along the role's row, click on the bin icon.
📌 Note: Roles currently assigned to a User cannot be deleted.
Understanding Role Permissions
The real power of the Role feature emerges in the Role Permissions interface, accessible through Settings > Security > Role Permissions. This comprehensive dashboard allows you to fine-tune exactly what each role can access and modify.
Role permissions are organized in a collapsible hierarchy that can be expanded or collapsed using the "Expand/Collapse All" button or by clicking on the top-layer permission of each section. This organization makes it easy to navigate complex permission structures while maintaining a clear overview of each role's capabilities.
Unleashed uses an intuitive visual system for managing permissions:
Access permissions are controlled through padlock icons in the Access column. A green open padlock indicates the role has access to that particular page or feature, while a grey locked padlock shows restricted access. You can toggle individual permissions by clicking their respective padlock icons, or click the padlock next to the "Access" header to enable or disable all permissions simultaneously.
Editing permissions add another layer of control through the Can Edit column. Where available, these permissions determine whether users can modify information they have access to. A green checkbox with a pencil icon grants editing privileges, while a grey empty checkbox restricts users to view-only access. Like access permissions, these can be toggled individually or managed in bulk through the header controls.
Configure a role's permissions
To manage a role's permissions:
Go to Settings > Security > Role Permissions.
Use the Role drop-down menu to select the existing role.
Navigate through the Permission list, and click on the Access padlock and Can Edit icons to update each permission.
Any changes to a role's permissions require users with that role assigned to log out and back in, clearing their browser's cache and cookies, to ensure permission changes are properly applied.
📌 Note: You cannot edit your own role's permissions.
If a role hasn't been created yet, you can click on "Add new role" in the Role Permissions page, enter a unique role name, and click Add. The new role will have "Superuser" as its parent, sharing its permissions until configured otherwise.
Role Permissions
The table below outlines the permissions available to configure per role.
Permission type | "Access" Permissions | "Can Edit" Permissions |
Advanced Inventory Manager | Advanced Inventory Manager (AIM) | N/A |
Business Intelligence (BI) | BI Foundation:
BI Vision:
| BI Vision:
|
Change Password | Change Password | N/A |
Dashboard | Dashboard | N/A |
Data Exporter |
| Data Exporter |
File Library | File Library | N/A |
Inventory |
| N/A |
Mobile Sales App |
| N/A |
Production |
| N/A |
Purchases |
| N/A |
Sales |
|
|
Settings |
| N/A |
Frequently asked questions
What is the role permission for allowing a user to edit customer pricing?
What is the role permission for allowing a user to edit customer pricing?
When the user's role is selected in Settings > Security > Role Permissions page, go to Sales > Customer > Customer Pricing, and grant access and editing rights to all Customer Pricing by enabling the Access and Can Edit icons.
What permission restricts a user from deleting a Sales Order Line?
What permission restricts a user from deleting a Sales Order Line?
When the user's role is selected in Settings > Security > Role Permissions page, go to Sales > Sales Order Pricing, and disable its Can Edit icon to stop the user from deleting Order Lines from Sales Orders, or editing the Order Lines' price fields.