User roles can be used to define a certain set of rights for an individual regarding a specific board. This is a nifty way to scale the amount of access a person has based on their responsibilities on the board. In this guide, we'll show you how to change the role of a person and what each role actually means.
Please note that some of the role options are not available in our entry-level plans, so do not be alarmed if you cannot see some of the options on your board.
For those in a hurry, here's what each role type means in a nutshell:
Admins
Organization admin: Can see and fully manage all of the boards under the organization. Also has access to organization settings (such as invoicing and message banner) and has the ability to manage board groups.
Board admin: Can see and fully manage the specific board on which they have this role. Board admins can also create new boards.
Board facilitator (Only available in Unlimited & Enterprise plans): Can manage ideas on the board (e.g. change idea-related information such as status) and see all details related to the board from admin portal (such as analytics and evaluation data). However, a board facilitator cannot make any changes to the board's settings (such as access rights). This is useful for people in facilitator and analyst roles.
Regular users
Contributor: Can access the board and participate in ideation (adding ideas, commenting, voting, and evaluating) depending on the user restrictions in place on that board. Contributors may also edit their own ideas for as long as an admin (or idea responsible) does not make changes to the idea's status.
Spectator (Only available in Unlimited & Enterprise plans): Can access the board and view everything a contributor can on the board. However, a spectator cannot make any changes or "contribute" to the board such as adding ideas, commenting, voting, or evaluating.
P.s. To make changes to user roles on any board, your role needs to be an organization admin or a board admin on that board. On top of this, it's good to note that a person can only change another person's user role to the same as their own or a more restricted one in terms of access. For example, a board admin can make a person a spectator, contributor, board facilitator, or board admin. An organization admin, however, could make a person any of the 5 roles on the board.
How to get there
If you already know your board name, the easiest way to manage user roles is through the following URL:
https://app.viima.com/admin/organization-name/board-name/#users
If you do this, proceed directly to Step 2. Otherwise, start from Step 1.
Step 1:
On your Viima Admin account, go to "Users" in the admin portal of your board.
Step 2:
From here, you can manage user roles.
Choosing the correct role
Now you should have the view from Step 2 open.
Let's now take a more in-depth look at what each role has in store.
P.s. Again, please note that two of the role options (Board facilitator & Spectator) are only available for Enterprise customers. If you have a Viima Premium account, you will see 3 options here. If you would wish to update your plan, kindly be in touch with our support at support@viima.com.
Organization admin
An organization admin has the widest range of rights in your Viima account. They can basically see every single board under your account and have the ability to manage each one with full admin-level access. This "master admin" role allows organizations to manage their boards collectively; a bird's eye view of all the existing boards which helps in controlling or managing the process as a whole. However, as they say, "With great power, comes great responsibility". We recommend only giving one person or a chosen few organization admin rights.
Organization admins are also the only ones able to view and change your Viima account information (this was previously allowed for all admins).
Additionally, organization admins may create new board groups and make changes to existing ones.
Board admin
A board admin has full admin-level access to the specific board where they have this role. This means they can access the board's admin portal (image below) where they can make changes to the settings and configure or set up various functionalities. Board admins have an important role in setting up a new board (the idea development process) and managing who can access the board (access rights and inviting new users).
Board admins also have extended rights on the board compared to a Contributor (regular user). Board admins may make changes to any ideas including their deletion and moving to other boards.
Board facilitator (Enterprise only)
A board facilitator basically has the same level of access as a board admin except for the ability to make changes to board-related settings in the admin portal. A board admin can share this role of responsibility with a person for facilitating or overseeing the board's process without having the ability to make accidental or misguided changes to crucial board settings (such as access rights).
A board facilitator can view and utilize data from the admin portal such as which users have logged in or which ideas to prioritize based on evaluation scores. The image below represents a board facilitator's view in the admin portal.
Contributor
A contributor (formerly known as "User") is your most common type of regular user. They have access to the board and take part in the ideation activities such as adding ideas, commenting, voting, and evaluating.
Contributors do not, however, have access to the admin portal nor can they make edits to ideas such as changing their status. Contributors may edit their own ideas as long as an admin (or idea responsible) has not changed their status.
Spectator (Enterprise only)
A spectator is a regular user who can view the board but unlike a contributor, cannot take part in the ideation activities. The spectator role is useful when you want a wide range of participation (Front-line - Management) but only wish to allow certain people to contribute to the board. This allows you to engage more people in the company's direction of development.
Additionally, the spectator role is very useful when you're not sure who will participate beforehand and you wish to share information with certain groups (for example, showing customers what type of products are being developed). If you wish for all new people joining the board to automatically be Spectators, you can do so as a board admin from the access rights (see image below).
Unofficial role types
There are also a few unofficial role types in Viima that you may want to be aware of:
"Category admin" (also known as innovation advocate or subject domain expert): Someone who gets notifications from a specific category on the board. A board admin can make any person on the board a "category admin" regardless of their user role by adding that person as a "Notification recipient" in that category. A category admin is typically someone who facilitates conversation in ideas from a certain category.
Idea responsible: An admin can give a Contributor extended rights to a specific idea allowing them to make edits to the idea such as changing its status. This gives admins a better ability to share or delegate responsibility on the board without having to grant admin-level access.
Don't forget to save your changes!
Green "Save" buttons can be found on all pages where changes can be made. Clicking this activates those changes.