Documentation › Users and roles

Users and roles: who can do what

In ProcNest, what you see and what you can do depends on your roles. A role is a set of permissions. The administrators of your organization give roles on the Users and roles page.

⏱ 4 minutes📍 Settings menu › Users and roles🎯 Result: give a role to a person

Signing in: where do you land?

On the ProcNest sign-in page, type your email address: ProcNest sends you to the right place.

Personal address (Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, iCloud…): you land in the default space, where you create a team or join the one that invited you by email.
Company address whose domain belongs to an organization: you land in that organization (you pick one if there are several).
Company address without an organization: click Create my organization to start a trial, or type the identifier of your organization if you already have one.

The very first person who signs in to a new platform becomes its administrator: they can then give roles to the others (see below).

Roles and permissions

A permission is one precise thing you are allowed to do, for example Edit processes or View my tasks.
A role is a named set of permissions: Administrator, User, Viewer… or a role created by your organization.
A person has one or more roles and gets all their permissions together.
ProcNest only shows and allows what your roles allow: a button or a menu you cannot use is simply hidden.

A person has one or more roles; each role groups permissions.

The word “role” has three meanings in ProcNest. Here it means what a person may do in the application. Do not mix it up with the role in a step (Assigned, Reviewer, Signer…) or with Member / Admin in a team.

The three built-in roles

Every organization has three Built-in roles. They cannot be renamed or deleted.

Role	What it is for
Administrator	Runs the organization: it has every permission, including those of the Users and roles page. This role is locked: it cannot be changed.
User Default	The role given to every new user. It lets people work: view, create, edit and delete processes and Artifacts (within the limits described below), start process instances and work on their tasks. It gives no access to administration.
Viewer	The “read only” role: it lets people view processes and Artifacts, process instances, My tasks and Activity, without changing anything.

The permissions of User and Viewer can be adjusted by the people who manage roles; those of Administrator never change.

The first administrator of your organization is named by the ProcNest platform administrator. If nobody has the Administrator role yet, ask them; that person can then give the role to others.

1. Give a role to a person

The Users and roles page is only visible if you have at least one of the permissions View users, Manage users, View roles or Manage roles.

Users and roles in action

ProcNestMy tasksActivity…⚙ Settings

My tasks

3 assigned to you, sorted by due date

ProcNestMy tasksActivity…⚙ Settings

Users and roles

Choose who can do what in this workspace

UsersRoles

Search users by name or e-mail

UserE-mailRolesLast access

Marie Dupontmarie.dupont@example.comUserOct 12Edit roles

Karim Benalikarim.benali@example.comViewerNeverEdit roles

ProcNestMy tasksActivity…⚙ Settings

Users and roles

Choose who can do what in this workspace

UsersRoles

UserE-mailRolesLast access

Marie Dupontmarie.dupont@example.comUserOct 12Edit roles

Karim Benalikarim.benali@example.comViewerNeverEdit roles

Roles of Marie Dupont

The user gets every permission of the selected roles.

Administrator

✓User

✓Viewer

CancelSave

✓ Roles saved

ProcNestMy tasksActivity…⚙ Settings

Users and roles

Choose who can do what in this workspace

UsersRoles

+ New role

RoleUsersPermissions

Administrator Built-in1 userAllView

User Built-in Default14 users12 permissionsEdit

Artifact designer2 users7 permissionsEdit Delete

ProcNestMy tasksActivity…⚙ Settings

Users and roles

Choose who can do what in this workspace

UsersRoles

RoleUsersPermissions

Administrator Built-in1 userAllView

User Built-in Default14 users12 permissionsEdit

Artifact designer2 users7 permissionsEdit Delete

New role

Name

Artifact designer

Processes

✓View processes

Create processes

Edit processes

Artifacts

✓View artifacts

✓Create artifacts

✓Edit artifacts

My tasks

✓View my tasks

✓Work on tasks

CancelCreate role

Open the page
Click the Settings gear at the top right, then Users and roles (the address ends with /administration).
Find the person
In the Users tab, type a name or an e-mail in Search users by name or e-mail. The table shows User, E-mail, Roles and Last access (Never if the person has never signed in).
Click Edit roles
This button needs the Manage users permission. A Roles of window followed by the person’s name opens, with one check box per role.
Tick and save
Tick the roles you want, then click Save. The message Roles saved confirms it. The rights apply right away; if the person is already signed in, they only need to reload ProcNest to see their menus updated.

An organization always keeps at least one Administrator: if you remove the role from the last administrator, the change is refused. The groups of your company directory that the person belongs to are not touched by this setting.

If the list is empty, No user found is shown (people appear the first time they sign in); if the search finds nothing, No user matches your search.

2. Create, edit or delete a role

A custom role is useful when the three built-in roles are not enough: for example a role that lets people design Artifacts without touching processes. It all happens in the Roles tab, whose table shows Role, Users (how many people have it) and Permissions (how many it contains). The Built-in and Default badges mark the roles that come with ProcNest and the role given to new users.

I want to…	I do
Create a role	Click New role. In the New role window, type a Name (1 to 100 characters, different from the other roles), tick the permissions you want in each group, then click Create role. Message: Role created.
Edit a role	Click Edit, change the check boxes (and the name, except for a Built-in role), then Save. Message: Role saved.
Delete a role	Click Delete and confirm in the Delete role window. Message: Role deleted. Not possible while people still have the role, and not possible for a Built-in role.
Only look at a role	Click View: the Role window followed by the name opens with the boxes ticked but locked, and a Close button.

Creating, editing or deleting a role needs the Manage roles permission. Without it, or for the Administrator role, you can only look, and the message You can view this page but you cannot change anything. is shown.
In the window of a built-in role, The name of a built-in role cannot be changed. reminds you that only its name is fixed.
For Administrator: The Administrator role always has every permission: it cannot be changed.

The permissions, group by group

In the window of a role, permissions are shown in six groups. The view permissions (View …) are the base: the others come on top of them.

Group	Permission	What it allows
Processes	View processes	See the list, the details and the content of processes.
	Create processes	Create a new process.
	Edit processes	Save and publish the processes you own or contribute to.
	Delete processes	Delete the processes you own or contribute to.
	Manage all processes and artifacts	Edit and delete any process or Artifact, even when you are not its owner or a contributor.
Artifacts	View artifacts	See the list, the details and the templates of Artifacts.
	Create artifacts	Create a new Artifact and upload templates.
	Edit artifacts	Save and publish the Artifacts you own or contribute to, and edit their templates.
	Delete artifacts	Delete the Artifacts you own or contribute to.
Process instances	View process instances	See process instances, their tasks, documents and activity.
	Start process instances	Start a new process instance from a published process.
	Delete process instances	Delete the process instances you started.
My tasks	View my tasks	Open the My tasks page and read tasks.
	Work on tasks	Save a task, comment, review, send e-mails and meetings, call APIs, generate documents and add attachments.
	Create tasks and Delete tasks	Kept for later: no action needs them yet.
	Activity	View activity	Open the Activity page: what the others did on your tasks.
Users and roles	View users	See the users of the organization and their roles.
	Manage users	Change the roles of the users.
	View roles	See the roles and their permissions.
	Manage roles	Create, edit and delete roles.

Owner and contributors: the rule for processes and Artifacts

To edit or delete a process or an Artifact, the permission is not enough: you must also be its owner (the person who created it) or one of its contributors (the people or groups added when it was created). Only the Manage all processes and artifacts permission lifts this limit.

Rights on processes and on Artifacts are separate: a person who designs Artifacts (Create artifacts, Edit artifacts…) cannot edit a process, and the other way round, even as a contributor. ProcNest then shows a message such as “You do not have permission to do this.”.

For the same person to design both, give them the permissions of both the Processes and the Artifacts groups (the User role has them).

Why can’t I…?

What you see	Explanation and what to do
I do not see Users and roles in the Settings menu	You have none of the permissions View users, Manage users, View roles or Manage roles. Ask an administrator.
A tab (Users or Roles) is missing	Each tab has its own permissions (View users / Manage users for Users, View roles / Manage roles for Roles).
A screen shows You do not have access to this page	Your role does not allow you to view it. The Go to an available page button takes you to a page you can use.
The New process or New artifact button is missing	You need Create processes, or Create artifacts.
The pencil (edit) or the trash (delete) of a process or an Artifact is missing	Either you lack the permission (Edit / Delete of the right group), or you are neither the owner nor a contributor of that item. Ask the owner to add you as a contributor, or an administrator to give you Manage all processes and artifacts.
In the editor, I cannot find Save draft or Publish	You can read this process or Artifact but not change it (same reasons as above).
I cannot start a process instance	You need Start process instances and also View processes, because the form lists the processes.
A task shows You can read this task but you do not have the permission to change it.	You lack Work on tasks: the Save, Send and Generate buttons, adding attachments and comments are hidden; reading and downloading remain possible.
An action is refused with You do not have permission to do this.	Your role does not allow it (or, for a process or an Artifact, you are not its owner or a contributor). Contact an administrator of your organization.
I changed a person’s role and nothing moves	The rights apply right away, but their menus are only up to date after ProcNest is reloaded.

The restrictions apply everywhere: even if a page were opened another way, ProcNest would refuse the action. Hiding buttons is only a help so that you are not offered what you cannot do.