Roles and Permissions

Site Managers and Chief Editors have permission for the following tasks.

Adding roles and permissions - overview

Silva comes with an advanced user management system; it allows the secure delegation of tasks throughout the website. Silva comes with five built-in roles: Manager, Chief Editor, Editor, Author and Reader, plus there are some viewer roles to restricted content. All these roles are managed via the Access screen in the Silva Management Area.

Silva allows responsibility or work to be delegated so that it cascades down the hierarchy of an organization. A Manager is the highest level, they create the Chief Editors, and a Chief Editor can create other Chief Editors as well as Editors, Authors, Readers etc. Hundreds of users can be managed in a scalable way there is no need for a single-person bottleneck for publication of documents or role assignment.

A user can have different roles in different locations within Silva content. A user could be a Chief Editor in one area but only a Reader in another. A user can even be a Manager somewhere but have no access, not even viewing access to published information in another area.

1. Assigning roles to users

The first task is to determine what area of the site you wish to add users roles to. In this example we are adding user roles to a publication.

Login to the Silva Management Area as Manager or Chief Editor, go to the publication you wish to add a user to. Click on Access and click the lookup users button in the top right, in the user clipboard. This brings you to the user lookup screen where users can be selected to place on the clipboard.

In the user search area, type the name or part of the name of the user you want to find and click the search button (alt-s). The system will now list all users which match, with some extra information like an email address if available.

Using the checkbox in from of each name, select the users you want to assign roles to during this session using the checkbox in front of their name. Then click the add to clipboard button. The selected users will now appear in the user clipboard area to the right.

You can now repeat this action and look up more users if desired, until all the users you want to assign roles to, are on the clipboard.

The next step is to press the use clipboard button in the user clipboard area. You will now be returned to the Access tab, with the selected users on your clipboard.

You are now ready to assign roles to the users on your clipboard.

2. Assigning roles to users on the clipboard

The clipboard contents will be kept around until you log out. You can therefore use the same clipboard to assign a number of roles to a number of users in different locations. It is also possible to remove users from the clipboard in the lookup screen, by highlighting the user and pressing the remove user button (alt-r) in the user clipboard.

Select the user you want to assign a role to in the clipboard area to in the right column of the Access tab. It is also possible to select multiple users by using the shift or control keys when making the selection.

When you are ready with the selection, select the role you want to assign to the user(s) in the drop down list at the bottom of the user clipboard. Press the assign button next to the role selection list.

You have now completed assigning the role. You can repeat this step for other users on the clipboard if desired.

3. Assigning roles to a user with previously assigned roles

Users who already have roles assigned to them, possibly higher up in the site, will be listed in the user roles area in the middle column of the Access tab. Roles already assigned higher up in the site will be listed in the ‘roles defined above’ column of the user roles area.

You can assign more roles to such users by selecting the checkbox in front of their user name. You can select multiple users if you want to assign the same role to them at once.

Then, select the role in the drop down list at the bottom of the user roles area. Press the assign role button next to the drop down list. You are now done assigning the roles to existing users.

4. Revoking roles from users

To remove a role from a user, go to the user roles area in the middle column of the Access tab.

You can only remove roles from users in the location where this role has been assigned to them. If the role has been assigned higher up it is not possible to remove the role in the lower location. If you have the right access, you can go up to the top Access screen using the up arrow in the tab or by using the sidebar, until you reach the point where the role is assigned.

You can revoke a role by using the checkboxes in the roles defined here column. After selecting the roles you want to revoke, click the revoke role button below the checkboxes in the bottom right area of the user roles area.

You are now done revoking the roles. If you revoke all roles from a particular user, the user won't be shown anymore in the user roles area.

Further information:
Access Screen and permission management