User Roles vs User Groups

• Introduction
• Video
• Groups & Roles: Similarities & Differences
  • By Feature:
    • Issues
    • Notes
    • Everything Else
• User Roles vs User Groups 1-Pager

Introduction

Roles and Groups...you may be thinking: "that sounds like the same thing!"  However, they are very different and each serve their own unique function to help aid your efforts.  More specifically, Groups allow for collaboration among sub-sets of your team, while roles determine what each individual user can and cannot do in the platform.  Read below to learn more about how they differ, and what kind of an approach you should take with each.

Video

Groups & Roles: Similarities & Differences

Let's start with the basics.  What exactly is a role and a group? 

A Role is a saved set of feature preferences that must be applied to each account when they are created.  For example: A Systems Administrator role will be able to delete the work of colleagues on certain features, such as Notes, while Users cannot.

A Group is a saved set of users, which can be used as an Issue permission setting to allow them to work separately from the others.  They are not assigned to accounts automatically -- a Systems Administrator must add users to them.

By Feature:

Issues

Groups can affect which Issues you can or cannot work out of.  When an Issue is restricted to Group access via permissions, only the colleagues who have been assigned to the Group can work out of it. When creating or editing an Issue, set the permission settings to Group to use this feature:

Roles, on the other hand, determine how an individual can work in Issues.

For example: a Systems Administrator, User and Read-Only User can all be in the same Group. Only the Systems Administrator and User can Create, View, & Delete Issues, while Read-Only users can only view them.

Notes

Groups allow teams to collaborate privately, keeping their work separate from the team's main focus.  When users share Group Notes anywhere in FiscalNote, only members of that Group can view them:

Roles, on the other hand, determine how an individual can work with Notes.

For example: a Systems Administrator, User & Read-Only User can all be in the same Group. Only the Systems Administrator can delete others' Notes, while Users and Read-Only Users cannot.  Furthermore, Systems Administrators can both Create Notes, while Read-Only Users cannot. 

Everything Else

Because Issues and Notes are the two features affected by Groups, access to all other features is determines by User Roles. 

For example: Whether or not you are in a User Group does not determine if you can use Discovery Alerts, or which ones you see in your account for that matter.  If you are a Read-Only user, you cannot Create, View, or Edit Discovery Alerts.  Unless you have been assigned a Make-Your-Own role that restricts Discovery Alerts usage, all other accounts can leverage Discovery Alerts.

User Roles vs User Groups 1-Pager (Click here to download)