Why use Roles?

Introduction to KnowledgeTree Document Management Made Simple > Units, Groups, Users, and Roles > Why use Roles?

KnowledgeTree uses 'Roles' to allow permissions to be given to a single user, or for a specific task.

KnowledgeTree's Permissions system is group-based, and role-based - the system does not allow permissions to be assigned to individual users. Any single user must be added to a group or a role before they can be given permissions to view or work with content in the repository.

Roles allow single users to be given a unique permissions set to perform specific task - e.g. the publisher role, where only specific individual users may be allowed to send content for publication.

Roles conceptual and dynamic, whereas groups are static because they always have the same members throughout the system.

In many organizations it is necessary to use all the available structures - units, groups, roles, and a deep folder structure. However, each additional structure creates greater complexity, and administrative overhead. Changing something in a complex structure may involve implementing the change in several areas of the system. The ability to replace groups with roles is one way of simplifying this structure. In a small organization with, let's say, 10 - 15 users, there are likely to be logical groups (e.g. Management) with only one user. In this case, the group concept can be replaced entirely by Roles.