Roles and permissions in a company system: everyone sees what they need
A company has sales reps, managers, the accounting department and the board. Each of them needs different information. Well-designed roles make a system both easier to use and more secure.
Why one screen for everyone does not work
When everyone sees everything, screens are overloaded, employees get lost in the data and sensitive information reaches people who should not see it. Roles bring order to the system: each user gets their own scope of work.
A role is more than access
A role defines three things:
- What the user sees: which modules, lists and data.
- What they can do: add, edit, approve, delete.
- How they start the day: which screen they see after logging in and which tasks are waiting for them.
An example breakdown of roles
- Employee: their own tasks, orders and documents.
- Team manager: the work of the whole team, approvals, statuses.
- Administration and accounting department: documents, settlements and HR data to the extent needed.
- Management: reports and indicators for the whole company, without unnecessary operational detail.
- Administrator: users and system settings.
Principles worth adopting
- Minimum access. Everyone has only the permissions they need for their work.
- Roles assigned to positions, not to people. When someone changes position, their role changes, not dozens of individual settings.
- Permissions to data, not just to screens. A branch manager sees the data of their own branch, not of the whole company.
- Change history. You always know who granted permissions and when.
Personalization is the next step
Once the roles are defined, it is worth letting users tailor their workspace: favorite views, filters, column order. In a system for a group of companies employing around 500 people, it was precisely the combination of roles and personalization that made sure everyone sees what they need. See the case.
Where to start
List the positions in your company and, for each one, answer the question: what information does this person need to do their job, and what decisions do they make? This list is the basis for the role structure. If you would like to design it together, book a consultation.
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