Now that you know the differences between the Organisation and Workspace roles, let's explore custom roles and permissions. The custom aspect of these enables more granularity and control over what users can do in a workspace, depending on their permissions set up. This can be tailored for each module and section of Labstep.

What are Custom Roles & Permissions?

Similarly to the roles and permissions we looked at in the previous section, these will dictate what a user can do at the workspace level, regardless of their role at the Organisation level; the two aren't linked. For example, a user can be an Organisation's admin and yet have view-only permissions in a workspace.

However, as an Admin, you can select and edit your role and permissions level in a workspace.

Custom Roles & Permissions are completely customisable for each component of Labstep. For example, if you have a user whose job is to solely manage Inventory, then you would only give them permissions for Inventory-related actions, and everything else would be restricted. This prevents haven't the wrong people from accidentally deleting or editing things they aren't supposed to modify.

There isn't a limit on how many custom roles you can create, but if you would like to know how to optimise this, please get in touch with your account manager. They'll guide you on best practices and advise you on the ideal set-up for your organisation!

What can be Customised?

Components

On Labstep, you can create custom roles and permissions for the following:

Experiments – incl. adding/removing collections and tags
Experiment Templates
Protocols – incl. adding/removing collections and tags
Resource Categories
Resources
Locations
Order Requests
Orders
Device Categories
Devices
Tags
Collections
Workspaces
Status Workflows (premium)

Actions

	Create	Delete	Edit	Comment	Share	Lock/Unlock	Assign	Send Data / Book	Create/ Edit Jupyter Notebooks
Experiments	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Experiment Templates	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Protocols	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Resource Categories	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Resources	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
Locations	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌
Order Requests	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
Orders	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌
Device Categories	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Devices	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅	❌
Tags	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Collections	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Workspaces	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅
Status Workflows	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌

Always vs If Assigned vs Never

For each action, you'll have the ability to select whether a role can perform it at all times, if assigned or never.

Always → The user can perform this action at all times, with no restrictions.
If Assigned → The user can only perform this action if they're assigned or if they've created the content. To assign a user click on the 👤+ icon, select a workspace member and then click "Assign".
Never → The user can never perform this action. They won't see the action offered to them. They might see "No action" displayed when they click on the vertical ellipsis menu ⋮

Managing Custom Roles & Permissions

Only Admins can create, edit and manage custom roles & permissions. For more information on how to do that, click here.

However, all members of the organisation have access to the details of their organisation's roles and permissions. If you would like to check what permissions you have for a role in a specific workspace, you can navigate to Your Organisation> Roles & Permissions.

Conclusion

Custom Roles & Permissions provide users with more granular control over who can do what in a workspace. With this feature, you can determine whether a user can delete, edit, share, lock things and more beyond the default roles of Owner, Editor and Viewer.

If your organisation does not have Custom Roles & Permissions enabled yet, get in touch with us at info@labstep.com or contact your account manager!

☞ Knowledge Check

What are the different components that can be managed?
What are the different permissions levels?
Have a look at your current roles in different workplaces and check their permissions!

This lesson is part of the "Labstep 101: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started" course. View all lessons here.

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