Roles and Permissions are used to define what an Admin can do and see in your LMS. There are four standard Roles with pre-selected Permissions, and the ability to create your own custom Roles to suit your organization's needs. In addition to the four standard Roles, the Create Editor Role is available to clients who have purchased the Create add-on product. This article provides you an overview of the Permissions of the standard Roles, the creation process and options for custom Roles, as well as tips and important notes.

• In order to Modify anything in the LMS, the Admin's Role must include View access to that section.
• Several Reports rely on basic view access for Users or Course Types. For example, enabling access to the Course Activity report allows an Admin to navigate to the Report itself, and they will also need the View Online Courses Permission in order to see Course data in that report.
• Certain Admin Permissions work in tandem with User Management settings. Regardless of their Permissions, Admins will still only see the data allowed based on their User Management settings defined in their specific User Profile (Users > Edit User > Account > Admin > User Management). This can be used to your advantage to simplify Reports for Admins who do not need access to see your entire User base. For example, if an Admin is interested in their Department's Course completion rates and their User Management is set to only their Department, they would not need to add any extra filters to the Course Activity Report.

Default Admin Roles

There are four default Admin Roles available in Absorb LMS: System Admin, Admin, Instructor, and Reporter. If the Create add-on product has been purchased, the standard Create Editor Role is available for use as well. These Roles cannot be edited. They can be duplicated and then edited, however please note that the Default Roles contain a small number of hidden Permissions that will also be duplicated.

Default Admin Roles are identified in the LMS by the lock icon next to the Role name. In descending order of responsibility, these Roles are:

Expand the section below to see the differences between each default Admin Role and what they can do in the LMS.

Hidden Permissions

There are a small number of Hidden Permissions in default Roles which are not available to be added to custom Roles in the Edit Role menu. An account assigned a custom Role created from scratch will never have any of these Permissions, since they are unavailable for selection.

If you duplicate a default Role that contains a Hidden Permission, the new Role inherits those Hidden Permissions, and they cannot be removed from the new Role. For this reason, we recommend creating a new Role from scratch instead of duplicating a default Role.

For example:

• The Instructor Role has a hidden Permission called Instructor, which grants these Hidden Permissions allowing them to view and interact with the following Reports: ILC Activity Report, ILC Grades Report, ILC Waitlist Report, ILC Sessions Report, and Session Approval Report. These Permissions are not visible in the Permission Overview on the Instructor's Profile and will be duplicated if this Default Role is duplicated.
• The System Admin Role has a Hidden Permission called Impersonate Admin Users which grants the ability to impersonate an Admin's view of the Admin Interface. This Permission is not visible in the Permission Overview on the System Admin's Profile and will not be duplicated if this default Role is duplicated.

Custom Admin Roles

Beyond the five default Admin Roles outlined above, a System Admin can create custom Admin Roles. This is useful for filling a niche where tweaking the default Roles would better meet your organization's needs. You can create custom Roles by clicking the Add Role option in the Roles Report, or by editing a duplicated Role.

A wide variety of Permissions are available. Create custom Roles by following these steps:

1. Navigate to the Roles menu from the Users tab on the left.
2. Click Add Role from the Actions Menu on the right, or select a Role and then click Duplicate Role from the Actions Menu. These actions will open the Add Role or Edit Role menu respectively. The options are the same whether you are creating or editing a Role.
3. Select the Permissions you would like to give this new custom Role, then click Save.

The following chart outlines the top-level Permission sections available when creating a custom Role, with default sections marked by an asterisk (*). Non-marked sections are available if you have access to the corresponding add-on module. Each section contains its own set of sub-permissions, which you can expand and configure individually within the Add Role or Edit Role menu.