Overview
Administration - People & Roles - Roles separate shared visibility permissions between Student and non-Student, eg. Staff and Faculty functions.
Users that are assigned both a Student and a non-Student, eg. Staff role/function will only access the UI based on their Staff View settings. Users that are assigned both staff and student roles will only see a "staff view" after they login to SS&E, and student view settings do not apply to student-staff users.
- Student View Settings are assigned from the Student View Settings section, and these only apply to logged-in users that are ONLY assigned a student role.
- Staff View Settings are assigned through the Full Profile View and Limited Profile View settings. These settings apply to all users that have at least one role that is NOT a student role. For more information about Full Profile View and Limited Profile View Settings, click here.
Student/Staff Role Assignment
Roles are assigned via the SIS Import process or manually within SS&E.
- We recommend importing only one role on the Person data feed via the SIS Import process.
- Any additional roles should be added via People Administration Bulk Actions or from the individual person record using Add Security Roles.
Click here to learn more about Roles Administration.
Permissions Considerations
- If Staff View Settings are set to Yes, eg. enabled on a student role/function, the reason is most likely that the settings were copied from the "original" student-staff shared setting, and these should all be changed to "No" since staff view settings should not be enabled for a student user.
- As a rule, when setting up a Student role/function that does not also have a Staff/faculty role, all staff account/view permissions should be disabled (set to No) since they do not apply to the student view.
How to View User Permissions Assigned by All User Roles
Use the Person-Permissions tab to view the exact permissions being applied to a specific user.
- The Permissions tab is Read-Only.
- The Permissions tab displays user-specific permissions after combining these settings from all of the user roles displayed on the Person-Details tab.
- If the Person Permissions tab displays incorrect permissions, the way to fix this is to find which role on the Person Details tab is assigning these permission settings and then either remove that role/add a different role without the wrong permissions or edit the role. Editing a role will change the role permissions settings for all users associated with the role.
Note: Currently, a student-staff user is only able to log in with a Staff view, and the Student view does not apply to them. This means that removing settings from the Staff Person Info/Staff view on all assigned roles will also remove visibility of the student's own Courses/Documents/Profile/Programs/Test Score/Transcript information from their "staff" view.
For example, if a "student worker" must view student profiles and schedule meetings without seeing who is following other students on People & RolesRoles the following must be checked along with a "staff" function:
- Limited Profile View Settings - Show Meetings Tab, Show Profile Tab
- Meetings Can Schedule Meetings For Others
Can See Followers - Student Worker/Staff View
Per above, in order for the student worker role to NOT see followers listed on other students*, the Person Info setting for "Can See Followers" must be unchecked on all assigned roles that display on the student record Details tab seen at People & RolesPeople.
The reason for this is that "Can See Followers" is only a "staff" permission that does not apply to students. Therefore, when checked or unchecked*, if assigned to a student role function, and the user has no non-student role functions, it will not affect the student view.
*A good habit is to uncheck all staff-only permissions on student roles even when it doesn't apply! Then, even if a student is given a staff role by accident, they will not have staff-only permissions getting applied from a non-staff role.
Note: When a user is assigned multiple roles that are both staff and non-staff functions, it becomes very important to verify that all non-staff (eg. student) function roles are not assigned anything that will change the staff view and add additional unintended staff permissions.
To summarize, General Permissions, as well as Person Info "Can See Followers", along with many other security items in Role Administration, only apply to staff accounts. This means that when these items are checked on a student role, it is irrelevant, as they do not apply to a non-staff role. However, if a non-student role is ever added to the student record, even if the new non-stduent role only assigns very few permissions, any staff permissions assigned on the user's student role will now apply! This is why we advise caution, since leaving staff permissions enabled on a student role may assign staff permissions unintentionally if/when the student user is ever assigned at least one non-student, eg. staff role/function.
Can See Followers - Student View
If students need to view followers, either staff following themselves or other users' followers when they are student-staff who cannot see followers via role permissions, this displays via "Student Visible" set to "Yes" on Subscription Labels.
Subscription Labels, explained here, allow subscribers to become visible to non-staff functions, i.e. students, by subscription type.
Each institution may import subscription labels from the SIS on the Subscription data feed, in addition to the subscription label "Staff Follower" assigned by Aviso when students are followed within Aviso.
To view subscription labels, from AvisoAdministrationRelationshipsSubscription Labels, all items listed with "Student Visible - Yes" will allow students to view followers associated with this subscription label on their student view.
- Since "Can See Followers" does not apply to non-staff roles, checked or unchecked it does not change non-staff permissions. For this reason, if a person only has the Student role and their Permissions tab show that Can See Followers is checked, it does not "do" anything.
- Currently, the only way students are allowed to view followers is by setting "Student Visible" to Yes on the Subscription Labels.