User Roles and Permissions
Be sure to review our overview of users: Introduction to Users
There are three primary user roles in your Learning Management System (LMS): Admins, Group Admins, and Students. Each role has its own set of permissions and privileges in the platform, including a dashboard tailored to their role. As such, although each user is directed to the Dashboard upon login, a Student will see a dashboard where they can take the courses they are enrolled in, download certificates they have earned, and view orders for purchasing they may have made, whereas an Admin see the Administrator Dashboard that holds all the tools and resources to configure everything in the LMS.
This guide will take a closer look at the specific permissions and platform experience each role has.
In this article
Admin
The admin role is the role our clients have in their platform. It is the role that essentially is able to configure anything in the platform that there is to be configured from creating courses, managing students in courses, configuring the pages on the website part of the LMS, setting up automated email templates, providing organizations (Groups) with bulk seats for their employees or students, and much more.
When we set up a new instance for our clients we will create one or multiple Admin accounts for each team member that will be involved in the platform. However, as an Admin, you will be able to add as many additional Admins as you wish. To learn more about how to add a new Admin user, be sure to read our Adding a User article.
Note
Admins (just like Group Admins) have a certain duality to their account. Yes, they are an Admin with all privileges of managing the entire LMS but they can also take part in the LMS as a Student. In the top right of your Admin Dashboard you will find a View As Student button that when clicked will temporarily swap your Admin role to a Student role, allowing you to see the Student Dashboard and take part in any courses that you are enrolled into. Once you are swapped to a student, you will see a banner at the top of the Student Dashboard that provides you the option of switching back to your Admin role.
Just a handful of the platform management privileges that an Admin has are:
- Create and manage courses
- Create Products
- Add users and enroll Students in a Course
- Manage eCommerce settings
- Edit site pages
- Create groups
- View reporting
- Customize account branding
Group Admin
Group Admins are administrators that have course and student management capabilities over the specific Group they are assigned to. In order to fully understand the role of the Group Admin, it is important to first learn more about the Groups functionality that is available in your platform. The Group Admin is a user role that will manage a group of students and set of courses that the Group has available seats to. This role is often occupied by a representative of an organization that a client has sold seats to in bulk. After providing the organization with the access to the courses, client can hence delegate the enrollment and management of students in those courses to a representative of that organization (who becomes a Group Admin) and with that also provide them access into the progress of their students.
Group Admins always have to be associated with a Group in the platform and can be created in two ways:
- An Admin manually creates the Group Admin by adding it to a Group.
- A Group Admin registers into the platform by selecting the associated checkbox on the sign up page.
Group Admins are the only users that can change the quantities of a Product/Course in the checkout page and every purchase of a Course a Group Admin makes will become an available seat in their Group. In other words, Group Admins can increase the quantities of their purchase > 1, and every purchase they make will become an available seat in their Group.
For more information on checking out as group, please review our guide: Navigating the Checkout Process
For more information on managing a group, please review our guide: Creating and Managing Groups
Note
Similar to the Admin role, a Group Admin has a certain duality to their account. Yes, they have their Group Admin privileges of managing the Group but they can also take part in the Group as a Student. In the top right of their Dashboard they will find a View As Student button that when clicked will temporarily swap their Group Admin role to a Student role, allowing them to see the Student Dashboard and take part in any courses that they are enrolled into. Once they are swapped to a student, they will see a banner at the top of the Student Dashboard that provides them the option of switching back to their Group Admin role. Important: they will only see the courses they are enrolled in in their Student Dashboard and therefore have to make sure to use a seat for their own account by enrolling themselves.
Student
Students are the users that are actually taking your courses and potentially earning certificates upon completion. Their dashboard allows them to see the courses they are enrolled in, certificates they have earned, orders they have made, potential subscriptions that are running, and announcements that you have shared with them. They can launch courses from their dashboard and move through the different modules of the curriculum in the Course Player. To get a better impression of the Student Experience, be sure to view our Video Tour of the Student Experience.
For more information on checking out as a single user, please review our guide: Navigating the Checkout Process
Super Admin
You may also see a user with a Super Admin role appear in certain areas. This role is restricted to Academy of Mine staff only and has the primary goal of monitoring and troubleshooting your account.
Next Step
Now that you understand the different types of user roles, you'll want to learn about adding a new user to the platform: