A role has two sides to it. On the one hand, it defines permissions a user of the system enjoys as he or she uses it, and, on the other hand, a role comprises a set of permissions a user has in relation to a project(s) the user is (or is not) part of. Since the system as a whole is always wider than any project created inside it, there may be roles that are global to the system. Also, even when a user is not part of a project, he or she still may have certain permissions in relation to it (like viewing project members or issues submitted). Part of Easy Projects’s great flexibility lies in that roles users have can be changed widely.

It is important to distinguish between global and project-related parts of the system. For example, creating customers or generating overall reports clearly pertain to global functions of the system. On the other hand, creating a task within a project is apparently a project-related function.

Easy Projects comes with a number of roles, of which some are built-in roles, and some — predefined ones. For details, see Related links below.

Role Priority

Some roles take precedence over other roles. E.g. if you are Project Manager in a project, you will automatically have full set of permissions, even if your global role does not. The following diagram explains the hierarchy of roles in Easy Projects.

On the practical side, the role priority principle translates into the following rules of thumb:

1. If a user is NOT a member of either a project, or a portfolio, his permissions are taken from his global role.
2. If he is a member of a portfolio, his portfolio-related permissions override his global ones.
3. If he is a member of a project, his project-related permissions override his global ones.
4. If he is a member of a project and a portfolio, his project-related permissions override his portfolio-related ones.

Editing roles and permissions of project members

How to assign people to a project, see Project assignments.

To edit a project member's role and permissions:

1. Place the mouse pointer over the project member whose role or permissions you wish to edit (see illustration below).
2. Click .
3. Select a new role, or edit permissions for the current role as you see fit.
4. Click 'Save' after you are done.

The new role and permissions will only apply to this project, but neither to subsequent, nor other projects the user is a member of.

IMPORTANT: Changes to permissions in project members’ roles made while creating or editing projects will OVERRIDE default role permissions.