Custom roles – Ans

error_outline At the moment, this option is only available through the closed beta. An administrator from your school can contact support@ans.app to make a request to enable this feature.

error_outline Only administrators can perform this action. We would recommend first testing this feature on the stage environment and then confirming if we can enable it in the production environment.

Next to the default roles in Ans, there is the option to add custom roles to the platform. This gives you the benefit of adjusting the access and functionalities for different types of users within the platform. The custom roles are based on the existing roles within Ans. This means that the base role determines which hierarchical level in the platform the user is allocated to. For example, if you create a role that is based on the administrator role, the new role will have access to the whole school interface. The exact definition of what can be accessed by the new role is defined by using the toggle options in the custom role menu. The custom role always restricts access compared to the basic role. In general, the base role can do everything on the hierarchical level in the platform to which the role is allocated, and the custom role will have less access as toggles will restrict certain functionalities.

To add a new role to your school, please follow the steps below.

Click your business School name in the top left.
Click settings Settings in the menu at the top.
Click Roles in the menu on the left.
You will see an overview of all Ans roles.
Click the button New role in the top right corner.
Enter a name and description and choose the role it should be based on.

You will now see the overview of the Ans roles, including the role you have just created. You can now start adjusting access for the custom role. Click on the role you've just created, the name of the role should be blue. The screen will be different per base role. Not every role has the same amount of options that can be restricted. There are four possible actions that can be toggled: view, create, edit and delete. Not all actions are applicable to all parts of the platform. For example, it's not relevant to create and delete Accessibility settings as they can only be viewed and edited.

Below you can find the list with the roles the custom roles can be based on. They are divided over the different levels including the different access settings that can be adjusted per role. This list is updated regularly, as the custom roles feature is currently still in development. If new restriction possibilities are added to the list during future releases, the impact on your existing custom roles will be minimised. If a new restriction possibility is added, Ans will leave the option turned on for existing custom roles by default.

Consistent with the functionality of regular roles, users can add other users with an equal or lower role to a course or a question bank.

Tips before you get started

Before you get started, please take the following tips into account.

Determine the hierarchical level
Before you start thinking about what a new role can or can't do, first think about which part of the platform the role should have access to. For example, should the new role be able to see the whole department? Or should it be a course role, which results in adding the user per relevant course?
Without view rights, no action is possible
Most access options have a 'view' toggle. If a view toggle is turned off, this means that the user can't see the particular option via the interface. This implies that the user can also not create, edit or delete that option. We explicitly mention the interface here, as it is still possible to create, edit and delete via the API if viewing is disabled, but creating, editing and deleting are enabled.
Combine access options to restrict access to interfaces as a whole
It might be possible that some interfaces are disabled for users which is caused by a combination of access options. For example, in a test, you have the menu option 'Digital test' (or any other assignment type). Within a digital test, you have four submenus: Exercises, Grading Scheme, Objectives and Flow. If you create a custom role which has no viewing rights to all four submenus, Ans will disable access to the tab 'Digital test' as a whole. Despite the fact that 'Digital test' isn't a separate access option within the custom role menu. This means you can manage to disable access to certain features by combining access options.
Combine custom roles with employee privileges
Next to custom roles, Ans also has employee privileges. Employee privileges might overlap with custom roles. In the future, employee privileges might be merged into custom roles. For now, as long as these options are both present in the platform, you will need to take into account that these settings can influence each other. It might be possible that you create a custom role with conflicting access compared to the settings in employee privileges. For example, the option 'Create assignments' can be turned off in employee privileges and it can be turned on in the custom role. For security reasons, Ans will deal with these situations by following the 'least access' principle. Ans will always restrict access if one of the two settings will not allow the user to create assignments. If you want to allow users to create assignments, both employee privileges and the custom role must allow this. This principle applies to all settings with can be set in both custom roles and employee privileges.

You can check which access options are available for each level and basic role below.

School roles

These are based on the roles within a school.

Administrator
The settings determine whether they have access to the entire school. For instance, turning on access to courses will grant administrators access to all courses within the school.
Department admin
The settings determine access at a department level. For instance, turning on access to courses will grant the department admin access to all courses within their department.
Staff
The level of access for staff can be adjusted on a course level. The course roles can be found in the next section.

The table below shows all the different access options that can be adjusted per role. A short description has been added per access option. The possible actions that can be restricted (view, create, edit, delete) can be found in the platform.

	Administrator	Department admin	Staff
Assignment accessibilities Manage accessibility options in assignment settings	x	x
Assignment attachments Manage attachments in assignment settings	x	x
Assignment exercises Manage exercises tab in the assignment menu	x	x
Assignment exports Manage export options in assignment settings	x	x
Assignment flow Manage flow tab in the assignment menu	x	x
Assignment grading schemes Manage grading schemes tab in the assignment menu	x	x
Assignment mark calculations Manage mark calculations in assignment settings	x	x
Assignment objectives Manage objectives tab in the assignment menu	x	x
Assignment peer review options Manage review options in peer review assignments	x	x
Assignment proctoring* Manage proctoring options in assignment settings	x	x
Assignment requirements Manage requirements options in assignment settings	x	x
Assignment review options Manage review options in assignment settings	x	x
Assignment taking Manage the taking menu in assignments	x	x
Assignments Manage assignments in courses	x	x
Classes Manage the classes menu	x
Courses Manage the courses menu	x	x	x
Course Objectives Manage objectives in courses	x	x
Groups Manage groups in courses	x	x
Proctorio assignment integration Manage Proctorio in assignment settings	x	x
Publications Manage publication options in assignment settings	x	x
Question bank exercises Manage question bank exercises in question banks	x	x
Question banks Manage the question banks menu	x	x
Results Manage the results menu in assignments	x	x
School billing Manage billing options in school settings	x
Timeslots Manage timeslots in assignment settings	x	x

*Proctoring settings are different from the proctoring integration options for Proctorio and ProctorExam. In this case, the proctoring options that can be found within the assignment settings are meant.

Course roles

These are based on the roles within a course.

Instructor
Access to assignments and groups within their courses. This includes access to adjust assignment mark calculations, timeslots, accessibility options, flow, proctoring, requirements and publications.
Invigilator
Access to groups within their courses and timeslots.

The table below shows the different access options that can be adjusted.

	Instructor	Invigilator
Assignment accessibilities Manage accessibility options in assignment settings	x
Assignment attachments Manage attachments in assignment settings	x
Assignment exercises Manage exercises tab in the assignment menu	x
Assignment exports Manage export options in assignment settings	x
Assignment flow Manage flow tab in the assignment menu	x
Assignment grading schemes Manage grading schemes tab in the assignment menu	x
Assignment mark calculations Manage mark calculations in assignment settings	x
Assignment objectives Manage objectives tab in the assignment menu	x
Assignment peer review options Manage review options in peer review assignments	x
Assignment proctoring* Manage proctoring options in assignment settings	x
Assignment requirements Manage requirements options in assignment settings	x
Assignment review options Manage review options in assignment settings	x
Assignment taking Manage the taking menu in assignments	x	x
Assignments Manage assignments in courses	x	x
Courses Manage the courses settings	x
Course Objectives Manage objectives in courses	x
Groups Manage groups in courses	x	x
Proctorio assignment integration Manage Proctorio in assignment settings	x
Publications Manage publication options in assignment settings	x
Reviews Edit result reviews (points, adjustments, annotations, flags and discussions)	x
Results Manage the results menu in assignment results	x	x
Timeslots Manage timeslots in assignment settings	x	x

Question bank roles

These are based on the roles within a question bank.

Author
Access to question bank exercises.
Publisher
Access to question bank exercises, assignments and settings. Managing tags, labels and contributors.

The table below shows the access settings that can be adjusted per role.

	Author	Publisher
Blueprints Manage blueprints in objectives menu in question banks	x	x
Question bank assignment attachments Manage attachments in question bank assignments		x
Question bank assignment exercises Manage question bank exercises in question bank assignments		x
Question bank assignment mark calculations Manage mark calculations in question bank assignments		x
Question bank assignment protection rules Manage assignment protection rules in question bank settings		x
Question bank assignment test instructions Manage test instructions in question bank assignments		x
Question bank assignments Manage question bank assignments and settings		x
Question bank contributors Manage the question bank contributors menu in question banks		x
Question bank exercises protection rules Manage exercise protection rules in question bank settings		x
Question bank exercises Manage exercises in question banks	x	x
Question bank labels Manage labels in question banks settings		x
Question bank objectives Manage the question bank objectives menu in question banks		x
Question banks Manage the question bank general settings		x
Tags Manage tags in the question banks settings	x	x

lightbulb_outline The access options are adjustable per role. If an access option doesn't show up in this list, it means the access setting is still the default that is set for this role.

Tips before you get started

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