OS EDU - Dear CSM : How Do People Use Roles Effectively?

Question: I know we can use Roles to do things in the portal, but I don't know how to set them up, or why I even should. Can you help? And what if I want to create separate start pages for different portal roles and some employees are part of more than one role?

Answer:  Role precedence is the BEST!  Here is how you set it up:

The role precedence allows you to assign different portal parts to different roles, and ensures that an employee in more-than-one Role is assigned to the proper portal parts. (Say THAT 10x fast!!)

Examples of Portal Parts than can be set by Role include : Start Page, the new 6.1 Layouts (side bar, header, footer), Banners, Themes and more!

For example, if you wanted to create different Banners for different groups, you have the ability to assign those Banners based upon the Roles. But... some individuals may be assigned to more than one Role, and this is where a conflict may arise.

For Example…

You have your All-Staff Banner and the role of Employee has been assigned that Banner when they log in.  Bob Smith, a member of the Executive team, has asked that a special Banner be created just for Leadership, which includes a few hyperlinks, not on the All-Staff banner. Cool!

You create a Role for all of your Executive Team and include Bob Smith.

You create the new Banner and upload it to the Portal.

Here's the problem : Bob Smith, you made Bob member of the newly created Executive Team Role, and he is ALSO in the Employee Role. You can't remove either one! How does the Portal know which Banner to give Bob?

This is where the precedence comes in.

You can make the Executive Role a higher precedence than the Employee Role. You simply assign it a LOWER number – for example, 3 is higher precedence than 4.

So now, Bob, who is Executive Role and Employee role, gets his new Banner!

***Also, check out this training video on roles, and this video on Role Planning!