Skip to main content

How to Assign User Permissions

Every site admin can access the Users page (Admin > Users). Here you can see and search a list of everyone who has access to any site you manage, and you can update their permissions.

Add a New User

Someone Who Already Uses Brightspot

Each Brightspot administrator with access to the Users screen has access to administer user rights for every other person who has rights to edit the sites or site groups that the administrator has. For example, if I administer the Biology site group and have access to the User screen, I can see and edit only people who also have rights to edit any of the sites within that site group.

If you wish to grant rights to someone who already has rights somewhere in Brightspot—but not within your area—you won't be able to view their user profile in the Users page.

To add permissions in your area to someone who has a Brightspot account but is not visible to you, use the following steps.

  1. Open the Adopt User screen (Admin > Adopt User)
  2. In the User dropdown, find the person you want to add.
  3. Set the permissions under Site Hierarchy and Role Publisher, as outlined above.
  4. Click Save.
Screen Shot 2021-10-06 at 5.31.04 PM.png

Someone Who Has Never Used Brightspot

When someone first signs in at brightspot.byu.edu, their Brightspot user account is automatically created and connected with their BYU user data. To give rights to someone who has never signed in and does not yet have an account, use the New Tool User screen in the Users admin area.

  1. Enter their name in the Name field
  2. Enter their Net ID in the Email field and add @byu.edu. For example, if the Net ID were cosmo27, I would enter cosmo27@byu.edu in the Email field.
  3. Select the dropdown under Password and set it to Keep Same instead of Change.
  4. Select the Permissions tab and add the desired permissions.
  5. Click Save.

If you see an error that says you have a user with a duplicate email, you'll need to follow the steps for adding permissions to someone who already uses Brightspot (above).

Screen Shot 2021-10-06 at 5.20.21 PM.png

Add or Update a User's Permissions

Find a user profile to edit

  1. Open the Brightspot admin menu (the three bars in the top left of any Brightspot editor screen).
  2. Open the Admin dropdown and click the Users item to open the user administration screen. If you do not see this option, contact your Brightspot administrator (who manages Brightspot sites for your department or college).
  3. Use the search field in the left sidebar to find the person you want to edit. If you do not find the person in your list—because they do not yet have rights to any sites you administer or do not already have a Brightspot account—follow the steps to add a new user.
  4. Click on the person's name (sometimes it may be netid@byu.edu) to edit their profile.

Add permissions for a site or site group

The process is outlined in more detail below, but the general steps are these.

  1. Open the Permissions area
  2. Choose a site or site group in Site Hierarchy
  3. Add Roles with the Roles Publisher
  4. Add more permission sets if needed
  5. Click Save

Note: You do not need to write anything in the permission set Name field. It will automatically be filled with the name of the site or site group once you've chosen that in the Site Hierarchy.

Open the Permissions area

In the Users screen, when you've found the person whose permissions you want to edit, go to the Permissions tab and click Add Permission Set. Or, if you're using the Adopt User form, the permissions fields will already be visible.

Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 3.47.47 PM.png
The Permissions tab in the Users admin area
Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 3.43.44 PM.png

Choose a site or site group in Site Hierarchy

To specify what site or sites a person has access to, make a selection in the Site Hierarchy dropdown. You can choose either a site or a site group. Site groups are identified with the word Sites at the end of the name. In the images below, choosing Biology Department would give access to the main Biology department website. Choosing Biology - Department Sites would give access to all sites in the Biology department site group. Only one site or site group can be chosen here.

Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 3.44.47 PM.png
Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 3.44.40 PM.png

Add Roles with the Roles Publisher

To specify what access someone has to the site or site group chosen above, use the Role Publisher. To add permissions, choose Add in the dropdown. This will reveal the Roles dropdown.

Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 4.07.12 PM.png

There may be several roles listed here, but the most commonly used are *Admin - Site and *Editor.

  • *Admin - Site gives permission to edit content, site settings, and user permissions for a site. It includes rights to add, edit, and delete most common content types.
  • *Editor gives permission only to edit content on a site. It includes rights to add, edit, and delete most common content types.
Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 4.07.04 PM.png

Other roles in the list can give additional access to admin screens (e.g. Admin - Developer) or content types (e.g. Content - Sports Types - All Actions), or they can be used in place of the site admin or editor roles to restrict access (e.g. Dashboard Only).

Add more Permission Sets if needed. Otherwise, you can set the Permission Set to "Personal Employee".

You can assign as many permission sets as needed. Since a permission set only allows one entry in the Site Hierarchy, you'll need to add multiple permission sets to allow someone to edit more than one site or site group.

If you have a common set of sites you'd like to assign to people, you may want to put them all into a single site group. We have site groups for colleges, departments, and many other units. If you'd like to create a new site group, contact us at websites@byu.edu.

Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 4.37.58 PM.png