Purpose: This article explains how Job Roles work in Administrate, how they are used to organize Contacts, and how to manage them effectively.
Job Roles allow you to define structured organizational or operational roles for people in Administrate.
Job Roles help organize responsibilities, support reporting, and maintain consistent role definitions across your organization.
Job Roles are typically used to represent positions such as instructors, coordinators, administrators, or other operational roles connected to Contacts and Users.
Table of contents
- What job roles are used for
- Before creating job roles
- Create a job role
- Edit a job role
- Set a default job role
- Delete or retire a job role
- Archive or unarchive job roles
- Best practices for managing job roles
- Related tasks
What job roles are used for
Job Roles provide a standardized way to classify people based on the role they perform within your organization.
- identify responsibilities associated with Contacts and Users
- support consistent reporting and filtering
- standardize how roles are represented across the system
- help administrators manage organizational structure
Job Roles describe a person's organizational or operational function, while User Roles and Permissions control what a User can access or do within Administrate.
For a deeper explanation of how Accounts, Contacts, Learners, participation, and operational roles relate to one another, see Identity and Participation in Administrate.
Job Roles can also be used with Automatic Registration to automatically assign Learning Paths based on a Contact’s role.
Before creating job roles
- Identify the common roles people perform in your organization.
- Avoid creating multiple roles that represent the same responsibility.
- Use clear and consistent naming so roles are easy to understand.
Create a job role
- Open the Job Roles configuration area in the Control Panel.
- Click Add Job Role.
- Enter a name for the role.
- Click Save.
The new Job Role becomes available when assigning roles to Contacts.
Edit a job role
- Open the Job Roles configuration area.
- Select the role you want to update.
- Edit the role name.
- Click Save.
Changes to a Job Role are reflected wherever that role is used.
Set a default job role
A default Job Role is automatically assigned when a new Contact is created without a primary Job Role.
- Open the Job Roles list.
- Select the options menu for a role.
- Choose Make Default and confirm.
If your organization does not require a specific role by default, consider creating a placeholder role to use for this purpose.
Delete or retire a job role
If a Job Role is no longer required, it can be deleted or retired depending on usage.
- Job Roles can only be deleted if they are not assigned to any Contacts.
- If a role is still in use, consider renaming or archiving it instead.
- Confirm the role is not used in critical workflows before removal.
Archive or unarchive job roles
Archiving allows you to retain historical data while preventing further use of a Job Role.
- Archived roles cannot be assigned to new Contacts.
- Archived roles cannot be edited.
- Roles assigned to Contacts can be archived but not deleted.
- Open the options menu for the Job Role.
- Select Archive or Unarchive.
- Confirm your selection.
Best practices for managing job roles
- Create roles based on real operational responsibilities.
- Use consistent naming conventions.
- Avoid duplicate roles representing the same job.
- Review roles periodically as your organization evolves.