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Assigning Document Roles

By assigning document roles you can control who can own, write, review, approve, and read documents. You can also control who can see pending and archived documents and who can create and modify templates. PolicyTechâ„¢ assigns each new user only the reader role by default.

You can assign document roles while creating or editing a user (see Adding a User Manually or Editing a User).

  1. With a user form open, click the Document Roles tab.
  1. Select or deselect document roles. Each role is described in the"Document Role Descriptions" section below.
  2. Do one of the following:

Document Role Descriptions

Document Role

Description

Document Owner

A document owner has the following responsibilities for each owned document:

  • Create the document
  • Assign writers, proxy authors, reviewers, approvers, and readers
  • Assign departments and categories
  • Write the document content or assign another user to write it
  • Manage the document through the review and approval process, making revisions as necessary
  • As the document is periodically reviewed, create new versions and make necessary updates
  • When necessary, a document owner can also do the following with an owned document:
  • Submit the draft document directly to approval if no reviewers are assigned
  • Set the document as approved if assigned the Approves Own Documents role
  • Modify the assigned readers of published documents
  • Archive the document

Approves Own Document

This document role applies only to users assigned the Document Owner role. With the Approves Own Document role assigned, a document owner can approve his or her own documents without having to go through the review and approval process.

Note: If a document's template contains required reviewers or approvers, the document owner is not allowed to approve the document, even with the Approves Own Document role assigned.

Writer

A document owner can assign any user with the Writer role to write or collaborate in writing a document. A writer cannot, however, access or change any of the document's properties (assignments, roles, permissions, etc.). A writer can edit an assigned document for as long as it is in the draft status.

Reviewer

A document owner can assign any user with the Reviewer role to review documents. A reviewer can accept an assigned document as it is, revise it, or decline it. Those assigned the Reviewer role are typically subject matter experts and managers.

Approver

A document owner can assign any user with the Approver role to approve documents. An approver can accept an assigned document as is, revise it, or decline it. Because an approver is legally responsible for a document's contents, those assigned the Approver role are typically managers or company executives.

Completes Approval Assignments in Bulk

By default, user's assigned the approver role must approve documents individually. A user assigned the Completes Approval Assignments in Bulk role is able to select multiple approval tasks and approve them all at once.

Pending Documents

A user assigned the Pending Documents role can see documents that are approved but not yet published because of a pending publication date. Access is limited to documents the user would be able to see once the document is published.

Reader

A user assigned the Reader role can see all published documents whose security is set to All Users.

Archived Documents

A user assigned the Archived Documents role can see archived documents. Access is limited to documents the user would be able to see if the document were in published status.

Template

A user assigned the Template role can view, create, and edit document templates, but cannot delete them.

Proxy Author

Unlike the other roles listed in this table, the Proxy Author role is assigned in the Proxy Settings tab of User Manager. For details on what a user assigned this permission can do, see Assigning a Proxy Author.