Getting started

Roles, permission groups and what you can open

Why your menu may differ from a colleague’s: apps, permission groups and admin decide access, and a role is only a job title.

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What you can open in Orin OS depends on what your business has granted you, so two people at the same desk can see different menus. This page explains what decides your access, why a job title is not part of it, and who to ask when something is missing.

Three things decide what you can open

  • The apps your business holds. If the business does not hold an app, nobody in it can open that app's screens.
  • Your permission groups. A permission group is a named set of things a member may do, such as Accountant, Manager or Reviewer. You can be in more than one, and then you have everything each of them allows. A group only ever grants: no group can take something away.
  • Whether you are an administrator. An administrator can do everything in the business, whichever groups they are in. Your account menu shows Admin beside your role if you are one.

A few menu items also depend on the kind of work the business does. Statutory deadlines and Advisory, for example, appear only for businesses that offer that work.

Your role is a job title

A role, such as Partner, Manager or Accountant, is a job title. It shows on your record and on the letters your clients read, and that is all it does. Making somebody a Partner does not give them a Partner's access; their permission groups do.

The Roles tab of Access control, listing job titles such as Owner, Partner, Director, Manager, HR Manager and Accountant, with a note that a role is a job title.
Access control, Roles. The note above the list says what a role does and does not do.
The Permission groups tab of Access control, listing groups such as Accountant, Bookkeeper, Director, HR Manager, Manager and Partner, each with what it is for and how many people are in it.
Access control, Permission groups. Each group says what it is for and how many people hold it.

If a menu item is missing for you, it is not hidden by accident and there is no setting on your side to change. Ask an administrator at your firm, and say which screen you need.

What administrators manage

Administrators, and anyone whose groups allow it, manage access in Access control, which has four tabs:

  • Team: who is in the business, their role, apps and groups, and Invite Team Member.
  • Roles: the job titles the business can give people.
  • Permission groups: what each group allows, and who is in it.
  • Security: whether everyone must use two-factor sign-in.
The Security tab of Access control with the Two-factor sign-in setting, Require two-factor sign-in for everyone in this business, switched off.
Access control, Security: requiring two-factor sign-in for everyone.

See Access control for how to change groups and invite people.

Two things that are always yours

Your own Profile and your own Security settings belong to you whatever else you can reach. No permission group can take them away.

Common questions

I can open a screen but it refuses to load anything. Being able to open a screen and being allowed to read its data can come from different permissions. Report it to an administrator rather than working around it, because that combination is usually a gap in how a group was set up.

Somebody left the firm. Do I need to do anything? An administrator deactivates them on the Team tab of Access control. Deactivated people lose access and drop out of the active list, and their logged time and filed work stay. They can be brought back later.

Is the Owner role special? Only as a title. Being an administrator is what gives full access, and it is shown separately as Admin.

Access control: your team, roles and permission groupsInvite people, give them a role and permission groups, change what a group allows, and deactivate someone who has left.Finding your way aroundThe menu, the top bar and the controls that follow you across every Practice screen.Signing in and two-factorHow to sign in, where you land, how to add a second step so a stolen password is not enough, and how to reset a password.

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