.. _Introducing More Granular Team Management:

Introducing More Granular Team Management
##########################################

Easily manage user access across multiple parts of the platform from a single
view. The Verawood release extends the :ref:`administrative console <Ulmo
console>`, introduced in the previous release for managing permissions over
:ref:`Content Libraries <Add users to Libraries>`. Now renamed to the "Roles and
Permissions Console", it adds new roles that can be applied across Studio.

.. figure:: /_images/educator_how_tos/console_course_team_members.png
    :alt: The Team Members tab of the Roles and Permissions console, showing course team members

    The Team Members tab of the Roles and Permissions console. This is the Admin
    view; you only see the role assignments associated with the course(s) and/or
    librar(ies) you have access to, not any other roles those users may have
    on other organizations, courses, or libraries.

You can now assign two new roles, Course Admin or Course Staff, to one or
multiple users and apply them at multiple levels (a specific organization,
course, or library) — all in a single action. Granting a role at
the organization level covers both existing courses and any courses created in
that organization afterward.

This feature is opt-in and disabled by default. It can be enabled across your
whole instance, or for one or more specific organizations or courses, and must be
:ref:`enabled by your site administrator <Enabling RBAC in Verawood>`.

New User Roles
**************

**Course Admin** is the new-system equivalent of the legacy Admin role: course
team management through the Roles and Permissions console and full authoring
access in Studio.

**Course Staff** is the new-system equivalent of the legacy Staff role: full
course lifecycle management in Studio.

**Course Admin** and **Course Staff** are the new system's equivalents of the
legacy Admin and Staff roles for a course: same responsibilities, new assignment
mechanism. For a full breakdown of what each role can do, see :ref:`Course Authoring Roles
Under the New Roles and Permissions System <New System Course Authoring Roles>`.

What's Available in Verawood
*****************************

- **Unified interface**: the Roles and Permissions console displays all role
  assignments in one place, filterable by role, organization, and scope.
- **Assign Role wizard**: assign a role to multiple users and multiple scopes in
  a single action.
- **Organization-level assignment**: grant a role to a user across an entire
  organization, including scopes created later.
- **User audit view**: shows a user's roles across every course and library you
  have permission to manage.
- **Filtered entry points**: the console opens filtered to the context you came
  from, unfiltered from the Studio home page, or filtered to a single course or
  library when opened from there.

Scope and Impact
*****************

When this feature is enabled, the platform supports both the legacy Instructor
Dashboard roles (Admin, Staff, Limited Staff) and the new Course Admin / Course
Staff roles at the same time. New roles apply according to the scope where the
flag is enabled — platform, organization, or course.

The Roles and Permissions console is a place where you can examine the users who
have access to your system - their “role”, and also where that applies (which
“organization” it applies to, as well as the “scope” of the role - specific
course(s) or librar(ies)). For example, in the following screenshot, we see two
users - Jhon_Doe, who has the "Course Admin” role - this role applies across one
organization and one course. The next user, “KellyKapoor”, has the “Course
Editor” role applied over a different course in a different organization.

.. image:: /_images/release_notes/verawood/rp_console_roles.png
    :alt: A screenshot illustrating the above paragraph

Note: if you have a role for a course or library, this view allows you to see
users who have roles related to that same course or library. You only see the
role assignments associated with the course(s) and/or librar(ies) you have
access to, not any other roles those users may have on other organizations,
courses, or libraries.

The Roles and Permissions console is where you can examine the users who have
access to your system: their role, which organization it applies to, and the scope
of the role (specific course(s) or librar(ies)). The console also lets you change
or add course and library authoring roles for individual users.

Migration of Existing Course Role Assignments
**********************************************

Verawood includes migration tools to synchronize existing Admin and Staff course
role assignments between the legacy system and the new Roles and Permissions
framework. Depending on how your site is configured, this can happen automatically
when the Course Authoring feature is enabled for a course or organization —
existing Admin and Staff assignments carry over without manual steps. If automatic
migration isn't enabled on your site, your site operator can run the migration
separately. No role assignments are lost in the process.

Not Affected by This Release
*****************************

- Course content and how it is authored. This feature improves how course and
  library teams are managed, not what authors create.
- :ref:`Legacy Libraries <Legacy Content Libraries Overview>` (deprecated in
  Verawood) that have not yet been :ref:`migrated to Content Libraries <Migrating
  Legacy Libraries>`.
- Permissions that apply to LMS functionality and are managed by the Instructor
  Dashboard, such as Discussions Forums Admin or Beta Tester.

Future Improvements
********************

In upcoming releases, the Roles and Permissions work is expected to continue in
several directions:

- New Studio roles are planned to separate authoring responsibilities from
  managing an active course, and to introduce a read-only role for reviewing
  course content in Studio.
- Roles and Permissions management will also expand to the LMS, bringing the same
  model to learner-facing features and runtime course management.
- Documentation with design patterns, guides, and extension points for the
  community to build on top of the new system are also on the roadmap.


.. seealso::

   :ref:`Manage Course Authoring Roles` (how-to)

   :ref:`Guide to Course Team Roles` (reference)

   :ref:`Add Course Team Members` (how-to)

   :ref:`Verawood Product Notes` (reference)


**Maintenance chart**

+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
| Review Date  | Working Group Reviewer        |   Release      |Test situation                  |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
| 2025-07-30   | eduNEXT                       | Verawood       | Pass                           |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
