Business Roles & Permissions FAQ

Where can I view the permissions on my Arbor profile?

You can now go to My Items > My Permissions to see a table with a list of all permissions. You can then search for key words related to the permissions to see if you have this permission or not.

If you do not have the Permissions: Administer permission on your profile, you will see a message advising this at the top of the page, and you will need to ask your system administrator to activate any permissions for you.

What permission do I need to be able to add or remove business roles and permissions?

The permission necessary to add or remove business roles and permissions for staff members is School: Permissions: Administer.

Can I delete a business role or permission?

No, deleting a business role or permission from your Arbor site is impossible. You would instead need to ensure that the unwanted business role or permission is not used by staff.

Can we assign business roles or permissions in bulk?

No, it is not possible to add business roles or permissions in bulk. This is to ensure that access is not given to staff members who should not access specific areas of Arbor.

Can we copy business roles?

No, you cannot make a copy of a business role. If you need to give users different permissions to the preset business roles, you can edit the permissions of a role, or you can change the name of another business role. with the permissions you want using an Alias.

Why is the new permission I have been assigned not working?

If a staff member has been assigned a new ad hoc permission or business role, check the following:

• The permission or business role given allows the user to do this action - you can see how to check this here. 
• They have been added with the effective dates overlapping today's date
• The staff member has logged out of their profile and logged back in again (This is necessary for permissions to take effect)
• Try refreshing their permissions by clicking on the business role on their staff profile

What are inactive permissions?

Inactive permissions are permissions that are currently not in use anymore on Arbor. Although they are still displayed in the permission section, you can ignore them.

Staff members cannot be assigned these permissions, and they do not give users the ability to take any actions. The actions that these permissions allow you to do are still possible by assigning other active permissions.

What business role should I assign to my staff members?

Arbor is not able to advise on which business role would be suitable for your staff, as school staff structures will differ between schools. For this reason, we would recommend looking through the Arbor business roles to find the roles that would best match the responsibilities of the staff member, and then assign ad hoc permissions to their profile.

Can I create or add a new business role?

No, as the business roles are derived from the set DfE list, it is not possible to add a new business role in Arbor.

Can I remove an action from a permission?

No, it is not possible to remove an action from a permission. If a permission has several actions, such as Attendance: Administer All Students which allows users to set bulk marks and also modify historic marks for students, you would not be able to prevent users with that permission from completing one of those actions.