Managing Arbor AI Permissions

You can control exactly who accesses Arbor AI features by setting permissions in Arbor. This helps make sure staff use Arbor AI features in a way that suits your school's unique policies, safeguarding needs, and budget. This guide explains how this works.

Permissions

• You will need the School: Arbor AI: Administer Arbor AI permission to administer Arbor AI. 
• You will need School: Arbor AI: View Arbor AI to use any Arbor AI feature.

If you do not have this permission, please speak to your school admin team about adding this permission using these instructions.

Which business roles have AI permissions by default?

The following business roles have these permissions applied by default.

Please note: if you have opted to take control of your business roles, then these mappings will not apply. 

• Enabled by default (Opted IN): Roles that require whole-school data analysis or heavy administrative lifting have access by default. This includes Head Teachers, Deputy/Assistant Heads, Data Managers, Bursars, Attendance Officers, Receptionists, Pastoral Managers, and Heads of Year.

• Disabled by default (Opted OUT to save credits): By default, Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Supply Teachers, and Learning Mentors are excluded from accessing your standard Arbor AI features.

The Arbor AI Permission Types

You can manage access to each Arbor AI feature by going to School > Arbor AI and selecting Settings, followed by Global or Feature Permissions in the left-hand navigation.

Note: You will need the permission School: Arbor AI: Administer Arbor AI to view this page

Global Permissions

The Global Permissions page allows you to do the following for your whole school at once: 

• Opt in/out of Arbor AI
• Turn off individual Arbor AI features 

More on this here: Opting In and Out of Arbor AI

Feature Permissions

Arbor AI gives you a granular way to manage access to each AI feature.

To modify the settings, first select the Arbor AI feature in the drop-down (see #1). 

1. Arbor AI Feature - Select the AI feature that you want to edit the settings for
2. Exclude These Users From Using Ask Arbor - These individual users will not be able to access the feature, even if others with the same business role can. This way, even people with the same set of permissions attached to their business role can have different AI permissions
3. Give These Users Explicit Access to Ask Arbor - These users always have access to this AI feature, even if their business roles are opted out, allowing you to control AI permissions independent of business role, too.
4. Exclude These Business Roles From Using Ask Arbor - These business roles will not have access to this AI feature. These users will only lose access if all their business roles are opted out, and if they have not been given explicit access individually.
5. Check User Access to Ask Arbor - Use this to check if your settings have the intended effect.  

This means that on a per-feature basis (Ask Arbor, Suggest Comms and Suggest Student Summary), you have total control over who can and cannot access AI features.

Controlling Access to Arbor AI Features

The following sections show you in greater detail how to use the feature permissions settings on the School > Arbor AI > Settings > Feature Permissions page. 

Please make sure you set the Arbor AI Feature dropdown to the feature you want to manage before you make any changes to these settings. 

If you have globally disabled a feature, nobody will be able to use it, even if you have given them the feature permission individually.

Granting a single user access to a feature

In the Permissions Setup tab:

• Scroll to Give These Users Explicit Access to [AI Feature] 
• Click +Add
• On the slide-over, select the user(s) 

• Click Save changes

  
  

You will now see the staff member in the Give These Users Explicit Access to table. To revoke permissions given in this way, use the Bulk Action button after selecting the tick box next to the staff member's name and selecting Revoke Explicit Access

Excluding a single user from a feature

In the Permissions Setup tab:

• Scroll to Exclude These Users From Using [AI Feature] 
• Click +Add
• On the slide-over, select the user(s) 
• Click Save changes

You will now see the staff member in the Exclude These Users From Using table. To restore permissions revoked in this way, use the Bulk Action button after selecting the tick box next to the staff member's name and selecting Remove Opt-out.

Excluding a whole business role from a feature

In the Permissions Setup tab:

• Scroll to Exclude These Business Roles From Using [AI Feature] 
• Click +Add
• On the slide-over, select the roles
• Click Save changes

You will now see the staff member in the Exclude These Business Roles From Using table. To restore permissions revoked in this way, use the Bulk Action button after selecting the tick box next to the roles and selecting Remove Opt-out.

Seeing every user with access to a feature

To see an overview of each staff member with a specific AI feature, head to the All Staff Permissions tab once you have selected the Arbor AI Feature you are interested in with the dropdown.

Click on a staff member's name to revoke their access from here too.

Checking User Access

After you have configured your AI permissions so that the right people have the right access, you may want to double-check the actual Arbor AI features fr an individual member of staff can access.

• Go to School > Arbor AI > Settings > Feature Permissions
• Make sure you set the Arbor AI Feature drop-down to the feature you want to check access to
• Select the staff member's name in the dropdown above the Check Access button on the right-hand side
• Select Check Access

The  User Access Result slide-over then shows you:

• If the staff member has access.
• Why the staff member has access or not
• What their business role is.

If the user has access to a feature and you do not want them to, you can revoke access by clicking the 'Revoke Access' button. 

If the user does not have access to the feature, this is also confirmed for you on the slide over, including why they do not have access.

FAQ

Who is Ask Arbor Enabled for By Default?

By default, Ask Arbor is enabled for administrators and leadership staff. Ask Arbor can be enabled for teaching staff, pastoral staff and other staff members if needed (see 'Opted out of Ask Arbor by default' below).

You can enable Ask Arbor for more business roles by navigating to the Feature Permissions page and selecting "Ask Arbor" from the dropdown. 

The following table shows the permissions that are assigned to each business role by default.