Item and Soldier Roles and Permissions

Purpose

This article explains what Subscribers, Contributors, Authors, Editors and Administrators may do with museum Items and Soldiers. Permissions apply to everyone assigned to a role; they are not customized for individual users.

Publication Contributor and Publication Editor are separate publication appointments, not the museum Contributor and Editor roles described below. Publication workers use Subscriber-based accounts and receive only their publication permissions.

Subscriber

Subscribers can sign in and view public content. They cannot add, change, publish or delete Items or Soldiers.

Contributor

Contributors can add new Items and Soldiers and submit them for review. They can also make changes to existing published records in a private working copy. Their changes do not become public until an Editor approves them.

For the complete procedure, see Editing an Item Record or Editing a Soldier Record.

Author

Authors can add, publish and directly change any Item or Soldier without prior approval. They can move records to Trash but cannot permanently delete them or approve Contributor changes.

Report and review pages

• Subscribers cannot open Item or Soldier Data Quality, Item Duplicate Review or Soldier Duplicate Check.
• Contributors can open Item and Soldier Data Quality. They can correct their own editable records and start proposed corrections for published records. The Soldier report lists old drafts and published completeness exceptions; Pending proposals are managed from the Soldiers list. They cannot refresh Data Quality or open either duplicate-review page.
• Authors can refresh Item and Soldier Data Quality and fully process Item Duplicate Review. They can also compare and edit Soldiers, run Soldier duplicate scans, mark a pair False Positive and reopen a False Positive decision. They may use Recheck this pair for Open and False Positive Soldier pairs. They cannot mark Soldier concerns Resolved, recheck or reopen Resolved pairs, authorise publication overrides, view Soldier diagnostics or export Soldier duplicate data.
• Editors and Administrators have full access to these report and review pages, including Soldier Resolved decisions, publication overrides, diagnostics and exports.

Editor

Editors can do everything an Author can. They can also approve or reject Contributor changes and permanently delete records from Trash. Editors can open the Item and Soldier Permissions pages for reference, but the pages are read-only for them.

Administrator

Administrators have full authority and are the only users who can change role permissions. Changes apply to every user assigned to that role.

Media Library permissions

The Media Library section appears inside each role panel for completeness. It is information only and cannot be changed from the Item or Soldier Permissions pages.

• Subscribers cannot upload or edit media.
• Contributors can upload files and edit files they uploaded.
• Authors can upload files, edit media uploaded by anyone and move media to Media Trash when Media Trash is enabled.
• Editors and Administrators can also permanently delete files from Media Trash.

Replacing an existing shared media file through ASE requires an Editor or Administrator. This is separate from correcting its title, caption, alternative text or description. Contributors may correct their own uploads; Authors may correct anyone’s media information. Selecting a different image on one record follows that record’s normal approval rules.

Only an Administrator can change Media Library permissions. Media edits are separate from record proposals: changing an existing shared attachment can affect public pages immediately, including when a Contributor is allowed to edit an attachment they uploaded. The record-approval rule does not stage those media edits.

Reviewing permissions

From the WordPress administration menu, open Items > Permissions or Soldiers > Permissions. The Contributor and Author panels are open by default because these are the roles most likely to require review. The Subscriber and Editor panels are closed by default. Expand Users assigned to… to see the people currently assigned to each role.

Each role summary explains its practical authority. A status label shows whether the live settings match the agreed museum policy. If they do not match, the page identifies the individual differences. Notes beneath some settings explain when one permission depends on another.

Editors may inspect these pages, but only Administrators can change or restore settings. Restore recommended settings for this role changes that role’s checkboxes on the screen; the Administrator must then select Save permissions to apply the change. Restore agreed Item policy or Restore agreed Soldier policy restores the complete policy for all four roles.

Notifications

These permission pages control what users may do. Email recipients and notification events are configured separately through the website notification system.