Roles: Purpose and Feature Access - Article

Choose the role that matches a person’s responsibilities, understand the feature areas they can normally access, and identify the scope, assignments, and platform configuration that affect what they can manage.

Updated: 3 Oct 2026

13 min read

Summary

Roles provide the starting point for what a person can see and manage in Eurekos. They bring related capabilities together so administrators can give people the access they need without maintaining individual permissions for every feature.

A role does not determine access on its own. Effective access also depends on organisational scope, responsibility for specific people or learning, and the features and access rules enabled for the platform.

Use this guide to choose the role that best matches a person’s responsibilities and to identify which roles normally view, create, or manage each major feature area.

How effective access is determined

A role establishes the person’s general purpose on the platform, but it is only one part of the access decision. When a person can see a feature but not the expected data—or can view a record without being able to edit it—check all four access layers.

Role

The role provides a supported bundle of capabilities. For example, an Instructor creates and delivers learning, while a Course Administrator coordinates training operations across multiple Courses and Training Activities.

Organisational scope

Scope determines which users, Courses, Training Activities, reports, and organisations are included. Two people with the same role can therefore work with different data.

Assigned responsibility

Access can also come from a specific responsibility or relationship, including:

Owning or co-authoring a Course.
Being responsible for a Training Activity.
Owning a community.
Managing an organisation.
Being registered as another user’s Immediate Manager.

These assignments provide focused access without necessarily giving the person broader administrative access.

Platform configuration

Optional roles, add-ons, organisational filtering, analytics permissions, commerce functions, and other platform settings can change which capabilities are available. A role shown in one environment may therefore not be available or behave identically in another environment.

Choose a role by responsibility

Begin with the work the person must perform, then select the role with the least access that supports it.

Responsibility	Recommended access	Normal boundary
Participate in learning and follow personal progress	Participant	The person’s own learning and profile
Review learning outcomes without managing content	Auditor	Reports and evidence within the permitted scope
Support and monitor directly assigned staff	Immediate Manager relationship	Assigned staff; this is not a separate system role
Manage learners for a customer, partner, department, or business unit	Manager	The assigned organisation and permitted sub-organisations
Manage an external partner organisation and contribute to learning delivery	Partner, where available	Assigned organisation, organisation members, and owned or assigned learning
Create Courses and deliver assigned learning	Instructor	Owned or co-authored Courses and assigned activities
Deliver learning for a defined external organisation	External Instructor	Assigned content and activities within the permitted organisation
Coordinate the practical delivery of owned activities	Advanced Instructor	The Instructor’s own or assigned Training Activities
Support training operations without transaction management	Assistant	Operational features within the permitted scope
Coordinate registrations, certificates, and training operations	Course Administrator	Course Administration and related operational data
Provide broad operational support without controlling Settings	Support	Users, content, and operations across the permitted scope
Administer the platform and its configuration	Platform Administrator	The platform or assigned organisational scope
Govern a platform containing separated organisations	Global Administrator	All permitted organisations and global Settings

Learning and oversight roles

Participant

Use the Participant role for people whose primary purpose is to discover, enrol in, and complete learning. Participants can access learning made available to their audience, follow their own progress, view achievements and certificates, and maintain the permitted parts of their profile. They do not receive content-management or administrative access.

Auditor

Use the Auditor role for people who need to review learning evidence without administering the learning experience. Auditors can typically review reports, analytics, participation, progress, and outcomes within their permitted organisational scope. They do not normally create Courses, change activity configuration, or manage platform Settings.

The reports available to an Auditor can also depend on analytics permissions and organisational configuration.

Management responsibilities

Immediate Manager

Immediate Manager is a relationship between people, not a separate system role. Use it when a manager should support identified staff without receiving general access to everyone in an organisation.

The manager’s underlying role determines their general platform access, while the Immediate Manager relationship determines which staff they can work with. Depending on enabled features, this can include following progress and achievements, enrolling staff, purchasing learning on their behalf, and accessing relevant reports or transcripts.

If the person already has access to Users, assigned staff can appear through a My staff filter. Otherwise, a dedicated staff-management entry point can be provided. The organisation filter does not replace Immediate Manager assignments.

Manager

Use the Manager role when a person is responsible for learners within a defined organisation, customer, partner, department, or business unit. Managers can typically find and review users in their scope, follow participation and completion, access relevant reports and transcripts, support enrolment, and review learning outcomes.

This role is useful for delegated customer and partner administration. It provides broader organisational responsibility than the person-to-person Immediate Manager relationship while remaining separated from unrelated organisations and platform-wide Settings.

Partner

Partner is a specialised hybrid role available on platforms where an external partner, reseller, or service-provider operating model has been implemented. It combines selected Manager and Instructor capabilities within a defined organisational scope.

Partners can typically manage users in their own organisation and permitted sub-organisations, enrol members or request learning on their behalf, and use organisation-funded learning routes where configured. They can work with Courses they own or co-author, and their activity-level delivery and assessment access depends on being assigned responsibility for the relevant Training Activity. Analytics remain scoped to their organisation and responsibilities.

Partner does not provide platform-wide administration. Partners cannot move organisations within the hierarchy, access global Settings, or administer unrelated users and content. The precise capabilities can vary because Partner is a specialised role and may be adapted to the agreed business use case.

Content creation and delivery roles

Instructor

Use the Instructor role for people who create learning content or deliver training. Instructors can normally create and maintain Courses they own, work on Courses where they are co-authors, reuse supported learning assets, and manage communication, participants, and results for assigned Training Activities.

Instructor access follows ownership and responsibility. An Instructor does not automatically receive access to every Course, user, or report.

External Instructor

External Instructor is an optional role for instructors who should work within a restricted organisational context. Use it for external trainers, suppliers, or partner instructors who need access to assigned learning without broad access to Course Administration, the complete Users list, organisation management, or platform-wide reports.

An External Instructor can be made responsible for relevant Training Activities and access the participant information and results required to deliver them.

Advanced Instructor

Advanced Instructor is an optional role for instructors who require additional operational control over their own Training Activities. It can support participant handling, attendance, delivery status, completion, and marking applicable activities as ready for invoicing.

Use it when an instructor needs to operate a Training Activity but does not need to administer the wider training catalogue or platform.

Training operations roles

Assistant

Assistant is an optional operational role for people who help coordinate training delivery but should not manage commercial transactions. Assistants can typically work with Courses, Training Activities, participant connections, locations, events, announcements, certificates, reminders, and email automation within their permitted scope.

Course Administrator

Use the Course Administrator role for people responsible for the practical administration of training. Course Administrators can typically create and manage Training Activities, connect users, coordinate enrolment and attendance, manage completion and certificates, maintain events and announcements, configure reminders and automation, and work with training-related transactions where enabled.

A Course Administrator can manage training operations without receiving responsibility for platform-wide configuration. Role assignment remains subject to separate role-access rules.

Platform administration roles

Support

Use the Support role for people who require broad operational access to help users and resolve platform issues but should not control platform-wide Settings. Support users can generally work across users, content, Course Administration, organisations, reports, and operational tools within their permitted scope.

Platform Administrator

Use the Platform Administrator role for people responsible for administering the platform. Platform Administrators can normally manage users, content, training operations, organisations, reports, administrative tools, and permitted role assignments.

When Global Administrator functionality is enabled, platform-wide Settings are reserved for Global Administrators. Platform Administrators then administer the areas and organisations within their permitted scope without access to Settings.

Global Administrator

Global Administrator provides the highest customer-facing level of access in a platform using separated organisational administration. Use it for a small number of trusted people who must work across organisations, manage global Settings, govern platform-wide configuration, and support delegated administrators.

Global Administrator functionality is enabled in consultation with Eurekos. Because Settings apply globally and cannot be separated by organisation, enabling this model removes Settings access from Platform Administrators.

Optional and specialised roles

Assistant, Advanced Instructor, and External Instructor are optional Eurekos roles that can be enabled when the platform requires their supported operating model. Partner and other specialised roles may also be available for platforms with specific business requirements.

Administrators cannot create roles or assemble their own permission combinations. The role model is predefined because access is connected to product behavior across many features. Where the standard and optional roles do not support a specialised business use case, Eurekos can assess, design, and configure an appropriate role through an agreed change request.

Specialised roles are implementation-specific. Their intended purpose, scope, and limitations should be documented for the platform and confirmed before assignment.

Feature access reference

The following table describes the normal purpose of each role. Scoped access is limited by organisation, ownership, assigned activity, assigned staff, or another defined relationship. The table is a practical guide, not a guarantee that every listed action is enabled in every platform.

Feature area	Who normally views or uses it	Who normally creates, edits, or manages it	What affects access
Personal learning, progress, and achievements	All users for their own learning	The individual can update permitted profile information	Audience and enrolment rules
Courses and learning content	Users for whom the content is available	Instructor and optional Instructor roles within scope; Partner for owned or co-authored content; Assistant; Course Administrator; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Ownership, co-authoring, organisation, and archive restrictions
Training Activities and sessions	Assigned learners, instructors, Partners, managers, auditors, and operational roles	Responsible instructors and Partners within scope; Assistant; Course Administrator; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Activity responsibility and organisational scope
Participants, attendance, and completion	Participant for self; Auditor, Manager, Partner, Immediate Manager, and Instructor within scope; operational roles	Responsible instructors and authorised management or operational roles	Relationship to the learner or Training Activity
Events, announcements, and calendars	Users targeted by the item	Responsible instructors; Assistant; Course Administrator; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Ownership, responsibility, and organisational scope
Course Administration	Advanced Instructor for limited personal activity management; operational and administrative roles	Assistant; Course Administrator; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Advanced Instructor uses a restricted activity-focused experience
Users and profiles	Individual user; Immediate Manager, Manager, Partner, Auditor, Instructor, and operational roles within scope	Manager or Partner within delegated scope; authorised Immediate Manager actions; Course Administrator; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Profile fields, role assignment, and user actions can have separate restrictions
Organisations	Managers and Partners within their delegated context; administrative roles	Manager or Partner where delegated; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Organisational separation and delegated scope; Partners cannot move organisations in the hierarchy
Progress, certificates, and transcripts	Participant for self; Auditor, Manager, Immediate Manager, Instructor, and operational roles within scope	Responsible or authorised operational roles	Viewing evidence does not always include permission to change it
Analytics and reports	Auditor, Manager, Partner, Immediate Manager, Instructor, Course Administrator, Support, Platform Administrator, and Global Administrator within scope	Authorised administrative roles	Analytics permissions, organisation, and responsibility
Automation and reminders	Relevant recipients and operational roles	Assistant; Course Administrator; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Enabled features and operational scope
Videos, H5P, resources, archive, and knowledge content	Relevant audiences	Instructor within ownership scope; operational and administrative roles	Each content service has its own ownership and publishing rules
Commerce and Transactions	Learners, Managers, and Partners participating in configured purchase flows	Course Administrator; Support; Platform Administrator; Global Administrator	Assistant does not manage Transactions; purchasing for others requires an enabled flow
Platform Settings	Platform Administrator when the Global Administrator model is not enabled; otherwise Global Administrator	Platform Administrator or Global Administrator, depending on the platform model	Settings are global and cannot be separated by organisation
Role assignment	Administrators permitted to manage users	Determined by the separate role-access configuration	Editing a user does not permit assignment of every role
Masquerade	Designated Course Administrator, Support, Platform Administrator, or Global Administrator users where enabled	Not applicable	Use only for authorised support; it does not elevate the administrator’s own access

Access created by responsibility or relationship

Course ownership and co-authoring

An Instructor can edit Courses they own or have been added to as a co-author. The same Instructor may be able to view another Course without being able to change it.

Training Activity responsibility

A person responsible for a Training Activity can receive access to its participants, attendance, communication, and results without receiving access to unrelated activities.

Community ownership

Community management follows the ownership and moderation responsibility assigned for the community.

Organisation management

A Manager’s access follows the organisation or organisations they are authorised to manage. Access to sub-organisations depends on the organisational structure and delegated scope.

Immediate Manager relationships

An Immediate Manager’s staff view is created from the manager relationships recorded on user profiles. Changing the relationship changes which people are included in that scope.

Understand role assignment

The ability to create or edit users is separate from the ability to assign roles. Eurekos uses role-access rules to determine which roles each administrative role is allowed to create or edit. This prevents users from assigning access above their permitted administrative level.

When planning delegated administration, verify both whether the administrator can manage the relevant users and which roles the administrator is permitted to assign.

Understand Settings and organisational separation

Platform Settings apply globally and are not separated by organisation. In a standard platform model, Platform Administrators can manage Settings. When the extended organisational model and Global Administrator functionality are enabled, Global Administrators govern Settings and cross-organisational administration, while Platform Administrators work within their permitted scope.

Enable the Global Administrator model when the platform requires separated administrative spaces across companies, partners, regions, or business units and a smaller group must retain global oversight.

Validate access before wider use

Identify the exact work the person must perform.
Choose the lowest-access role that supports those responsibilities.
Define the organisation, content, Training Activity, or staff scope.
Add required ownership or responsibility assignments.
Confirm that optional roles and features are enabled.
Test the intended tasks with a representative account.
Confirm that unrelated users, organisations, content, reports, and Settings remain unavailable.
Recheck the model when introducing new features, integrations, organisations, or administrative processes.

Testing should cover both what the person must be able to do and what they must not be able to access.

Investigate unexpected access

What you observe	What to check
The person can see a feature but cannot edit an item	Check ownership, co-authoring, activity responsibility, organisational scope, archive status, and whether the role permits editing.
Two people with the same role see different data	Compare their organisations, responsibilities, staff relationships, analytics permissions, and enabled features.
A manager cannot find an expected member of staff	Check whether the person is an organisation Manager or an Immediate Manager, then verify the relevant organisation membership or profile relationship.
A Platform Administrator cannot open Settings	Check whether Global Administrator functionality is enabled. In that model, Settings are reserved for Global Administrators.
An administrator can edit a user but cannot assign the expected role	Check the role-access rules. User management and role assignment are controlled separately.
A technical or unfamiliar role appears in the interface	Confirm its intended use with Eurekos before assigning it. Some environments include solution-specific or technical roles.

FAQ

Can I customize my own roles?

No, custom roles cannot be created by yourself. The Eurekos role model is intentionally predefined, as the feature set is extensive and tightly connected to system behavior; allowing arbitrary role configurations could lead to unintended or inconsistent results.
That said, some flexibility is available. Certain features include configuration options to extend or restrict specific roles (for example, settings related to the Instructor role under Settings → General), which covers many common needs.
If you have a special requirement, you can submit a request and—as a service—we can design and configure a role that matches your needs or recommend the most suitable existing role. In addition, Eurekos maintains a small set of non-public, highly specialized roles that are provided on request to avoid unnecessary complexity.
Is a role enough to determine exactly what a person can access?

No. A role provides the baseline capability, but effective access also depends on organisational scope, ownership, assigned responsibilities, manager relationships, enabled features, and separate access rules. Two people with the same role can therefore see different data or have different actions available.
Is Immediate Manager a role?

No. Immediate Manager is a relationship between a manager and assigned staff. The person’s underlying role determines their general platform capabilities, while the Immediate Manager relationship determines which staff they can support. Available management actions also depend on enabled features and access rules.
Who can assign roles to users?

Only administrators permitted by the platform’s role-access rules can assign a particular role. The ability to create or edit a user does not automatically allow assignment of every role. Check both the administrator’s user-management scope and the roles they are allowed to create or edit.
Why can a Platform Administrator no longer access Settings?

Global Administrator functionality may have been enabled. In that operating model, platform-wide Settings are reserved for Global Administrators because Settings apply globally and cannot be separated by organisation. Platform Administrators continue to administer the areas and organisations within their permitted scope.
Why can someone view a feature but not edit an item?

Viewing and editing can be controlled separately. Check the person’s role, organisational scope, ownership or co-authoring, responsibility for the relevant Training Activity, archive status, and any feature-specific access rule. Being able to open a feature does not automatically provide permission to change every record in it.
Why does an unfamiliar role appear in the interface?

Some environments contain optional, solution-specific, integration-specific, or technical roles that are not intended for general administration. Do not assign an unfamiliar role based only on its name. Confirm its supported purpose and access model with Eurekos first.
Can administrative users also participate in learning?

Yes. Administrative users are still platform users and can participate in learning made available to them. Their administrative role does not automatically enrol them in training or override audience, availability, prerequisite, or enrolment rules.