Create a role and choose its permissions

Make a role for a kind of team member, starting from a built-in role or from scratch, pick its permissions with module presets or one at a time, and save it.

In the sidebar, open Administration, then choose Roles & Permissions under Team & Access. The page address is /settings/org/rbac/roles.

A role is a reusable bundle of permissions. You assign roles to people from Team & Roles; this page is where you decide what each role may do.

Before you start

• Anyone whose role can read roles can open the page. To create or change roles, your admin has to give your role permission to write them.
• Every organization starts with Nova's built-in roles: Admin, Dispatcher, Technician, Bookkeeper and Read-only, plus the Owner role, which only Nova support manages and which this page does not list. They cover most teams; see Choose the right built-in role for a team member. If one is close but not quite right, start from it.

Steps

1. In the Roles column, press New role to start from nothing, or pick a built-in role under Create from template to start from a copy of its permissions. The Create new role panel opens.
2. Type a Name (a short key such as site-lead: lowercase letters, numbers, dots, hyphens and underscores) and a Label people will read. Add a Description so whoever assigns the role knows who it is for.
3. Turn on Set as default role only if new members should start with this role when no other role is picked.
4. Open Permissions in the panel and choose what the role may do (see step 6), or leave that for later.
5. Press Create role. The new role opens under Role details.
6. In Role details, open a module (for example accounts or quotes) and choose a preset from its list: None, Read-only, Standard or Full access. Switch single permissions on or off to fine-tune; the module then shows Custom.
7. Use Search permissions to find one by name, description or module. Expand results opens every matching module at once.
8. Press Save changes at the top of Role details. The Unsaved changes marker disappears once it is stored.

What you see

• Built-in roles carry a Template tag, and the role new members get by default carries a Default tag (Technician in a new organization). You can change a built-in role's description and permissions, but not its name; clone it to rename it. Reset to template puts Nova's permissions back.
• Deactivate and Delete role appear at the top of Role details for roles you created. Deactivating asks for a replacement role for anyone who has it. Deactivated roles sit in a separate list under the active ones, each with Reactivate.
• Role operations (press Show actions) holds Clone role, Export role, Import role and, on a built-in role, Reset to template.
• Use Search roles to find a role. Drag a role in the list to reorder it.

If something looks different

• New role and the permission switches are greyed out: your role can read roles but not change them.
• Cashier and Store Manager roles also appear when your plan includes Counter Sales (POS).
• Saving refuses because it would remove your own ability to manage roles or users: you are editing a role you hold. Ask another admin.
• A person still cannot reach a page after you changed their role: check whether they have a deny override in Give one person a permission their role does not have, or run Check why someone can or cannot do something.

Open Roles & Permissions