User permissions

CODA uses a very simple permission hierarchy. By default everyone in an organisation has permission to do anything at all, but in some situations this is not ideal.

To make it simple to manage, we've defined some permission levels that can be assigned to users.

Here are the permission levels available, with the most privileged at the top:

Level Description
Edit the organisation and users The user can add and edit users, and organisation wide settings like enabling detailed playback reporting.
Edit and add hardware The user can install, remove, and reconfigure any CODA hardware settings.
Assign to all screens The user can assign any content to any screen in a given organisation.
Edit all sources The user can modify and delete any sources in that organisation.
Restricted assignment The user can assign content only to screens for which they are the designated controller.
Restricted source editing The user can create new sources, and edit and modify only sources they created.

At each level, users automatically inherit the permissions of lower levels. For example, a user set to the Edit all sources level can modify any source in an organisation, but only assign things to screens they control, as they inherit Restricted assignment; if the user is to be allowed to assign to any screen they'd need to be upgraded to Assign to all screens.

Only users in the Edit the organisation and users level of permissions can control other users permissions. The one thing they can't do though is adjust their own permission to be lower, as that would potentially lead to a situation where the organisation had no users with sufficient permissions to control it.

Editing permissions

Editing user permissions is simple. In the CODA interface go to the Management screen on the top bar, then select Users. Here you will see a view of all the users in an organisation. Double clicking on a user, assuming you have suitable permissions, will let you edit that users details, including adjusting their permission level.

To adjust who controls a screen, that can be found by double clicking on a screen's icon, going to the Meta panel in the edit dialog, and setting the controller to the appropriate user.

Permissions, Tags, and Smart Playlists

The one place where the user permissions need to be carefully observed is when Smart Playlists are assigned to screens. One common Smart Playlist people use is "Select all content in the organisation with tags that match these specified". If this is assigned to a screen, then even if other users couldn't otherwise assign to that screen, their content with matching tags will appear there.

If you don't wish this to happen, then you must ensure your Smart Playlist doesn't select from all sources in the organisation, but instead uses an existing Playlist of content to which others can't have access.