Project visibility and access within e-PlanREVIEW® (EPR) may be regulated by Administrators through the user role permission settings. While Agencies can keep all projects visible/accessible to most users, those which prefer to regulate projects more tightly can make Project Team Membership a requirement in order to work on a project. Agencies who use this additional requirement should be familiar with the ways that users can automatically become a Project Member and also how to set up one or more Automated Membership Distributions to help fill any gaps where none of the other methods apply.
Prerequisites:
Project Types must be configured. See Managing List Types and List Items.
User accounts must be created. See Managing User Accounts.
User Roles, Permissions, and Project Membership
Permission settings allow an Admin to globally modify behavior for each kind of user role within EPR. By default, a standard EPR implementation will have project “View” permissions set to GLBL - Global Access for most roles. User roles with this setting can view all projects once logged into EPR. (“Add”, “Edit”, and “Delete” rights then regulate what else each user role can do within a project, if anything. Project Coordinators can usually do more at the project level than a Reviewer, for example.)
For many agencies, the defaults are perfectly fine. Others may prefer to restrict which projects are visible to a user, either as a result of preferred business rules or simply to help keep users focused and on task. Typically this alternative involves setting the additional requirement of Project Team Membership, which occurs when changing the Project Management “View” filter to PROJ - Project Member for one or more user roles.
Anyone logging in with one of those user roles, then, will only be able to view projects where they are listed as a project team member within the project DETAILS > Team sub-tab, as shown below.
Other permissions can also be restricted to users who are Project Team Members. Refer to Configuring Role-based Permissions for more information about configuring roles and their permissions within EPR.
How Do I Become a Project Member?
Since Administrators can require users to be part of a project team in order to view/access the project, it’s important to know the five different methods for becoming a project team member:
Method | Typical User Role(s) | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Any user who creates a project directly in EPR. | Project Coordinator, Admin | For most integrated clients, the partner system creates the project instead of a staff member. |
2 | Any user who is assigned (or reassigned) a plan review task by name (a.k.a. the “Assignee”). | Reviewer, Group Manager | Any user that can be assigned a plan review task can become a project team member this way. |
3 | The first user selected in the Project Manager dropdown from the project’s DETAILS > Info sub-tab. | Project Manager | This method is specific to the PM role. If no PM is set manually, the first PM user added to a project through another method is listed as the Project Manager. (Additional PMs will not be listed.) |
4 | Any user added to a project team from the project’s DETAILS > Team sub-tab. | Any | User(s) must be selected manually and are only added to that project. |
5 | Any user listed in an active Automated Membership Distribution with Purpose and Project Type values that match a new project. | Any | Listed user(s) are automatically added to every new project that has matching Purpose and Project Type values, but not to existing projects. (For existing projects, users must be added via another method.) |
Once a user is a project member, they will be able to see and access a project at any point until either the project is deleted or the user is no longer a team member.
Automated Membership Distributions
Creating one or more Automated Membership Distributions for any users who are not expected to become project members through other methods can ensure staff always have access to project records. Automated Membership Distributions can be managed by navigating to Settings > Security > Memberships.
Create a Membership Distribution
To create an automated membership distribution:
Click on Add (
) in the lower right corner to create a new membership distribution.In the “Add/Edit Memberships” pop-up, make sure the Active toggle at the top is pointed to the right.
Click on the Purpose drop-down. The distribution will only apply to the selected Purpose.
Click on the Project Type drop-down. The distribution will only apply to the selected Project Type.
From the table, select one or more users who should be automatically added as project members whenever a new project is created with the matching Purpose and Project Type. (If you have a large user list, you may want to alter the number of rows displayed by default, otherwise you may need to click Next and Previous to view the full list.
Click CONFIRM to save the automated distribution.
When a new project is created, applicable membership distributions will be triggered only if the Auto Membership Distributions toggle at the top of the page is pointed to the right (“ON”) and there are active ( ) memberships.
Edit a Membership Distribution
Automated Membership Distributions should be updated whenever new staff are onboarded or former staff exit the Agency.
To edit an existing membership distribution:
Navigate to the record you want to update and click on Edit (
) on the right.In the “Add/Edit Memberships” pop-up, either:
Select or deselect users as needed to update the distribution list.
Click on the Active toggle at the top to disable the distribution altogether. When it switches to the left, the distribution becomes inactive and will not trigger again unless reactivated.
Click CONFIRM to save the automated distribution updates or click CANCEL to undo any changes.
Automated Membership Distributions do not update automatically when user accounts are deleted or inactivated, so remove any users who are no longer with the Agency as quickly as possible.
Delete a Membership Distribution
Automated Membership Distributions should only be deleted if they are never going to be used again. If there is a chance you will reuse a membership distribution in the future, or if it simply needs to be modified, consider editing it instead.
To delete an existing membership distribution:
Navigate to the record you want to remove and click on Delete (
) on the far right.A message pops up asking you to confirm that you want to delete records.
Click DELETE to remove the automated distribution entirely or click CANCEL to keep the record.
