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A role is a permission set you give to staff. It decides which parts of the dashboard somebody has access to, and which of those they can change. Most stores need three or four. A warehouse team needs stock and fulfilment but not payouts or API keys. A support agent needs orders and customers but has no reason to edit product prices. Giving everybody full access might be quicker on day one, but it can be harder to audit later, when you cannot tell who changed what. To manage roles, navigate to Settings → Roles, under the Users & permissions group. The Roles list, showing each role's permissions and how many staff hold it Each row shows:
  • Role - What the role is called.
  • Permissions - A badge reading Full access, No permissions, or a count of what is granted.
  • Members - How many staff hold it.
A role Spree protects carries a Protected badge.

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How to Create a Role

Click Add role. The New Role panel, with the starting templates and permission grid
  1. Optionally click one of the three Start from templates, Order manager, Merchandiser or Support, to fill the grid with a sensible starting set rather than an empty one.
  2. Give the role a Name, and a Description if the name is not self-explanatory.
  3. Set the permissions in the grid below.
  4. Click Save.
The role is then offered when you invite or edit a teammate.

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Setting permissions

The grid has a row per resource and two tick boxes on each: View for being able to open it, Manage for being able to change it. Three buttons above the grid set every row at once: Read only, Full access and Clear. Starting from one of these and adjusting is usually faster than working down 28 rows. The permission grid, with View and Manage per resource

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What you can grant

The grid holds 28 resources in 9 groups.
Dashboard can be viewed but not managed, so it offers only one of the two tick boxes.
Staff & roles lets somebody change permissions, including their own. Grant Manage on it only to people you would trust with full access to everything, because they can give it to themselves.

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How to Edit a Role

Open the row actions and choose Edit, then adjust the grid and save. Changes take effect for everybody holding that role, so narrowing a role narrows it for every member at once.
The built-in Admin role is protected and cannot be edited. To run a variation on it, create a new role and start from Full access.

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Further Reading

  • Staff - The people you assign roles to
  • API Keys - Access for applications rather than people