Collaborator roles

Once the account of a user is created and linked to your company, it is time to think to complete the task by attributing them a role and at least an entity.

The attribution of roles may be done at the Company level or at the Entity level, with the idea of refining the handling and managing of access levels, in addition to using several features available within the LittleBig Connection platform.  

We will see henceforth what are the roles and access levels that you and your collaborators may have. .

Within this article

• Overall video
• Company level roles
• Entity level roles
• Summary of roles and responsibilities of collaborators

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Overall video

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Company level roles

In order for a new user to have access to the settings and reporting functions, it will be necessary to assign them a role at the Company level. These two roles are: Company Administrators and Buyers.

Company Administrator		Buyer		Standard users
They are responsible for setting up the company and managing the configuration and users of the account globally. This role enables you to see and handle all the objects within the company and to use the reporting feature (Data stories) at the highest level.  You will have the option of extracting all data of the account in Excel or CSV format.		They are responsible for the management of budgets and spending lines created within the account.  Buyers also have access to Reporting functions concerning budgets and spending lines, they may also extract global data from the account.  In some instances, buyers may be set up as validators at the last point of the validation process to select a supplier.		This is the default role a user may have once their account has been created.   This type of user is not able to access most of the functions available, and their access to data is very limited.  It is necessary to give them a role in order to enable them to have the required degree of visibility.

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Company Administrators 

Company administrators enable you as a user to have the highest level of control over the settings of the account and the assignation of roles of other colleagues, as well as complete visibility on all reporting criteria that needs to be accessed. 

Permissions would include: 

• Create and manage company account settings, including the creation of Entities
• Add collaborators
  • and assign them a role at the level of the Company (including buyer role permissions)
  • and assign them a role at the level of the Entity (Entity lead, Operational manager or Operational)
• Handling of received assignation requests to the Company account and to the entities within
  • validation of any requests to join the company from collaborators not yet registered
  • removal of access to collaborators that are no longer part of the company
  • modification of the assignation and roles of other collaborators within each and every entity
• Viewing of all objects within the company account including Requests for Proposal, proposals, projects, activity reports and invoices
• Full access to the reporting module for the account (Data Stories)
• Possibility of exporting all data within the account in Excel or CSV format 

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Buyers

The role of Buyer is responsible for managing budgets and spending lines, created within the Company account.  Based on the settings of your account, the role of Buyer may be tasked with either validating the selection of a new supplier, prior to starting a project and/or validating the Purchase Order.  

Permissions would include: 

• Handling of budgets and spending lines
  • determining the currencies used within the account
  • determining and supervising reports concerning budgets and spending lines
  • Setting up validation limits/thresholds at the time of creating Purchase Orders, where they may also be assigned as validators once certain amounts are reached
• Access to the reporting module within the account (Data Stories) is to come
• Possibility of exporting all data within the account in Excel or CSV format 

When the premium feature Negotiation Module is activated in the account, it would be possible for Buyers, to negotiate the price and conditions of the service, with the supplier. 

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Entity level roles

In order for a user to be able to create new Requests for Proposal, and follow up on projects created in the platform, they have to be positioned or assigned to at least one entity. Once they have been assigned to an entity, it will be necessary to assign them a role. 

Four roles are available, first we have the Entity Administrator, second we have the Entity Lead (and Deputy manager), then the Manager and finally the Operational role.

Entity Administrator Entity Administrators can view and modify the settings of the entities (including sub-entities) they are assigned to. Then they have a scope of actions similar to the one of the Entity Lead on RFP, proposals, POs and Activity Reports.

Entity Lead		Manager		Operational role
Entity Leads (and deputy manager) may see and edit RFPs, proposals, POs and Activity reports, for the collective of entities and sub-entities they are assigned to.    In certain cases, if the entity includes a workflow within, the Entity Leads will also be able to have a validation role within the publishing of new Requests for Proposal.		Managers may see and edit RFPs, qualify proposals, start POs and validate Activity Reports for the collective of entities and sub-entities they are assigned to.   This is the default role given to a user assigned to an entity.		The role of Operational users means they are able to create and edit new RFPs, qualify proposals, start POs and validate Activity Reports within the scope of the entity they have been assigned to only. They will, however, not be able to view any content corresponding to any related sub-entities.  Unlike the other roles though, they will not have any visibility on any content they have not been directly assigned to.

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Entity Administrator

This role is the equivalent of the Company Administrator one but at the entity level. It allows full visibility of all the elements of the entity's scope and its sub-entity, and to modify their parameters.

On the entities' management page, they will see an information message at the top, listing the entities they are assigned to. They will see them as active, but the others entities (to which they are not assigned to) will be grayed out, non-editable, and employee names will be hidden from the entity card for confidentiality purposes.

By clicking on an entity name in the information message, they will be redirected to the entity and its sub-entities in the tree structure. 

When editing an entity, the Entity Administrators will be able to modify the information present in each tab of the form:

• General information
• Billing contact information (for legal entities only)
• Entity employees (except for the Entity Administrator field which cannot be modified by the Entity Administrator themselves, but only by the Company Administrator).
• Spending lines and workflows
• RFPs settings

Finally, with this role, you can perform the following actions on your scope:

• Create new RFPs
• Qualify/rate proposals
• Create Purchase Orders (if a Buyer validation has not been set up)
• Stop or renew Purchase Orders
• Validate Activity Reports

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Entity Lead and Deputy Manager

With this role, you can perform the following actions on your scope:

• Create new RFPs
• Qualify proposals
• Create Purchase Orders (if a Buyer validation has not been set up)
• Stop or renew Purchase Orders
• Validate Activity Reports
• Be assigned as the person responsible for validating the publication of RFPs, via the creation of workflows

For the position of Entity Lead, it is required to have a dedicated Entity Lead and a Deputy Manager assigned as a back-up, in case the Entity Lead is not available. 

Whenever workflows are configured within an entity, note that only the Entity Lead will be notified to check and validate the publication of the new Requests for Proposal, although the Deputy Manager will also be able to carry out the validation.  

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Manager

This is the default role that all new users that have just been assigned to an entity will have. 

Within this role, for the entities (sub-entities included) you are assigned to, you would be responsible for: 

• The creation of new Requests for Proposals
• Qualifying/rating of received proposals
• The creation of new Purchase Orders (if a validating Buyer has not been configured)
• Stopping or renewing Purchase Orders
• Validation of Activity reports

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Operational role

This level of access has been created with the purpose of managing different levels of confidentiality.

In this role, you are able to carry out the following actions within the scope of the assigned entity: 

• Create new Requests for Proposals
• Qualify/rate received proposals
• Create Purchase Orders (if a validating Buyer has not been configured)
• Stop or renew Purchase Orders
• Validate Activity reports

Unlike other roles though, you would only have visibility on the RFPs, POs and Activity reports that you have been assigned to directly. 

This means that a person with the Operational role may not select any other operational manager, other than themselves, when they create a new Request for Proposal within the scope of the Entity they are limited to. 

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Summary of Roles and Responsibilities of collaborators

* In the instance the optional validation steps have been set up, note that these factors may be modified by the Company administrator (creation and modification) and the Entity Administrator (modification only).