User roles & responsibilities
Who can do what inside Ferflow, which package includes each role, and who in your organization each role is meant for.
The four roles
| Role | Meant for | Package |
|---|---|---|
| Admin | IT or the BI owner who runs the install | Every package |
| Manager | Team leads who review and publish their team's dashboards | Business & Corporate |
| User | Analysts and anyone who builds dashboards | Every package |
| Viewer | People who only read dashboards: leadership, other departments, auditors | Every package |
A role decides what someone can do across Ferflow. What they can do with one particular dashboard is set separately, by sharing.
What each role can do
| Admin | Manager | User | Viewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open the admin panel: users, sign-in settings, data sources, datamarts, license, logs | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Create dashboards and edit their own | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Open dashboards shared with them, published dashboards and templates | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Publish a dashboard to anyone with the link | ✓any | ✓own, or shared with Edit or Manage | — | — |
| Unpublish a dashboard | ✓any | ✓own | ✓own | — |
| Save a dashboard as a template for everyone | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Use the AI assistant Corporate | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Manage what the AI assistant knows Corporate | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
Admins have full access to every dashboard. Everyone else works with their own dashboards and the ones shared with them.
Dashboard access: View, Edit, Manage
Sharing is on every package. Whoever owns a dashboard, or has Manage access to it, can share it with named people at one of three levels:
| Access | Lets them |
|---|---|
| View | Open the dashboard and use its filters |
| Edit | Everything View allows, plus change the dashboard. A Manager with Edit access can also publish it. |
| Manage | Everything Edit allows, plus share it with others, delete it, and set up email schedules for it (Business & Corporate) |
- The owner and Admins always have full access. Only the owner sees the list of who a dashboard is shared with.
- Give the lowest level that does the job. A Viewer normally needs View, nothing more.
Responsibilities
Admin: keeps the install running and safe.
- Install, upgrade and back up Ferflow, and restrict who can reach its port on your network.
- Activate, renew and move the license.
- Connect data sources, keep their credentials current, and build and refresh datamarts.
- Set up sign-in (local accounts, LDAP, Azure AD on Business and Corporate), assign roles, and deactivate people who leave.
- Curate the shared templates.
- Keep at least two Admins, so one person being away never locks you out.
Manager (Business & Corporate): the approval step between building and publishing.
- Review dashboards their team shares with them, and publish the ones that are ready.
- Unpublish anything that goes out of date. They can do that for their own dashboards; ask an Admin for someone else's.
- Keep what the AI assistant knows accurate for their area (Corporate).
User: builds and maintains dashboards.
- Build dashboards and queries on the datamarts Admins provide.
- Share with colleagues at the lowest access they need.
- Share a finished dashboard with a Manager (Edit access) for publishing, or with an Admin on Standard.
- Own the email schedules they set up (Business & Corporate).
Viewer: uses the dashboards.
- Read the dashboards shared with them or published.
- Tell the dashboard's owner when a number looks wrong.
How people get a role
- Someone who signs in for the first time through LDAP, Azure AD or Google starts as a User.
- Admins change roles, and create local accounts with any role, in Admin → User Management.
- On Standard, the role list shows Manager · Business and it can't be chosen. Anyone who already had the Manager role, for example from the free trial, keeps it.
Roles and your user limit
Every active account takes a seat, whatever its role: Admins, Managers, Users and Viewers alike. Standard allows 15, Business 50, and Corporate has no limit; the free trial allows 5. Deactivating someone frees their seat straight away and keeps their dashboards.
Two common setups
A single team on Standard. One or two Admins, analysts as Users, leadership as Viewers. Admins publish the dashboards that go out by link.
Several departments on Business. A Manager for each department. Users build and share a finished dashboard with their Manager at Edit level; the Manager reviews it and publishes it. Leadership and other departments are Viewers, and Admins stay focused on data sources and the install.
Questions about which setup fits your organization: contact us, or compare packages on the pricing page.