Creating a custom role

The six seeded roles cover most churches. When one of your jobs does not fit any of them, build a role that matches the job. A Kids Director, a Bookkeeper, a Communications Coordinator.

You have to be an Admin

The Permissions tab appears only for people holding the Admin role. Not a permission, the role itself, so a Pastor who can invite staff and assign roles still cannot create one. If you need someone else to build roles, make them an Admin.

Build it

1. 1

   Open the Permissions tab

   Settings → Permissions. The heading reads Roles & Permissions, with a row of round pills: Admin (carrying a padlock), Pastor, Staff, Finance, Volunteer, Member, then any custom roles, then a dashed + New role.

2. 2

   Click + New role

   The dialog is titled New role and has three fields: a name, an optional description, and a Start from select.

3. 3

   Start from an existing role

   The select offers Start from scratch plus one option per existing role. Cloning copies that role's grants as a starting point, and this is the only moment cloning is offered, so use it. Starting a Bookkeeper from Finance and removing one box is faster and safer than ticking six from nothing.

4. 4

   Adjust the grid

   The new role's pill is selected and its permission grid appears, grouped as People, Giving, Insights, Community, Serving, Check-In, Outreach, and Admin. Each checkbox saves the moment you click it.

5. 5

   Assign it

   Roles do nothing until someone holds one. Settings → Users, Edit on a person, pick the new role, Save role. It reaches them on their next request.

Choosing the boxes

Two rules will save you a support conversation:

Grant view_intelligence to anyone who is meant to use Scout's read on people. Without it the dashboard has no at-risk rows and no highlights, and every profile says "Scout is listening" instead of showing the narrative.

Grant view_giving to anyone whose job depends on Scout's written observations, even if money is not their job. Scout withholds its prose wholesale from anyone without it rather than trying to edit giving out of a sentence, so a role built without view_giving looks like a role where Scout has stopped talking.

Both of those, and what the other sensitive permissions hide, are covered in What each permission controls.

Some starting points:

• Kids Director: clone Staff, add release_children. Consider removing view_giving if Staff has been given it.
• Bookkeeper: clone Finance, remove refund_donations if refunds should stay with a pastor.
• Communications: clone Volunteer, add post_updates, manage_events, manage_forms.
• Group leader with a dashboard login: clone Volunteer and add manage_groups. Most group leaders do not need this. A leader can run their group from churchHQ with no dashboard access at all. See Members, leaders, and join requests.

Deleting one

Select the role and click Delete role. The confirm names the cost: either "{n} user(s) assigned to this role will be moved to Volunteer." or "This role has no assigned users."

Anyone holding it becomes a Volunteer, which keeps their login working while removing most of what they had. Move people to the right role first if Volunteer is not where you want them to land.

Admin, Staff, Volunteer, and Member are system roles and cannot be deleted. Pastor and Finance can, since they are seeded conveniences rather than fixtures.

What you cannot do

• Rename a role. There is no rename control on any role, including your own. Get the name right in the New role dialog, or delete it and build it again before anyone holds it.
• Copy permissions between existing roles. Cloning is offered at creation only.
• See who holds a role from this tab. A count appears in the delete confirmation, and that is all. The role chips on the Users tab are the real answer.
• Give one person an exception. Permissions attach to roles and a person holds exactly one role, so a one-person exception means a one-person role.
• Bulk-tick a group. No select-all, and no per-group toggle.