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Roles & Permissions

  • The different role scopes in finwave (system, organization, population)
  • What each role can do
  • How roles inherit from each other
  • Where to manage role assignments

finwave has three scopes of roles, each governing a different level of the platform.

System roles apply globally across the platform. Every registered user has a system role.

Organization roles apply within a specific organization. A user can hold different organization roles in different organizations.

Population roles apply within a specific population. A user can hold different population roles in different populations, and these are the roles that determine day-to-day permissions for encounter management, annotation, analysis, and data access.

ActionSystem UserSystem Administrator
Join populationsYesYes
Request new populationYesYes
Approve new populationsNoYes
Delete populationsNoYes
Update own profileYesYes
Join organizationsYesYes
Create organizationsYesYes
Delete user accountsNoYes

System Administrator is a superset of System User. Most users are System Users — the System Administrator role is reserved for platform operators.

ActionOrganization MemberOrganization Administrator
Log encounters under the organizationYesYes
Add people to the organizationNoYes
Remove people from the organizationNoYes
Edit organization profileNoYes
Set organization license informationNoYes

Organization Administrators inherit all Organization Member permissions.

Population roles are the most granular and the ones most relevant to daily work. There are four population roles, listed from lowest to highest privilege.

Viewers can browse and search encounters and individuals, submit new encounters, and edit metadata on their own encounters. They cannot annotate images or access analytical tools.

Experts have everything Viewers have, plus the ability to annotate images in the annotator. They can draw bounding boxes, assign identities, and confirm or reject ML predictions.

Professionals have everything Experts have, plus access to ML predictions, the ability to edit metadata on any encounter (not just their own), and the ability to set profile images on individuals.

Population Administrators have full control over the population. In addition to all Professional permissions, they can manage individuals, configure settings, manage members, control data visibility, run exports, and access all encounters including private ones.

ActionViewerExpertProfessionalAdmin
Add encountersYesYesYesYes
Update own encounter metadata / add imagesYesYesYesYes
View public encountersYesYesYesYes
Search encountersYesYesYesYes
Search individualsYesYesYesYes
Annotate images in encountersNoYesYesYes
Set profile images on individualsNoNoYesYes
Update metadata on any encounterNoNoYesYes
See ML predictionsNoNoYesYes
See all encounters (including private)NoNoNoYes
Add / update individualsNoNoNoYes
Move encounters to another populationNoNoNoYes
Add / update / delete prey targetsNoNoNoYes
Add / update / delete behavioral categoriesNoNoNoYes
Update population detailsNoNoNoYes
Update contributor informationNoNoNoYes
Update location informationNoNoNoYes
Set population join policyNoNoNoYes
Configure data visibility / permissionsNoNoNoYes
Export data as CSVNoNoNoYes
Download encounter / extracted images (bulk)NoNoNoYes
Export / generate ML image datasetsNoNoNoYes
Create social network graphsNoNoNoYes
Add / update population banner imageNoNoNoYes
Add people / approve join requestsNoNoNoYes
Remove people from the populationNoNoNoYes
Update population user rolesNoNoNoYes

Workbench tools (Catalog Builder, Review Queue, Analyses) use an additional layer of role-based access that population administrators configure separately. By default, Professionals receive access to all Workbench tools when a population upgrades to finwave Pro. Experts and Viewers start with no Workbench access.

See Workbench Access for details on how administrators configure these permissions.

ScopeRolesInherits
SystemSystem User, System AdministratorAdmin inherits User
OrganizationOrganization Member, Organization AdministratorAdmin inherits Member
PopulationViewer, Expert, Professional, Population AdministratorEach inherits all below