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Roles at a glance

Who uses the school portal and what each role owns day to day.

For leadership & partners

Seven roles at a glance

SPIMS has exactly seven roles. A person may hold more than one. Effective permissions are the union of every role they hold — for example, an instructor who is also a student sees Teach plus Learning.

Role Plain-language ownership
Super Admin Full platform access: security, audit, observability, roles matrix, system health. Bypasses permission checks.
Administrative Admin People, admissions forms, application review, enrollment overrides, holds/waitlists, theme/branding, Help CMS.
Academic Admin Programs, courses, offerings, semesters (shared view), grading schemes, assessment templates, translations, credentials issue, gradebook reopen.
Financial Admin Offering prices, invoice queue, manual payments, refunds, wallet top-ups/points, finance reports, donations oversight.
Instructor Staffed offerings: content, assessments, grading, announcements, discussions, live schedule, attendance, gradebook lock.
TA Same teaching desk as instructor for content, grading, discussions, announcements — cannot lock final grades.
Student Apply, enroll, learn, submit, take exams, pay, view released grades, transcript, wallet, join live sessions.

Authorization is always by permission keys, not by comparing role-name strings in the UI. What someone sees follows what they are allowed to do.

Ownership table (who owns what)

Area Super Admin Admin Admin Academic Admin Financial Admin Instructor TA Student
Users & role assign Yes Create / suspend / assign — — — — Own profile
Theme / branding Yes Full — — — — Preference only
Programs / courses / offerings Yes View (read) Full manage Pricing (finance) View staffed View staffed Catalog / enroll
Admissions forms & decisions Yes Full — — — — Apply / track
Enrollment override / holds Yes Full Advising views Hold (finance) Waitlist (scoped) Waitlist (scoped) Register / drop
Content & assessments Yes — School-wide where granted — Own offerings Own offerings Take / submit
Gradebook lock Yes — Reopen only — Lock No View released
Invoices / wallet / refunds Yes — — Full — — Pay / donate
Live Zoom / attendance Yes — Policies / reports — Schedule / record Schedule / record Join / own attendance
Credentials issue Yes Issue Issue — — — View / verify public
Audit / ops / roles matrix Full Audit read Audit read Audit read — — —

Multi-role union

  • Permissions from all assigned roles are combined.
  • An Academic Admin who also teaches is not limited to offerings they teach for school-wide academic keys — an unscoped admin grant wins.
  • Instructor and TA grants on teaching keys are offering-scoped: they apply only to offerings where they are staffed.
  • Super Admin always wins and skips the matrix.

What each role typically sees

Student

  • Dashboard bento: my courses, next live, due soon, wallet, notifications
  • Learning hub: catalog, enrollments, grades, applications, live, transcript, settings
  • Finance hub: wallet, invoices, checkout, donate
  • Help articles for students

Instructor / TA

  • Teach in the sidebar (and often as the third mobile bottom-nav item)
  • Teach hub listing staffed offerings → content, assessments, gradebook, live, discussions, roster
  • Instructor-only: lock gradebook after submit
  • TA: grade and teach, but cannot lock

Academic Admin

  • Academic hub: programs, courses, offerings, templates, grading schemes, translations, credentials, reports
  • Grade reopen when an instructor has locked a book that must change

Administrative Admin

  • Admin hub: users, application forms, application queue, enrollment admin, theme editor, Help CMS
  • Matriculate accepted applicants; place or lift financial holds with finance

Financial Admin

  • Finance hub admin tiles: invoice queue, manual pay, refunds, wallet grants, dual-currency reports
  • Students still use the same Finance hub for their own wallet and payments

Super Admin

  • Super Admin control plane: people shortcuts, roles hub, security, theme, school desks, audit, observability, health, scheduled tasks, system tests
  • Roles hub can override the default permission matrix stored in config (DB RolePermission rows)

Practical notes for school leadership

  1. Give people the smallest set of roles that covers their job.
  2. Prefer Administrative Admin for registrar work and Academic Admin for curriculum — do not conflate them.
  3. Keep Super Admin accounts few; use the Roles hub carefully when changing the matrix.
  4. Demo accounts on staging should mirror real role combinations the school will use.

See also: Staff journeys, Portal navigation.