Areas — Roles, Permissions, and Setup Rules

What Areas Do (and Do Not) Control

Areas are administrative containers only. They determine which administrators can see and manage which objects in the software. They have no effect on which doors a badge holder or mobile credential user can access — that is controlled by user groups and schedules.

How Areas Affect Each Role

Custom roles and areas

• A Custom role user’s area access depends on which permissions are enabled for that role.
  • If the Areas permission is enabled with Modify, the user must still be explicitly assigned to each area, the same as an Administrator.
  • If the Areas permission is not enabled, the user has no area management access.
• A Custom role user can also only grant area access to others up to the level they themselves hold — they cannot assign access to an area they do not have, or at a level higher than their own.
  

Area Access Levels

When assigning a web access user to an area, three access levels are available. The area access level works together with the user’s web access permissions — it does not replace them. What a user can actually do is the intersection of both settings.

!To commission a lock to an area, the web access user must have Manage access to that area. View access is not sufficient — the user will not be able to add or configure devices.

!A web access user who logs in and sees nothing has likely not been assigned any area access. Every web access user must be assigned at least View access to COMMON — or they will see a blank site after logging in.

The COMMON Area

Every site starts with a single area called COMMON. By default, every object in the site — devices, users, user groups, schedules, rules, dashboards, and events — is automatically assigned to COMMON.

• If a site uses only the COMMON area, no area assignment decisions are needed.
• If additional areas are added, every new object must be explicitly assigned to one of the existing areas upon creation.

*Most sites only need the COMMON area. Adding additional areas is optional and should only be done when different administrators need to be restricted to managing separate parts of the system. Speak with your integrator before implementing multiple areas.