--- title: Managing users and roles excerpt: Add people, choose the right role for them, and control who can change what. tags: [users, roles, accounts, permissions, people] target: client:brentwood ---

Everyone who works on the site has a user account with a role. The role decides what they can do — from editing the whole site to only updating their own staff profile. You manage accounts under Users in the left-hand menu.

What can each role do?

Role	What they can do	Best for
Editor	Run the whole site — create, edit and publish any content, and add and manage user accounts. Everything an administrator does, without the technical settings.	Marketing & Communications
Site Editor	Create, edit and publish content they authored (their own pages, posts, courses…), but not other people's.	A department content owner
Blog Manager	Manage all blog posts, including other people's — but not pages or other content.	Whoever runs the blog
Author	Write and manage their own blog posts only. No pages, staff, or other content types.	An occasional or guest blog writer
Staff	Sign in and edit only their own staff profile. No dashboard.	Faculty & staff
Administrator	Full control, including site settings and plugins.	The site's technical owners
Subscriber	A logged-in account with no editing ability.	Access only, no editing

How do I add a new user?

Go to Users → Add New.
Enter a username and their Brentwood email address (their @brentwood.ca address).
Choose their Role from the dropdown (see the table above).
Click Add New User.
Tell them to sign in with their Brentwood Google account — no password to set up. (See the guide on signing in.)

Note

Use the person's real @brentwood.ca address — that's how "Sign in with Google" matches them to this account. An address on another domain won't be able to sign in.

How do I change someone's role?

Go to Users → All Users and click the person's name.
Change the Role dropdown to the new role.
Click Update User.

To change several people at once, tick them on the Users → All Users list, pick a role in the Change role to… box at the top, and click Change.

Which role should I give someone?

They help run the site and manage people → Editor.
They look after one area and should only touch their own pages → Site Editor.
They run the blog → Blog Manager; they only write the occasional post → Author.
They're a faculty/staff member who only needs to keep their profile up to date → Staff.

Why can't I create an Administrator?

This is a deliberate safety feature. To protect the site, only an existing Administrator can create or change Administrator accounts — an Editor managing users won't see that option, and can't turn anyone (including themselves) into one. Every other role is yours to assign freely.

How do I remove someone's access?

Two options, depending on whether it's permanent:

They've left — on the Users → All Users list, hover their name and click Delete.
Keep the account but stop them editing — change their role to Subscriber.

Important

When you delete a user who wrote content, WordPress asks what to do with it. Always choose Attribute all content to another user (for example an Editor or the Blog Manager) — don't pick "Delete all content", or their pages and posts go with them.