It’s a new year, which means new resolutions, a new president, and a new user role in Showcase Workshop! Okay, so we don’t make a new user role every year — or even every four years — but this one is special. We've recently rolled out a Manager role for all those large companies with complex team management systems or structures.
Update: We edited this article on 12 February 2021 to provide more clarity about Manager users' ability to edit Admin roles.
What's a Manager?
To understand this new role and how it fits into your organization, let's take a look at our existing user roles:
- Admins: All-powerful users who can do pretty much anything — except get a free puppy from Showcase (sorry!)
- Editors: These folks can edit presentations and access the File Library, but can’t add or remove users
- Viewers: This is the default user type when you add a user to your workshop; they can download, present, and share your beautiful presentations.
So, where do Managers fit in?
The new Manager role sits somewhere between the Viewer and Admin role.
Managers can:
- Download, present, and share presentations
- View analytics for everyone in your workshop
- Add and remove Viewer, Editor, and Manager users
- Edit Viewer, Editor, and Manager users’ details or reset their password
- Add users to groups.
Managers cannot:
- Create, edit, or delete presentations
- Access the File Library
- Access billing information
- Add user workshop references
- Add or remove Admin users
- Edit an Admin's role or make another user an Admin
- Edit an Admin user's details or reset their password.
Here's a table to help you visualize the differences:
| Admin | Manager | Editor | Viewer | |
| Create, edit, and delete presentations | X | X | ||
| Publish and unpublish presentations | X | X | ||
| Access the File Library | X | X | ||
| Restrict presentation access to certain Groups or users | X | X | ||
| Download presentations to your device | X | X | X | X |
| Share content | X | X | X | X |
| Edit shareable content | X | X | ||
| Create custom slideshows using existing slides (tags) | X | X | X | X |
| View your own Sharing History | X | X | X | X |
| View Sharing History of other users | X | X | X | |
| View and download analytics for all users in the workshop | X | X | X | |
| Edit your own name, email address, and password | X | X | X | X |
| Edit any Manager, Editor, or Viewer users' details | X | X | ||
| Edit an Admin user's details | X | |||
| Reset a Manager, Editor, or Viewer user's password | X | X | ||
| Reset an Admin user's password | X | |||
| Add or remove Manager, Editor, and Viewer users | X | X | ||
| Add or remove Admin users | X | |||
| Add User Workshop References | X | |||
| Change a user's role to Manager, Editor, or Viewer (unless the user is an Admin) | X | X | ||
| Change a user's role to Admin | X | |||
| Change an Admin user's role | X | |||
| Create and assign Groups | X | X |
Essentially, they can manage users (apart from Admins) but not presentations. On the other hand, Editor users can manage presentations but not users. There's something poetic about that. "Team work makes the dream work" and all that.
As an aside, you may have noticed your user icons have had a bit of a makeover recently. Admins are now represented by a sheriff, Editors have a funky ninja icon, and Managers get to live out their space dreams with an astronaut icon.
I don't know about you, but I'm struggling to pick a favorite!
The Manager Experience
If you’ve been given Manager power, you’ll need to use Showcase Workshop’s web app to manage users.
Your view of the web app will differ slightly depending on your user role.
Manager users will see a layout that looks like this:
Admins and Editors would have two more tabs along the top – Home and Files – which is where they would edit presentations. Likewise, Editors wouldn’t have access to the Users tab, since they won’t be managing any users.
So, if you look at your colleague’s screen and notice yours looks a bit different, don’t panic! They’ve probably got a different user role.
Clicking the Users tab will take you to the User Directory, where you can add, remove, and edit users to your hearts content.
And from the Reporting tab, you can view analytics and sharing history for the entire workshop. Sweet!
How to make someone a Manager
An existing Admin user will need to assign the first Manager, but after that the Manager can add or assign other users to the new role.
You've got two options for assigning Manager users:
Add a new user
You can assign a user to the Manager role when you add them to your workshop.
To do this, click the Users tab and select 'Add'. Enter the email address of the new user and select 'Manager' from the User Role drop-down menu.
Click the orange 'Add user' button at the bottom of the page to add them to your workshop. If you've checked the 'Send invite link' box, they'll receive an email with an invitation to join your workshop as a Manager.
Note: If you uncheck this box, you'll be prompted to add the user's name and password yourself. They won't receive an email with a link to the workshop, so make sure you let them know how to log in!
Change a user's role
You can also change an existing user's role by clicking on the Users tab. Find the manager-to-be and click on their name to open their details. If you've got a lot of users, you can use the Search bar in the top right corner to help you out.
Once you've opened the user's details, scroll down to the 'Role' section and check the circle next to the nifty astronaut icon. Their role will automatically update; no need to save.
The Manager role is a fantastic new way to keep track of your team in Showcase Workshop. It will be particularly useful for large companies or enterprises that have lots of different teams using Showcase.
With this new role, you can give team leaders the ability to manage their own teams while still limiting the number of people who can edit your presentations and content.
The best of both worlds!
Photo by Monica Garniga on Unsplash