Ranks and Permissions: Who Can Do What

The CAD's access system has two layers, and mixing them up is the most common source of "why can't they do that" confusion. This guide untangles both.

Role: the coarse layer

Every member has exactly one role — Owner, Admin, Supervisor, or Member. Owner and Admin can do essentially everything. Supervisor gets most of the day-to-day staff tools. Member, by itself, gets almost nothing — it's the starting point everyone lands on, not a tier meant to stay thin forever.

You won't usually hand these out directly. They exist mostly as a ceiling: nothing a rank grants can ever exceed what Owner itself can do, which is what keeps a misconfigured rank from accidentally becoming more powerful than the people running the community.

Rank: the real layer

A rank is what you actually build. Create one, name it ("Sergeant", "Field Training Officer", whatever fits), and tick the permissions it should carry. A member's rank adds to whatever their role already gives them — it only ever adds, never takes away, which is why a Member with a rank can end up with real access despite their role staying "Member."

This is the whole point of ranks existing separately from roles: a community that wants "sergeants can issue warnings and edit the roster, but aren't full Admins" builds exactly that rank, instead of being stuck choosing between the four blunt roles.

The seven permissions

Permission	Unlocks
Dispatch	Creating and closing calls — the actions that change everyone's screen at once
Roster Edit	Changing someone's callsign, rank, department, or ending their shift
Documents Edit	Writing and publishing CAD documents
Infractions	Logging and reviewing infractions against a member
Sessions	Starting, scheduling, and ending CAD sessions and reminders
Moderation	The moderator panel generally — the broadest staff-facing permission
Settings	Departments, ranks, and the community's own configuration

The one permission that works differently

Settings is deliberately left out of the coarse "is this person staff" check every other permission feeds into. A rank with only Settings administers the configuration — departments, ranks, community settings — without inheriting the roster, the dispatch board, or anything people-facing. Think "IT admin," not "supervisor." If you want someone purely managing the structure of the CAD without also becoming a person officers report to, Settings alone is exactly that.

Every other permission on the list does count as "staff" — holding any one of Dispatch, Roster Edit, Documents Edit, Infractions, Sessions, or Moderation is enough to unlock the general staff-facing screens, even if it's the only permission a rank carries.

Building a rank

Staff console → Settings → Ranks. Name it, set where it sits in the order (lower numbers are more senior — your chief should be 0), tick the permissions, and optionally tie it to a department. A rank tied to a department only shows up as an option for members of that department; a rank left department-less is available to anyone.

A default rank for new joins

If you'd rather new members land with some baseline rank instead of completely rankless, set a default rank in community settings. Everyone who joins afterward starts there automatically — useful for a "Recruit" or "Probationary" rank that's meant to be the floor, not something assigned by hand every time.