Table of Contents
Introduction to roles
Huma uses roles to control what each user can see and do. Before you start adding people and setting up your organisation, it's worth understanding how roles work, as this affects who can access what from day one.
🔗 Read our full guide to roles in Huma.
🔗 Read a detailed article about managing roles.
There are four types of roles
| User role | System role | Supervisor | Standard role | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | Team or location | Whole organisation | Subordinates only | Everyone |
| Typical user | Team leader, HR manager | System administrator | Line manager | All employees |
| Configured by | System admin | System admin | System admin | System admin |
| How it's assigned | Manually per system admin | Manually per system admin | Via profile or role settings | Automatic, no assignment needed |
System role — 💡 At least one user must hold a system role at all times.
Gives access to organisation-wide settings and admin functions. For people who manage Huma itself.
Example: "System Admin" lets you add modules, manage integrations, and configure security settings for the entire company. And having a system role does not automatically give you access to employee profiles or documents, that requires a separate user role or explicit document access.
User role — granted within specific teams or locations. Controls what a person can see and do on members' profiles in their group. Example: A "Manager" role lets you view and edit profiles, absence, and tasks, but only for employees in your team or location.
Supervisor (user role) — gives a line manager access to their subordinates' profiles specifically. Supervisors can typically access absence, onboarding and offboarding, processes, competence, and tasks for their subordinates.
Standard role (user role) — applies to everyone automatically. Sets the baseline for what all users can see on their own and their colleagues' profiles.
💡 Document access - access to documents in Huma works independently of roles. A document owner controls who can see or edit each document, regardless of what roles the person has. This means even a system admin won't have access to a document unless they have been explicitly granted access to it. 🔗 Read more aobut access to documents here.
Where to manage roles
You can manage all the different roles in System settings in Huma.
- Go to "System settings"
- Navigate to "Roles"
- Click either "User roles" or "System roles", depending on which type of role you want to manage. The "People" tab shows which users in your account have one or more roles.
💡You can also set the Supervisor role or define subordinates directly on a user’s profile.
🔗 Read more about managing roles in Huma.
Setting up supervisors from the start
When adding a new person to Huma, you can assign their supervisor directly in the add person form, so no need to set it up separately afterwards.
- Go to the "People module"
- Click "Add people" : "Add one person"
- Fill out employee details
- Choose supervisor and/or groups (location/teams)
- Click "Save". The employee will now be added to the group automatically and set as a subordinate to the supervisor
Organisational chart
As your organisation grows, you can get a full overview of the reporting structure in the organisational chart, where you can also make changes to supervisors and subordinates directly.
Find who’s in charge of who.
- Go to the "People module"
- Navigate to "Organizational chart"
- Click on the different employees to see their position in the chart
💡 Once you fill out the "Supervisor role", the organisational chart will update itself automatically.
