Admin Set-up Guide
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      Lesson 2: Adding Users & Departments

      Lesson 2 will guide you through adding users and creating departments. Having users and departments within your portal will make assigning and managing requests easier once your portal is live.

      There are 5 sections in this article:

      Overview of User Roles

      Different users have different levels of access and privileges within the application (roles). User roles are as follows:

      • Admin - Can access all requests in the system and take any action on a request. They can also access and update all information in the Admin Panels, including configuring users, departments, and account settings
      • Department Admin - Can see requests that they've been given access to (usually ones that are Public and/or assigned to their department) and take any action on a request. Department Admins have partial access to the Admin Panels. They cannot access account settings, but they can add or edit users for their department, and add or edit templates, closure responses, alerts, tags and redaction reasons.
      • Publisher - Can see requests that they've been given access to (usually ones that are Public and/or assigned to their department) and take any action on a request. They cannot access any of the Admin Panels
      • Staff - Can see requests that they've been given access to (usually ones that are Public and/or assigned to their department) but can only take actions directed internally, such as posting an internal message to other staff and uploading an internal document. Staff cannot take any action that is visible to the requester or access the Admin Panels
      • Guest (Requester) - Can only see public requests and requests they submitted themselves. On requests they submitted they can send messages and access Requester Only documents.

      A complete list of what features are accessible to each user role can be found here. 

       

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      Recommended User Set-up for Each Process Category

      What role a user will have is largely dependent on whether your agency is Fully Centralized, Partially Centralized, or Fully Decentralized:

      • Fully Centralized: All users who are not a central coordinator should be given the Staff role. This will allow them to assist internally while restricting the ability to release documents and communicate with the requester to central coordinators.
      • Partially Centralized: At least one user in each department should be given the Publisher role. This user will be responsible for communicating with the requester, releasing responsive documents and close out requests. Additional department users can be Publishers or Staff depending on whether they are authorized to release records.
      • Fully Decentralized: At least one user in each department should be given the Publisher role. This user will be responsible for communicating with the requester, releasing responsive documents and close out requests. Additional department users can be Publishers or Staff depending on whether they are authorized to release records.

       

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      Creating and Managing Users

      Note: Only admins and department admins can access user settings, although department admins can only edit users in their own department. Publishers can create requester (guest) accounts directly from a request. 

      In order for your staff members to use NextRequest an admin must first add them as a user to your account, or send them an invitation by using the Invite User feature. In addition you can also create accounts for requesters who visit your portal.

      This help document covers how to create and manage user accounts. Click on a link in the list to jump to that section:

      Users are assigned to departments from the department settings page. For information about how to add a user to a department, jump to the final section by clicking here.

      How to create users

      Note: Only admins and department admins can create internal users with this method. For information about how to create a requester account as a publisher click here to jump down to that sub-section.

      Steps for adding a new user account

      1. Sign in to your account
      2. Click the ADMIN link in the header
      3. Click the Users link in the sub-header
        Screen Shot 2021-09-16 at 11.00.39 AM
      4. Click the CREATE USER button
      5. Enter information for the user, including their name, title, and email
      6. (Optional) set the user's hourly rate
        • Note: This field will only be visible if you have purchased NextRequest's payment module
      7. Select the user’s role
        • Notes: Hover over the information icon () for an explanation of the different roles. Most notifications will automatically be turned off for new Staff users but can be manually turned on
      8. (Optional) assign the user to one or more departments
        • Note: To make the user a department's Point of Contact or or to assign them by default to all department requests, you will need to edit that department. For information on how to do this click here to jump to the How to Create a Department section.
        • Note: Department admins do not have the ability to assign new users to departments in this way. They have to edit their own department and add the user that way.
      9. Click the SAVE button
      10. (Optional) send the new user an invite to prompt them to create their password and activate their account
        • Note: You can also create one or multiple user accounts at once by using the Invite User feature (see section below on how to do this). You will create their account by adding an email address, role, and department for them. The new users will then receive an email invitation that they can click through to create their password and add their name as well as any additional contact information to their account.
        • Note: Inviting a user does not confirm their account.

      For information about how a user can activate their account and log in for the first time click here.

       

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      How to invite a user

      In addition to our standard way of creating users, you can now invite multiple users at a time to set up their accounts and passwords directly from an email notification! When adding an email address (or multiple!) to the invite, you can assign the user(s) to a department and a specific user role; the rest is left to them to add to their account!

      Steps for inviting a user:

      1. Sign in to your account
      2. Click the ADMIN link in the header
      3. Click the User link in the sub-header
      4. Click the purple Invite User button
      5. Enter in the first user's email you'd like to invite
      6. Click Add Email
      7. Assign a user role and department (optional)
      8. From here, you can add more email addresses (enter email into blank for Add Email, repeat setps 6-7)
      9. OPTIONAL: Type out a message that will accompany the email invitation
      10. Click Send Invites button once all your email addresses have been added
      11. Click Okay to confirm

      Note: User accounts will remain "unconfirmed" until the user accepts the email invitation and creates their password. You can always resend the invite if the user doesn't receive the email for any reason.

       

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      How to edit user accounts

      Note: Only admins can edit other users’ accounts. For information about how to edit your own account click here.

      Steps for editing user accounts

      1. Sign in to your account
      2. Click the ADMIN link in the header
      3. Click the Users link in the sub-header
        • Note: If you want to edit a Requester account, check the box next to "Include requesters"
      4. Find the user account you want to edit
      5. Click the Edit icon () next to that user account
      6. Make any updates to the user information including:
        • Name
        • Email address
        • Address and phone number
        • Hourly rate
        • Role
        • Departments assigned to
        • Out-of-office and Permanent Backups
      7. Click the SAVE button

       

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      How to deactivate a user account

      When a user account is deactivated it remains in the system and it is not possible to create a new user account using that email address. If you would like to create a new account with the same email address as an existing account, you must first change the email address on the existing account before deactivating it.

      If the user you are deactivating is the Point of Contact for the system you will be prompted to select a different user to be the main Point of Contact. If the user you are deactivating is the Point of Contact for a department, that department will be left without a Point of Contact. For information about how to assign a new Point of Contact to a department click here.

      Steps for deactivating a user account

      1. Sign in to your account
      2. Click the ADMIN link in the header
      3. Click the Users link in the sub-header
      4. Find the user account you want to deactivate
      5. Click the DEACTIVATE button next to that user
      6. Click OK

       

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      How to activate a deactivated user account

      Steps for activating a deactivated user account

      1. Sign in to your account
      2. Click the ADMIN link in the header
      3. Click the Users link in the sub-header
      4. Check the box next to Include deactivated users
      5. Find the user account you want to activate
      6. Click the ACTIVATE button next to that user
      7. Click OK

       

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      How to give a new user access to their account

      Once you've set up a new user account they will need to set a new password and confirm their email address. You can either send them an email invitation that they can click through to finish creating their account, OR send them the steps below for how to log in for the first time:

      Steps for a new user to activate their account

      1. Go to your agency's portal
      2. Click the SIGN IN link in the upper right
      3. Click the “Lost password / Can't sign in?” link underneath the SIGN IN button
      4. Enter your email address in the box and click the SUBMIT button
      5. Enter your preferred password in the boxes and click the SAVE button
      6. Locate and open the confirmation email in your inbox click the "Confirm my account" link. You will be taken to the regular sign in page where you can enter the email address and password you just set up to log in.

       

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      How to create a requester account as a publisher

      Note: Both admin and publishers can add users with this method. Publishers can only create requester (guest) users.

      Sometimes a requester will submit their request over the phone or online, rather than directly through the NextRequest portal. In these cases a publisher may need to create an account for the requester. The steps for creating a requester account are different depending on whether you are creating the requester account as part of submitting the request or adding the requester account to a request that has already been submitted

      • To create a requester account while submitting a request, follow the steps for creating a request on the requester’s behalf here. A requester account will be created automatically when the request is submitted.
      • For steps for how to create a requester account and add them to an existing request click here and follow the steps in the section "If the requester does not have a registered email..."

       

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      How to Create a Department

      There are two parts to creating a new department. Creating the department itself and adding users to it. These steps cover how to create the department. Information about how to add users to a department is in the next section here.

      Steps for creating a department

      1. Sign in to your account
      2. Click the ADMIN link in the header
      3. Click the Departments link in the sub-header
      4. Click the CREATE DEPARTMENT button
      5. Enter the department name and description (optional) 
      6. Select the default visibility for the department. This will automatically set who can see requests assigned to a department. This can be overridden for individual requests. For more information about the different visibility settings and how the default visibility for departments works click here.
      7. (Optional) Set the department to Private: Private departments do not show up on the list that requesters see when they select a department for their request and any actions taken by private departments on a request are not seen by the requester. Private departments are visible to and selectable by internal users
      8. (Optional) Set the Point of Contact for the department. The department Point of Contact overrides the organization Point of Contact for requests assigned to that department. For more information about how the Point of Contact works click here.
      9. Click Save

      If you would like to add users to the department, go directly to step 5 in the next section How to Add Users to a Department

       

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      How to Add Users to a Department

      You can add users to a department from either the Department or the User page. For a refresher on adding a user to a department from the User page click here to jump back up to the 'How to edit user accounts' sub-section.

      Steps for adding users to a department

      1. Sign in to your account
      2. Click the ADMIN link in the header
      3. Click the Departments link in the sub-header
      4. Click the Edit icon () next to the department you want to add users to
      5. Click the ADD STAFF button
      6. Click the box "Type a staff name or email" and enter the user you want to add and/or select the user from the drop-down list
      7. (Optional) Check the box "Assign as Support Staff to all requests assigned to this department: these staff will automatically be assigned as Support Staff to all requests that are assigned to this department. Department members who are not auto-assigned to requests will still be able to view all requests assigned to the department but will not receive notifications about the request.
      8. Click the SAVE button

       

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