Understand roles and permissions
Your access and capabilities within Metadata Capture are defined by your organisation, role, and permissions:
- Organisation: The entity you represent (such as a ministry or department). You can belong to multiple organisations.
- Role: Your function within an organisation that defines your responsibilities in Metadata Capture. You can hold multiple roles across different organisations.
- Permission: The specific actions you can perform on datasets based on your role. Each role grants a set of permissions, such as create, review, or publish.
Roles operate within the context of an organisation. For example, a Metadata Editor role in Organisation A allows you to create datasets for that organisation, but not for Organisation B unless you hold the same role there.
User roles in Metadata Capture
The default roles in Metadata Capture align with the dataset workflow stages. Each role has specific permissions to perform tasks required to move datasets through their lifecycle—from creation to publication. This ensures governance and accountability in managing your organisation's dataset inventory.
The following diagram illustrates these roles and their relationships:
This guide describes the default role names in Metadata Capture. Your organisation may use different names for these roles, but the core permissions remain the same. To view your actual role assignments and permissions, check your role directory.
*Catalogue Manager can also directly assign any organisation-level role.
Here's a reference of each role and their responsibilities:
Catalogue Manager
- User management: Assigns Inventory Coordinators and supports all roles.
- Publication control: Publishes, unpublishes, and deprecates records; and manage authentic source labels.
- Vocabulary management: Maintains controlled vocabularies (keywords, legal basis, organisations).
Inventory Coordinator
The Inventory Coordinator is a member of your organisation appointed by a Catalogue Manager. They ensure datasets are properly documented and reviewed through:
- Role management: Assigns Metadata Editors, Reviewers, and Approvers within your organisation.
- Contact management: Manages the contact points in your organisation for proper communication.
Metadata Approver
The Metadata Approver has authority to legally bind your organisation to publication decisions. Appointed by the Inventory Coordinator, they focus on:
Metadata Reviewer
The Metadata Reviewer is a member of your organisation who ensures the quality and accuracy of metadata records before they reach the approval stage. Appointed by the Inventory Coordinator, they focus on:
- Quality control: Review metadata records submitted by Metadata Editors for completeness and accuracy.
- Validation: Verify that dataset descriptions accurately represent the underlying data resources.
Metadata Editor
The Metadata Editor is a member of your organisation who creates and maintains metadata records. Appointed by the Inventory Coordinator, they work on:
- Dataset creation: Create new metadata records for datasets held by their organisation.
- Content maintenance: Update existing metadata records to reflect changes in datasets.
- Workflow initiation: Submit completed metadata records for review to begin the publication process.