Every community member holds one Community Role, and that role decides what they can do in Communitrak. The Roles page is where you review the roles your community has, create your own, and turn individual permissions on and off. This article covers the roles list, the permission editor, assigning roles to members, and the rules that govern system roles.
Viewing the page requires the View Community Roles & Permissions permission. The individual actions each need their own permission: Create Role to add or duplicate a role, Update Role Info to rename one, Update Role Permissions to change what it can do, and Delete Role to remove one. Assigning a role to a member is a separate permission, Change Member Role.
Out of the box, both the Community Admin and Community Leader roles include all four role-management permissions and Change Member Role. A few role changes are reserved for Community Admins whatever permissions you hold; see Changes only a Community Admin can make below. Some options may be unavailable or appear differently depending on your level of account access.
Log in to Communitrak at https://app.communitrak.com.
In the main navigation menu, expand Community and click Roles.
These are two separate settings, and it's worth knowing the difference before you start.
A member's role decides what they are allowed to do. Permissions come from here and nowhere else.
Whether a member is a community leader decides how they're presented. It grants no permissions.
Marking someone as a community leader does change a few things about how others see and reach them:
They get the leader badge, appear on the Leaders tab of the Community Members page, and are listed on the Dashboard's Community Leaders card.
They appear in the Board Members section of your community website, if you use one.
They always stay visible in the member directory. Leaders can't hide themselves from it.
Members whose role doesn't include Send Direct Message to Non-Leader Members can still message leaders directly, and inactive members can message only leaders.
Communitrak counts them as board members in the review settings for architectural requests, where it warns you if a board member, or someone in their household, is on the reviewer roster.
Leadership is stored on each member, not on the role. A role's Leader by default setting only decides what the leadership choice starts at when that role is assigned. You can change it on the member's profile afterwards without changing their role. See Viewing and Managing Member Profiles for how to set it.
The page lists roles in two tables.
Every community gets the same three system roles. They're maintained by the Communitrak team, and their permissions can't be edited.
Community Admin is the highest level of access, and it's the role held by the member who created the community account. Community Admins can manage everything, including your Communitrak subscription. Every community keeps at least one active Community Admin.
Community Leader can do everything a Community Admin can do except manage your Communitrak subscription. The Manage Communitrak Billing and Manage AI Usage permissions are Community Admin only. Community Leaders can still view your billing information.
Resident is basic participant access. Residents can take part in the community but can't manage it.
To see exactly what a system role includes, open it. Its permissions are shown read-only. System roles carry a System Role tag and can only be duplicated, not edited or deleted.
Roles your community created. These carry a Custom Role tag and can be renamed, re-permissioned, duplicated, and deleted. Treasurer, Secretary, and Architectural Committee are common examples.
ID and Role Name, with the role's description underneath. Click either one to open the role and see its permissions.
Leader by default, marked with a green badge icon when the setting is on.
Members, the number of active members holding the role. Click the count to see who they are and click a name to open that member's profile. Invited members who haven't joined yet aren't counted.
Actions: Duplicate on system roles, and Edit, Duplicate, and Delete on custom roles.
Use the search bar to filter by role name or description.
This requires the Create Role permission. A new role starts with no permissions granted, so plan to open it and grant permissions afterwards. If you want a starting point instead of a blank slate, duplicate an existing role.
Click Add Role beside the search bar.
Enter a Role Name, up to 40 characters. This is required.
Enter a Description. This shows under the role name in the list, so it's worth saying who the role is for.
Tick Leader by default if members assigned this role should start out marked as community leaders. Use it for roles like board members, committee chairs, or property managers.
Click Save Role.
Click the new role in the list to grant its permissions.
Duplicating copies the role's name, description, Leader by default setting, and every one of its permissions into a new custom role. This is the fastest way to build a role, and it's the only way to base a role on a system role.
Click Duplicate in the Actions column. The copy is created immediately, with no confirmation, and named after the original with (Copy) on the end. Open it to rename it and adjust its permissions.
If you aren't a Community Admin and you duplicate Community Admin, or a custom role that has billing or AI usage permissions, the copy is made without Manage Communitrak Billing and Manage AI Usage. A message tells you they were left out.
You can also duplicate from inside a system role:
Open the system role and click any permission. The System Role dialog explains that system roles can't be edited.
Click Duplicate Role.
Enter a New Role Name, up to 40 characters.
Optionally tick Set as default role for new members so new members are assigned the new role automatically. This option only appears if you have the Update Community Preferences permission.
Click Duplicate Role. Communitrak creates the role and opens it so you can adjust its permissions.
Without the Create Role permission, the dialog only explains that you'll need someone who has it to make the copy.
This requires the Update Role Info permission and only works on custom roles. Role names are limited to 40 characters.
Click Edit in the Actions column, or open the role and click the pencil icon beside its name.
Update the Role Name, Description, or Leader by default setting.
Click Save Role.
This requires the Update Role Permissions permission. Click a role's name in the list to open its permission editor.
Permissions are grouped into collapsible sections by module: Dashboard, Bulletin Board, Calendar, Articles, Members, Amenities, Alerts, Messages, Files, Payments, Forms, Requests, Violations, Community, Household, Website, Parking, Pets, and Classifieds. The Pets and Classifieds sections only appear while those modules are turned on. Each section header shows how many of its permissions are granted, and a changed badge with a count appears once you've toggled something inside it.
Click a module header to expand it.
Tick or untick a permission's checkbox. Clicking anywhere on the row toggles it too.
Click Save Changes.
Search by permission name, description, or ID. Matching sections expand automatically while a search is active.
Filter with the All, Granted, Denied, and Changed chips. The count on each chip updates as you work.
Grant all and Revoke all on a section header set every permission in that module at once.
Expand all and Collapse all open or close every section. They're hidden while a search or filter is active, since those already control what's showing.
The counter above the list shows how many of the role's total permissions are granted.
The Messages and Bulletin Board sections have a Set up with wizard option on their header. It asks a few plain-language questions, then shows a review of what the role will be able to do and which currently granted permissions it will remove.
Clicking Apply stages those changes in the editor. Nothing is written until you click Save Changes, so you can review the ticks first or discard them.
Some permissions are children of a broader one and appear indented beneath it. For example, the Send Message to a Group at Once permission sits under Send New Message.
Granting the parent does not grant its children. You need to tick each permission you actually want.
A child's checkbox is disabled while its parent is unticked. Tick the parent first, then the child.
Unticking a parent unticks its children too. If you tick the parent again, tick the children you want again as well.
Communitrak checks every permission on its own. A child that is ticked is granted, so what you see ticked is what the role can do.
Manage Communitrak Billing and Manage AI Usage carry an Admin only tag. Only a Community Admin can grant or remove them on any role. If you aren't a Community Admin, their checkboxes are locked, and Grant all and Revoke all skip them.
A custom role that holds either permission counts as an admin-level role. Only a Community Admin can change its permissions, rename it, or delete it. Anyone else opening it sees a note saying so, and its Edit and Delete buttons are disabled.
Your community's Default Member Role can never hold these two permissions, since every new member would get them.
A bar slides up from the bottom of the screen as soon as you have unsaved changes, showing the count and offering Discard and Save Changes. If you try to navigate away with changes pending, Communitrak asks whether you want to save, discard, or stay on the page.
This requires the Change Member Role permission. You can change roles in three places:
One member, from the directory: on the Community Members page, click the pencil icon on the member's row, pick the role, and click the check mark to save.
Several members at once: tick the members on the Community Members page, click Change Role, then choose a New Role in the Change Member Roles dialog. You can set leadership and a title for all of them in the same step.
From a member's profile: click the pencil icon on the Community Role card to open Edit Community Role.
Picking a role pre-selects the leadership choice from that role's Leader by default setting. You can change it before saving.
Community Admin, and any custom role holding Manage Communitrak Billing or Manage AI Usage, are admin-level roles. Whatever permissions you hold, only a Community Admin can:
Assign an admin-level role to a member, or move a member off one. For everyone else, these roles show an Admin only tag in the role pickers and can't be selected, and a member who already holds one has their role locked.
Invite someone straight into an admin-level role.
Change the membership status of, or remove, a member who holds an admin-level role.
Set a household inactive, or reactivate one, when it includes a member with an admin-level role.
Add back someone who previously held an admin-level role in that household.
Every community keeps at least one usable Community Admin: an active member, in an active household, with an active Communitrak account. Communitrak won't let the last one be moved to another role, set inactive, removed, or have their household set inactive, and the last Community Admin can't close their Communitrak account. You'll see a message asking you to make someone else a Community Admin first.
This requires the Delete Role permission and only works on custom roles.
Click Delete in the Actions column.
Confirm in the Delete Role dialog.
A role can't be deleted while anyone still holds it, including invited members who haven't joined yet and inactive members. You'll see a Cannot Delete Role message telling you how many members hold it. Move those members to another role first, from the Community Members page or from each member's profile, then delete the role. The Members count on the Roles page only shows active members, so check the Pending and Inactive tabs too.
Your community's Default Member Role can't be deleted either. Choose a different default under Community → Preferences first.
Members who were removed from the community and still had the role are moved to your Default Member Role when you delete it.
Permissions come only from a member's role. Marking someone as a community leader changes how they're presented and grants no permissions.
Members holding the Community Admin or Community Leader role can always open every file in the Files module, whatever a folder's access settings say. Any role with the Manage Folders or View All Folders permission can also see every folder. If you need someone to have limited file access, give them a role without those.
A permission's ID appears at the right of its row. It's useful when you're comparing two roles or describing a permission to Communitrak Support.
Changing a role's permissions affects every member holding that role, and Communitrak enforces the change right away. A member who is signed in at the time sees their buttons and menus update within a few minutes.
Role names are limited to 40 characters.
Community Admin, and any role with billing or AI usage permissions, can't be your Default Member Role.
Set which role new members receive by default under Community → Preferences, in the Members section's Default Member Role dropdown.
If you have questions or need help, chat with Communitrak Support from any page using the messenger icon in the bottom-right corner.
