Admin — owns the project.
Certifier — assesses the project.
Consultant — collaborates across the project.
Contributor — does their assigned tasks.
The roles stack: each one can do everything the role below it can, plus more.
What each role can do
| Admin | Certifier | Consultant | Contributor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| See every condition | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓their own |
| Upload evidence | ✓anything | ✓assigned | ✓assigned | ✓assigned |
| Comment | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓own thread |
| Log a decision Satisfied / Not Required / Not Satisfied | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Set status, owners, due dates, priority, tags | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Add conditions | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Edit or delete conditions | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Set up approval processes | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Rename a document | ✓any | ✓any | ✓own | ✓own |
| Delete a document | ✓any | ✓own | ✓own | ✓own |
| See the project activity log | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Export the checklist | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Manage members and roles | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Project settings, notifications, display | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Works in the full app rather than the contribute portal | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
Three rules that catch people out
A Certifier can rename any document on the project, but can only delete documents they uploaded a version of themselves. Only an Admin can delete anyone's document. Renaming is a correction; deleting is destructive, so it is held to a higher bar.
Deletion is also never permanent from the app's point of view — a deleted document leaves the working views but stays in the record, so the activity trail never develops a hole.
Consultants have full read access across the project and can comment on anything — which makes them look more powerful than they are. But logging a decision (Satisfied, Not Required, Not Satisfied) requires Certifier or Admin. No decision on any project was ever made by a Consultant.
This is the right shape for a fire engineer or traffic consultant: they answer questions on their discipline in writing, and someone with the authority to close the condition does so.
Everyone can upload — but everyone except an Admin is limited to the conditions assigned to them. If a Certifier or Consultant says “I can't find anywhere to put this file”, the usual cause is that nobody has assigned them the condition yet.
Contributors are the narrowest role by design. They see only the conditions assigned to them, work entirely inside the contribute portal, and cannot open the project's activity log. A subcontractor supplying three certificates never has to look at — or is able to look at — the rest of the project.
Choosing a role
| Admin | Your own project managers and anyone who needs to change the shape of the project — the checklist, the members, the settings. |
| Certifier | The certifying authority's people, and anyone builder-side who needs to run the checklist day to day: assigning owners, setting dates, ruling on conditions. |
| Consultant | Discipline professionals who need to see the whole project and answer in writing, but should not be moving the checklist along. |
| Contributor | Subcontractors and trades supplying evidence against specific conditions. |