Understanding Roles, Portfolios, & Responsibilities

Vantaca's user management system consists of Users, Roles, and Portfolios that work together to control access and permissions throughout the platform. Users are individuals who log into Vantaca, Roles define their permissions and access levels, and Portfolios group associations for organized management. Responsibilities connect these components to determine which users can access specific associations and perform designated tasks through Action Items.

Contents

• Users

• Roles

  • Managing Roles

  • Add a New Role

  • Edit a Role

  • Copy a Role

• Portfolios

• Portfolio Types

• Responsibilities

• The Big Picture

Users

Everyone who logs into Vantaca is a User. This includes staff members like Jenny in Accounting, AP team members, or external users like Collection Attorneys with vendor access to the system. Users must have properly configured Roles and Responsibilities to perform work in Vantaca.

To learn about creating or updating a User in Vantaca, see the "Create New Users and Assign Employee Responsibilities" article.

Roles

Roles in Vantaca set user permissions and access levels. Roles typically align with job descriptions in your organization. Common Role examples include:

• Manager
• Accountant
• Customer Support
• Closing Coordinator
• Traffic Cop
• AP
• AP - Pay
• Board
• Homeowner

The Role defines which pages users can access and which functions they can perform. Assigning different permissions to different Roles makes learning the system easier and limits potential issues. For example, the Accountant Role needs access to Accounting > Bank Reconciliation, but Customer Support does not.

Action Item steps are assigned to specific Roles. Action Items move through an assembly line process, going to the Role of the person who needs to perform each step of the task before moving to the next person.

Important: Some permissions require other permissions to function properly. For example, Action Item permissions (Settings > Roles > Action Item section > Action Items) include a hierarchy where the View permission must be enabled before other action item permissions (Create, Step, Message, Copy, Edit) can be selected. This prevents invalid permission combinations. For detailed information about action item permissions, see the "Role Securities" article.

Here is a basic example of how a Financial Delivery Action Item might work, where each step goes to the person best suited to do the work or receive the information:

Managing Roles

Roles are managed on the Settings > Roles page. Here you can view each Role in your database and adjust permissions accordingly. You can also create new Roles for specific organizational needs.

For a complete list of the Permissions in Vantaca and what they mean, visit the Role Securities article.

When creating or copying roles, role names must meet the following requirements:

• Cannot be empty: A role name must be provided.
• Must be unique: Cannot match the name of any existing active role.
• Allowed characters: Letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, parentheses, apostrophes, ampersands, and periods.
• Restricted characters: Cannot contain the following: < > / \ ; : " ` $ # @ ! ? * % ^ | { } [ ]

Note: You can reuse the name of a previously deleted role.

Add a New Role

To create a new role:

1. Navigate to Settings > Roles.
2. Click New Role.
   A new line is added to the Roles screen.
3. Enter a Name for the role.
4. Click Update to save the role.

Note: The new role will appear in the roles list with default permissions. Configure permissions separately after creating the role.

Edit a Role

To modify an existing role:

1. Navigate to Settings > Roles.
2. Click Edit next to the role you want to modify.
3. Edit the role name.
4. Click Update to save your changes.

Copy a Role

The Copy Role feature allows you to duplicate an existing role with all its associated permissions and reports, streamlining the process of creating similar roles without manual reconfiguration.

To copy an existing role:

1. Navigate to Settings > Roles.
2. Locate the role you want to copy and click Copy next to it. 
   The Copy Role screen displays. 
   
   
    
3. Enter a new name for the role in Role Name.
4. Click Copy to create the duplicate role.
   The new role appears in the roles list with identical permissions to the original role.

Note: The copied role will have exactly the same security permissions and report access as the source role. Role names must be unique and cannot be empty.

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Portfolios

Portfolios are groups of Associations that help Vantaca separate different Associations and link these groups to the Roles that use them. Portfolios are a familiar concept in HOA Management, where a Manager has a Portfolio of Associations they work in.

Common Portfolio examples include:

• Manager - Gary
• Accountant - Jenny
• Region - North
• All

The All Portfolio is special because all of your Associations belong to it. This is used for Roles that operate inside all of your Associations, such as Closing Coordinators, Customer Support, or whoever handles After-Hours Emergencies.

Portfolio Types

While we tend to think of Portfolios in terms of the Roles that will use them, Portfolio Types are based on what each Association in your organization needs to operate. Each Portfolio Type fits into 1 of three categories. 

• Required – One Per Association
  • An association must have one, and only one portfolio of this type. 
  • The association may also belong to portfolios of other types.
  • If an association is placed into a Portfolio Type with this requirement, it will automatically be removed from any other Portfolios of the same type.
• Required – Multi Allowed
  • An association must have at least one portfolio of this type. 
  • An association may have as many portfolios of this type as necessary.
• Not Required
  • An association does not need to have a portfolio of this type selected.
  • An association may belong to as many portfolios of this type as necessary.

For example, if each Association in your organization has only a single Accountant, then the Accountant Portfolio Type would be Required - One Per Association.

If you have Associations with more than one Manager, or you pair managers-in-training with more senior managers when hiring new employees, the Manager Portfolio Type would be Required - Multi Allowed.

Not all of your Associations will have an On-Site Manager or a Handyman, so these Portfolio Types would be Not Required.

Note: To Learn more about Portfolio Types, see the "Portfolio Types" article.

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Responsibilities

Responsibilities are the assignment of a Portfolio to a specific Role. This is where Vantaca defines which Roles have access to and are responsible for Action Items for which specific Portfolios or Associations.

Specific users are then assigned to each Responsibility. The responsibility for Action Items are assigned to specific Roles, so the Responsibilities allow us to give different users the same Roles but for different Associations or Portfolios.

In Summary:Responsibilities are the glue that holds Users, Roles, and Portfolios together.

Just like in real life, Responsibilities may overlap. A single User can have multiple responsibilities. For instance, the Regional Manager for your company has a specific Responsibility, but they may also maintain a Portfolio as a Manager, and this is a separate responsibility.

Note: When establishing Responsibilities, there is the potential for overlap in Role Securities. When a User is set up with a Role allowing a permission in one association (Manager of community A), if they are assigned a "View Only" Responsibility in another association with another Role (View Only in community B), they will be able to exercise the same permissions in both associations (community A & B).

This may include permissions such as Edit Association Additional Info, Add or Edit Board Member configurations, Budget Approval, etc. However, that User will not be assigned any items in their My Action Items for community B that they would have in community A. A user would have to actually seek out these items to change.

The Big Picture

Everyone that logs into Vantaca is a User, with a certain set of Roles or permissions, working inside of a Portfolio or group of Associations, and this all encompasses their Responsibilities within your company. 

The system works as follows:

1. Users log into Vantaca with specific credentials.
2. Roles define what permissions and access each User has.
3. Portfolios group Associations for organized management.
4. Responsibilities connect Users with specific Roles to specific Portfolios.
5. Action Items flow through the system based on Role assignments.

This integrated approach ensures that the right people have access to the right information and can perform the appropriate tasks for their assigned Associations.

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FAQ

Q: Why can a user in AR see a particular action type, but a user in Customer Support cannot?

A: This occurs when the action type doesn't include Customer Support in its Default Followers—not because of Role Securities.

To fix this:

1. Go to Settings > Action Types/Steps
2. Locate the action type and click Edit
3. In the Send To (Default Followers) field, select Customer Support
4. Click Update to save

Once added, users with the Customer Support Role will see this action type as an available option when creating action items.

Additional benefit: Adding the Role to Default Followers also makes it available for selection in the action type's steps within the Send To, Reply To, and Portal Reply fields. To configure these, go to Settings > Action Types/Steps, locate the action type, click Edit on the relevant step, select the Role in any of these fields, and click Update.