Roles, and what each one can do
Owner, admin, dispatcher, instructor, student, renter and technician. One person can hold several, and the roles decide what they see, what they can book, and whose money they can look at.
For owners, admins, dispatchers, instructors, students, renters and technicians
Seven roles: owner, admin, dispatcher, instructor, student, renter, technician. They are additive and there is no ladder, so a person can hold any combination or none. Set them from WebPeople → ⋯ → Edit roles.
Roles hang off the school, not the person#
Your account (name, email, password, photo) is global. Your roles belong to your membership of one organization. That is why editing somebody's roles at one school changes nothing at another, and why a person can be an instructor at one club and a renter at the next.
The seven roles in one line each#
| Role | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Owner | Full control. Always carries admin with it |
| Admin | Runs the school: people, aircraft, money, settings |
| Dispatcher | Runs the board. No money, no settings |
| Instructor | Teaches, signs off flights and lessons |
| Student | Books training flights for themselves |
| Renter | Rents aircraft solo |
| Technician | Logs maintenance and squawks |
Two words appear throughout the product and are worth learning:
- Staff means owner, admin and dispatcher together: the people who run the operation day to day. Staff land on the Dashboard, see the whole board, and can book on other people's behalf.
- Staff is not the set that can see money. Money is admin and owner only.
Which pages each role can open#
| Page | Owner | Admin | Dispatcher | Instructor | Student | Renter | Technician |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Calendar (dispatch board) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| People | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Aircraft | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Reports | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Maintenance | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Go / No-Go | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Training | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Facilities | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Cancellations | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Audit Logs | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Settings | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Announcements | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Everybody, whatever their roles, gets their own pages: home, their schedule, their invoices, their documents, their currencies, their profile.
Which reservations each role can book#
| Reservation type | Owner, Admin | Dispatcher | Instructor | Student | Renter | Technician |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dual | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Solo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Shared | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Ground | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Sim | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Rental | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Guest | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Maintenance | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
Staff book for other people. A dispatcher's grant lets them book anybody, but it does not put the dispatcher in a seat: to fly, they need a flying role of their own.
Full detail in Which reservation type should I use?.
Owner#
Everything an admin can do, plus:
- Edit another owner's roles.
- Change billing settings and connect Stripe.
- Manage API keys and the QuickBooks connection.
- Delete the organization (iOS app only).
An owner cannot be removed by anybody. The last owner cannot give up the role or leave the school.
Admin#
Reaches every page in the console. Invites, removes, edits roles, grounds, ungrounds and archives members. Accepts and declines join requests and instruction pairing requests. Adds, edits, grounds and deletes aircraft, simulators and rooms, and approves renters on a tail. Sees and manages all money. Changes every organization setting. Reads anyone's documents, currencies, training records and endorsements. Books every reservation type on anyone's behalf.
An admin cannot change an owner's roles, remove an owner, or remove or demote the last admin (including themselves). An admin who is not the owner cannot connect Stripe or change billing settings, and cannot delete the organization.
Dispatcher#
A dispatcher runs the ramp. They create, edit, cancel, ramp out, ramp in and close out every reservation type for anybody, ground and reinstate a member, read fleet and operations reports including utilization, read another member's currencies and documents, read the maintenance boards and open squawks, and see guests.
They cannot see any money at all. No Billing page, no invoices, no outstanding balances, no revenue, no per-person spend.
They also cannot open Settings, Facilities or Audit Logs, sign a squawk off as resolved or verified, or read a student's training record or endorsements. Grounding is theirs, but archiving and removing a member are not: those stay owner and admin.
Instructor#
Reaches the Calendar, People, Aircraft and Training, plus their own pages. Books dual, solo, shared, ground, sim and guest reservations. Sees their students' flights, training records and endorsements. Closes out and signs off their own flights. Sets their own availability, which is a tab that exists only for instructors.
An instructor cannot open the Dashboard, Billing, Reports, Facilities, Settings, Maintenance, Go / No-Go, Cancellations or Audit Logs. They cannot book a rental or a maintenance block, cannot read another member's documents, and cannot invite, ground, archive or remove anybody. Designing a syllabus needs a separate training permission: see Who can do what in training.
With Instructors can override reservation prices switched on, they get Override payment on a booking, on either surface. It is not limited to their own reservations.
Student#
Views the school schedule, the roster and the fleet. Books dual, solo, shared, ground and sim reservations for themselves. Sees their own training record, endorsements, currencies, documents and invoices, and pays their own invoices.
A student cannot book a rental, see anyone else's money, currencies, documents or training records, see open squawks, or open any staff page.
Renter#
Views the schedule, the roster and the fleet. Books rentals, and shared bookings (two renters splitting a cross-country). Sees and pays their own invoices, and sees their own currencies and documents.
A renter cannot book dual, solo, ground, sim, guest or maintenance reservations, and never sees simulator or classroom lanes on the board. With Members can only book approved resources on, they can book only the aircraft they have been checked out on. See Check a renter out on an aircraft.
Technician#
Reaches Maintenance and the fleet reports. Books maintenance blocks, which take an aircraft off the line. Logs squawks and signs them off as resolved or verified. Sees maintenance reminders and inspections across the fleet, and can ground an aircraft.
A technician sees no money anywhere, cannot book any flying reservation, never sees simulator or classroom lanes, and cannot open the Dashboard, Billing, Settings, Facilities, Training, Go / No-Go or Audit Logs.
Somebody with no role#
A member who joined and was never given a role can sign in, see the schedule, the roster and the fleet, and see their own profile, documents, currencies and invoices. They cannot book anything: the + button and the Book link simply do not appear. They show up under the No role yet filter on People.
Change somebody's roles#
Open People, or the person's record
From the roster, use the row's ⋯ menu. From their page, press Edit roles in the header.
Tick the roles they should hold
Ticking Owner force-ticks Admin and locks it, because an owner is always an admin.
Press Save roles
Access changes immediately, everywhere: console, phone app and API.
Three refusals you may meet:
- "There must be at least one owner in your organization."
- You cannot remove the last admin, including your own admin grant.
- "You do not have permission to update the owner's roles." Only another owner can edit an owner.
Two places roles behave unexpectedly#
Reports are open to dispatchers and technicians, but each sees only the categories their role grants. A dispatcher gets operations, fleet, people and compliance reports and no financial section at all. A technician gets fleet reports only. See Who can see which reports.
Search is scoped by role too, and training is scoped differently from everything else. A dispatcher can search another member's documents and currencies but not their training records. An instructor is the exact opposite. See Find anything with search.
Still stuck on this?
Email support@aerscheduler.com and tell us what you were trying to do. We answer.