WordPress User Roles and Permissions

Today we are going to do an exercise in imagination, and we are going to propose a new situation, we are going to imagine that we have a company, and that several people collaborate on our website.

WordPress user roles and permissions gives us an easy solution, we can assign different people a specific set of permissions or capabilities.

We can give each person a capacity, we can define the user and the tasks they can perform. Also limiting the level of access of all existing users on our website.

We have six different types of roles that WordPress offers us:

• Administrator
• Editor
• Author
• Contributor
• Subscriber
• Super Admin

WordPress User Roles

We will explain each role.

Administrator

The Administrator is the most powerful user role in a WordPress installation. You have full access to all site functions, you can make changes to files, add new posts or edit existing ones, you can also delete them.

An Administrator has permissions to add or delete themes, plugins, in addition to being able to also users, and add or modify their permissions, manage their passwords, even delete them.

One of the most important things is that the Administrators can decide which user publishes their content in HTML or JavaScript. It must be taken into account that a user who is not trusted can damage our installation.

There should only be one user with the Administrator role, since it is better that a single user can control the WordPress installation.

Editor

One of the most important roles within WordPress is that of Editor. As its name indicates, an Editor will be in charge of the content of our website, having total control over it. But the power of the editor is limited to creating and managing only the content on the site.

An Editor can add, edit, post, and delete any post on a WordPress site, regardless of who wrote it.

An editor can also moderate, edit and delete comments, in addition to creating the categories in which those publications will belong.

Publishers do not have access to change their site settings, install plugins and themes, or add new users.

Author

The Author has a role similar to that of the Editor, but with the difference that the Author can write, edit and publish only his own publications, he can delete his own publications, even if they are published.

Another difference with Editors is that Authors will have to accommodate their publications in existing categories, since they cannot create them.

Since it is a group that is responsible for creating publications, they have permissions to upload images and multimedia files, for their creations.

Contributor

The Contributor role will allow the user to create and modify their own publications, but unlike the Author, they cannot publish them, they can add tags, but not categories.

They also do not have access to the media library, so you will not be able to upload images or multimedia files. Contributors writing their content should wait for their review.

Basically a Contributor is a person outside our site, who collaborates with content, writing a post for our blog, but only an Editor or Administrator will validate their work.

Subscriber

Users are the roles that have the least permissions, they can only access to view their profile, or change their password.

If subscriptions are allowed on our WordPress site, we can use this role, since a User is still a reader of our site, and they can create an account.

Super Admin

There is another role in WordPress which is the Super Admin, but it will only be available in multisite installations.

Super Admins can add and remove sites on a network from a multirite.

They can install themes and plugins, add users, and perform network-wide actions in a WordPress multisite setup.

Also, you can add and remove site administrators, change the password of other users, etc.

Create And Assign WordPress User Roles

We have two ways to create a user and assign a role in WordPress, through the dashboard or a plugin.

We are going to do it through the dashboard, and for that we have to go to the Users → Add User menu.

Using A Plugin

We may find ourselves in the situation of wanting to modify permissions to users depending on their role.

To perform this type of action, it is best to install a plugin such as Capability Manager Enhanced Plugin.

This plugin is one of the most popular WordPress plugins and is free, although it has a payment option.

We can add new roles, copy rights and modify roles, it comes with a checklist of all privileges that can be easily and quickly modified.



Now we can use everything we have learned to create a role structure on our site if we need it. Si todavía no has creado tu sitio WordPress, Create Your Website With WordPress


References:
ithemes.com
iograficathemes.com
fixrunner.com
wpbeginner.com