Why can't I assign a user to a brief?

Before assigning a user to a brief, ensure the following conditions are met:

• The user is assigned to the project that contains the brief.
• The user has the correct role.
• The user's role is assigned to the appropriate workflow status.

A common reason you may be unable to assign a user to a brief or workflow status or why a user cannot claim a brief from the Briefs page is that the user has a custom role, or you've created a new workflow status without assigning any responsible roles to it.

By default, a custom role is not responsible for any workflow status, and a new workflow status has no roles assigned to it. As a result, users with a custom role won't be able to claim any content items, and other users won’t be able to assign them to briefs or content items.

To prevent this, make sure to assign your custom role to at least one workflow status after creating it as well as assign roles to any new workflow statuses. Remember, each project has its own workflow settings, so changes made in one project won’t apply to others.

Assigning a Role to a Workflow Status

All new custom roles are not responsible for any workflow status upon creation, additionally, all new workflow statuses have no roles responsible for them upon creation. You need to manually assign the roles.

To assign a role to a workflow status, select the project (#1) that you want to work on from the project selection dropdown in the sidebar, then under the configuration section, go to Workflow (#2).

From there, select the workflow status you want to assign to your custom role. More info can be found here.

How to Allow Users to Claim Briefs?

In order to let a user be able to claim briefs for themselves, make sure they have:

• A role that is responsible for the project's first workflow status
• The said role has the View briefs permission

Remember that every project in your account has its own workflow settings so you will have to repeat these changes on a new or different project.

Custom Roles: Permissions and Workflow

Getting the right balance of permissions and workflow status assignments is essential to ensuring your custom role functions as intended.

Even if a role is assigned to the correct workflow status, it won’t behave as expected unless the necessary permissions are granted.

Take the earlier example: suppose your custom role is assigned to the "Writing" workflow status. Without the View Briefs permission, users that has this custom role won’t be able to access the briefs page. This will prevent them from claiming briefs. However, you or another user with the appropriate permissions can still manually assign them to one.

That would be a great setup if you want to be able to control who gets assigned to what. On the other hand, you can also give the custom role the "view briefs" permission so that the writers can claim briefs for themselves so that they have the freedom to choose what they want to work on.

By combining permissions with workflow role assignments, you can gain precise control over team operations. The flexibility to tailor EasyContent to your needs is extensive. If you have any questions regarding setting up your workflow, don't hesitate to contact us at support@easycontent.io.

Next, why don't you...

Learn more about the workflow page.

Have a detailed look at the explanation of every permission to help you decide which ones should be activated for your custom role.

Check out the overview of user roles and permissions.