This article provides a comprehensive guide to the Job Roles feature. In 7.11 we have transitioned from the legacy "Organisational Hierarchy Roles" to a more robust, time-based Job Role model. This change ensures that user roles are independent of team intersections, reflecting real-world employment structures and supporting precise financial calculations for "Time to Fees."

Understand Job Roles

A Job Role defines the specific duties, qualifications, and responsibilities of a user (e.g., Associate, Senior Associate). To simplify administration, Job Roles are grouped into Job Families (e.g., Legal, HR, Executive).

Key Concepts

• Time-Based Assignments:
  Unlike the previous model, the system now tracks a history of roles. You can see when a user transitioned from one role to another, which is critical for historical reporting and fee calculation.
• Decoupled from Teams: 
  Roles are now assigned directly to users rather than being tied to the intersection of a User and a Team.
• System Integration:
  Job Roles automatically influence Time to Fees (hourly rates), Allocation Rules and Business Rules.

Administrative Configuration

Maintain Job Roles and Families

Administrators can manage the global list of roles and their parent families via the new administrative interface.

1. Navigate to Admin Users Job Roles.
2. To create a new role, click Add from the title bar.
3. In the Edit Blade, complete the following fields:
4. Name: The display name for the role.
5. System Name: A unique identifier (automatically generated).
6. Job Role Family: Select an existing family or create a new one inline using the tag control.
7. Description:(Optional) Provide context for the role.
8. Enabled Toggle: Set to 'On'. If disabled, the role cannot be assigned to new users but remains visible for historical assignments.
9. Click Save.

Setting User Type Requirements

You can enforce Job Role assignments based on the User Type (e.g., requiring roles for Employees but not for External Contractors).

1. Navigate to the User Type configuration settings.
2. Locate the Job Roles section (found above Team Membership).
3. Toggle User Type Requires a Job Role to 'On' if validation is required for this type.

Manage User Role Assignments

Assign a Role to a User

To update a user's role or view their career progression within the firm:

1. Open the User Profile (User Blade).
2. Locate the Job Role field. Note that the role is highlighted with a distinct color for high visibility.
3. Click the Pencil Icon to open the Job Role Assignment blade.

To add a new role:

1. Select the Job Role from the searchable, hierarchical dropdown (grouped by Family).
2. Select a Start Date. Note: This cannot be earlier than the start date of the current role.
3. Click Save. The system will automatically end-date the previous assignment and record the new one.

If a Job Role is currently referenced in "Time to Fees" records, the role name cannot be changed to maintain financial audit integrity. 

User Advisor and Validations

The User Advisor (formerly the notifications panel) has been refactored to help administrators identify data gaps.

1. Access the User Advisor dashboard to see grouped issues.
2. Look for the message: "[User] has no job role assigned."
3. This alert triggers automatically if the User Type requires a role, but the field is empty.
4. Click the alert to navigate directly to the user record and resolve the omission.

Impacts on Other Modules

The transition to the new Job Role model affects several integrated features:

Time to Fees:Hourly rate lookups are now "time-dependent." The system looks at the date of the time entry and matches it against the user’s Job Role Assignment history for that specific date.

• Allocation & Business Rules: 
  Any rules targeting specific roles must be updated to reference the new Job Role entities.
• Data Composer:
  You can now query the Job Role and Job Role Assignments (array) contexts for advanced reporting.