# Role Based Access Control (RBAC)

RBAC is an access-control mechanism defined by mapping user-assignable roles to related privileges and features, governed by three core aspects: role assignment, role authorization, and permission authorization.

The Authoring Platform uses RBAC to authorize an authenticated user account with permissions to perform particular actions within the platform, defined by role-group mapping and membership.

The current roles defined on the AP can be considered in three groups:

| **Authoring and content promotion control**        | **SNOMED CT release control**                                               | **Technical support and platform administration** |
| -------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| <p>AUTHOR<br>PROJECT\_MANAGER<br>PROJECT\_LEAD</p> | <p>RELEASE\_USER<br>RELEASE\_MANAGER<br>RELEASE\_LEAD<br>RELEASE\_ADMIN</p> | ADMIN                                             |

These roles are assigned to particular access control groups, which are mapped to global or project level content branch permissions on the Terminology Server. The technical support and platform administration, and SNOMED CT release control roles are outside the scope of this AP user guide, but mentioned here for completeness. When an account login is authenticated, it is then assigned AP feature access and permissions according to the roles defined for the groups of which the account is a member.

{% hint style="info" %}

#### Roles

**AUTHOR** is the core permission which enables an authenticated account to work on SNOMED CT content through authoring projects and their related tasks.

**PROJECT\_MANAGER** adds permissions to define Service Acceptance Criteria (SAC) which are used by Authoring Access Gateway (AAG) controls to grant (or deny) permissions for promotion of content at task and project level.

**PROJECT\_LEAD** adds permissions to approve SAC items which allow project content promotion to the content mainline.

These roles also determine the visibility and presentation of access-controlled features in the AP user interface.
{% endhint %}

## Related How To... Guides

* [Promote my (non-complex) task changes to their parent project (share with other authors)](/snomed-ct-user-guides/authoring-user-guide/how-to/task-rebase-and-promotion/promote-my-non-complex-task-changes-to-their-parent-project-share-with-other-authors.md)
* [Promote my (batch) task changes to their parent project (share with other authors)](/snomed-ct-user-guides/authoring-user-guide/how-to/task-rebase-and-promotion/promote-my-batch-task-changes-to-their-parent-project-share-with-other-authors.md)
* [Promote my (complex) task changes to their parent project (share with other authors)](/snomed-ct-user-guides/authoring-user-guide/how-to/task-rebase-and-promotion/promote-my-batch-task-changes-to-their-parent-project-share-with-other-authors.md)
* [Promote a project (promote to MAIN)](/snomed-ct-user-guides/authoring-user-guide/how-to/project-rebase-and-promotion/promote-a-project-promote-to-main.md)

<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScTmbZIf0UEQwYDkY27EEWBkaiYkHSbR0_9DmFrMLXoQLyL7Q/viewform?usp=pp_url&#x26;entry.1767247133=AP+UG&#x26;entry.670899847=What%20is%20Role%20Based%20Access%20Control%20%28RBAC%29%3F" class="button primary">Provide Feedback</a>


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.snomed.org/snomed-ct-user-guides/authoring-user-guide/faqs/role-based-access-control-rbac.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.
