Two components control what each user can do in Altruistiq: their role and their Business Unit access. Together, these determine both the actions a user can take and the data they can see.
The two-part access model
Every user's access is defined by two settings that work together:
Roles define what actions a user can take. Each user has exactly one role, which grants permissions for specific activities such as uploading data, editing products, managing team members, or creating workbooks. Think of your role as your job function within the platform.
Business Unit access defines which data a user can see. Each user has access to one or more Business Units, which controls the Facilities, Input Data, and analytics results visible to them. Think of Business Unit access as your data scope.
When you combine these two settings, you get a user's effective access. A user can only perform actions their role allows, and only on data within their Business Unit access.
How this works in practice
Consider an organisation with Business Units for Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. You invite your European sustainability team with access only to the Europe Business Unit. They can perform all the actions their role allows, but they'll only see European data in their workbooks and can only upload data to European Facilities.
This means you could have two users with the same role but very different data visibility, or two users seeing the same data but with different capabilities based on their roles.
Roles available to your organisation
AQ Advanced roles
AQ Advanced includes eight specialised roles designed for different functions within your sustainability programme:
Role | License type |
Sustainability Administrator | Pro |
Platform Administrator | Lite |
Measurement & Reporting Professional | Pro |
Supply Chain Engagement Professional | Pro |
Sustainability Contributor | Lite |
Measurement Contributor | Lite |
Supply Chain Engagement Contributor | Lite |
External Partner | Pro |
Legacy tiers
Other tiers include three core roles that cover the essential functions:
Role | License type |
Sustainability Administrator | Pro |
Sustainability Contributor | Lite |
External Partner | Pro |
Each role's license type (Pro or Lite) may affect billing. See "Role definitions and capabilities" for full details on what each role can do.
Who can manage roles and access
Only users with the "Manage User Roles & Business Unit Access" permission can change another user's role or Business Unit access. By default, this permission is held by:
Sustainability Administrator
Platform Administrator
What's next
Now that you understand how the two-part access model works, you can:
Review "Role definitions and capabilities" to understand what each role can do
Read "How Business Unit access works" for more detail on data visibility
Go to "Navigate the Manage Users page" to learn where you manage your team