Understanding roles

Role types

Black Duck provides three types of roles:

• Global roles

  Global roles grant permissions across the entire Black Duck SCA environment. These roles are typically assigned to users who perform administrative, security, compliance, reporting, or system-wide management tasks.

  Common global roles include:

  Role	Purpose
  System Administrator	Configure and administer Black Duck
  User Administrator	Manage users, groups, and access
  Global Project Administrator	Manage projects and project versions across the system
  Global Project Manager	Manage projects, project versions, and BOMs across the system
  Global Project Viewer	View all projects and BOMs
  Global Code Scanner	Manage scans across all projects
  Component Manager	Manage custom components
  License Manager	Manage licenses and license data
  Policy Manager	Manage policy rules
  Global Security Manager	Manage remediation statuses
  Integration Manager	Manage integrations

  For detailed role capabilities, see Global roles reference

• Project roles

  Project roles apply only to the projects to which a user has been assigned. Use project roles when users need access to specific projects without receiving broader system-wide permissions.

  Common project roles include:

  Role	Purpose
  Project Administrator	Manage project settings and membership
  Project Manager	Manage project versions, BOMs, and project membership
  BOM Manager	Manage BOM data
  BOM Annotator	Add comments and update BOM component custom fields
  Project Code Scanner	Manage scans for assigned projects
  Security Manager	Remediate vulnerabilities
  Policy Violation Reviewer	Manage policy overrides
  Project Viewer	View project information and reports

  For detailed role capabilities, see Project roles reference.

• Project group roles

  Project group roles provide the same capabilities as their project-role counterparts but apply to every project within an assigned project group. They help administrators manage permissions consistently across multiple related projects.

  Examples include:

  • Project Group Administrator
  • Project Manager
  • Project Code Scanner
  • BOM Manager
  • BOM Annotator
  • Security Manager
  • Policy Violation Reviewer
  • Project Viewer

  For detailed role capabilities, see Project group roles reference.

Assigning roles

Roles can be assigned directly to users or to groups. When a role is assigned to a group, all group members inherit that role and its permissions.

Users can also receive project-level permissions when they are assigned a role within a project or project group.

How permissions are combined

Users can have multiple roles. A user's effective permissions are the combination of all assigned global, project, and project group roles.

For example, a user might:

• Have a global role that allows project administration.
• Have a project role that allows BOM management.
• Have a project group role that provides access to multiple projects.

Together, these roles determine the user's available actions within Black Duck SCA.

Direct and indirect access

Project groups introduce two methods of access:

Direct access

The user is assigned directly to a project.

Indirect access

The user gains access through a project group assignment or through membership in a user group that is associated with a project group.

Project group roles allow permissions to be applied consistently across multiple projects without assigning users to each project individually.

Choosing the appropriate role type

Related information