How do you set role-based permissions for dispatchers, sim techs, pilots, and flight attendants?

Give each role its own scoped workspace tied to its actual job — dispatch sees tails, MELs, and crew duty status; sim techs see equipment and session logs; pilots and flight attendants see their own schedule and credentials — with write access limited to the roles that own each record, and separate, auto-expiring read-only access for FAA evaluators.

A training center or airline has a lot of very different jobs running through one system at once — dispatch watching tails and MELs, sim techs logging equipment and sessions, pilots and flight attendants tracking their own duty and currency, plus FAA evaluators who need to look but never touch. Handing everyone the same admin login means people either see clutter that isn't their job or, worse, can edit records they shouldn't. Role-based permissions fix this by scoping both visibility and edit rights to the actual job, and by making outside access expire on its own instead of relying on someone to remember to revoke it.

Why the answer is what it is

Match each workspace to the job, not a generic admin panel

Dispatchers need grounded tails, open MELs, and crew duty status in front of them. Sim techs need equipment and session logs. Pilots and flight attendants mainly need their own schedule, endorsements, and expiring credentials — not the whole operation's data. A role that sees everything just sees noise instead of its own job.

Separate what a role can see from what it can change

Visibility and edit rights are two different questions. Dispatch may need to see maintenance status to plan a flight without ever having write access to a maintenance record — the person changing a record should be the one accountable for it. Default new roles to read-only and add write access deliberately.

Give FAA evaluators a narrow, self-expiring lane

An inspector or evaluator needs to review records during a visit, not hold a standing account afterward. A dedicated, read-only auditor role that expires automatically closes the gap where someone forgets to deactivate a one-off login weeks later.

Keep external portals separate from internal staff logins

Client organizations and trainees are not staff, and they shouldn't log into a cut-down version of the staff interface. A client manager should see their own pilots' training status and upcoming sessions; a trainee should see their own progress and billing — nothing more.

Build the role list into the platform instead of a manual exception list

A spreadsheet of who-can-see-what drifts the moment someone changes jobs or a new hire starts. AviationAlley is built with 13 predefined staff roles — from Owner, Manager, and Dispatcher to Sim Tech, Pilot, and Flight Attendant — so each one is scoped to its own workspace by default, write access is gated to maintenance roles and above, and FAA evaluators get time-limited, read-only auditor access that expires on its own.

What to look for

• List every staff function in your operation: dispatch, sim tech, pilot, flight attendant, maintenance, ops management, front desk.
• For each role, define what it needs to SEE — schedule, MELs, duty times, endorsements, session requests, workload.
• Separately define what each role needs to EDIT; most roles should default to read-only outside their own records.
• Set write access off by default and grant it only to the role that owns the record (e.g., maintenance signs off maintenance, dispatch owns the schedule).
• Create a distinct auditor/evaluator role that is read-only and expires automatically instead of a shared login someone has to remember to deactivate.
• Keep client-org, trainee, and internal staff logins on separate portals rather than a stripped-down version of the same admin panel.
• Re-check the role list whenever you add a new job function, contractor, or vendor relationship.

Related questions

Should a dispatcher be able to edit maintenance sign-offs?

Generally no. Dispatch needs visibility into MEL status and grounded tails to plan flights, but write access to the maintenance record itself should stay with maintenance roles so the person making the change is the one accountable for it.

How do you give an FAA inspector access without creating a permanent account?

Use a role built specifically for evaluators: read-only, scoped to the records being reviewed, and set to expire automatically rather than a shared login someone has to remember to turn off after the visit.

Does AviationAlley handle this kind of role separation out of the box?

Yes. AviationAlley is built with 13 predefined staff roles — Owner, Manager, Dispatcher, Sim Tech, Pilot, Flight Attendant, and others — each scoped to its own workspace, with write access gated to maintenance roles and above by default and time-limited read-only access for FAA evaluators. It's part of the founding-cohort build Roffik is opening AviationAlley to now.

How Roffik addresses this

The platform for FAA-approved Part 142 training centers — simulator scheduling, FAA compliance records, client-account billing, and SWIFT wire reconciliation. Learn more about AviationAlley.