Who can do what in Staff
Tom wants to know why a front-line staff member can mark their own background check as cleared, and why the regional director can do everything here when she can do nothing in Incidents. This page lists every action in Staff, who can do it, and what PTRS does when they do. Field limits are on Staff fields and limits.
How permission works here
One rule covers everything in Staff, reading and changing alike. It admits staff members, site directors, regional directors, organisation administrators and super admins, and nobody else.
A front-line staff member has the same reach here as an organisation administrator. They can create a staff member, change a background check's status, verify a credential, remove a credential and record a personnel document, including on their own record. PTRS has a stricter rule written for exactly this purpose, and it is applied nowhere. This is a defect in PTRS, recorded for the PTRS team. This page describes PTRS as it is.
Two consequences you cannot see on screen:
- A regional director can open every screen in Staff, including every change. In Incidents the same person can open nothing.
- OCCL auditors and read-only accounts can open nothing in Staff. The menu shows it to them, and the page stays empty.
One list is open to the world. The training catalogue, the sixteen trainings with their sources and consequences, can be read without signing in to PTRS at all. It contains no personal data and nothing about your organisation.
The full list
Every row is open to the same five roles, so the list says what each action does rather than who can do it.
The directory
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Search the directory | 25 people at a time, by last name, with filters on site, role, active status, credential status, training status and onboarding status |
| Show the Staff page figures | The six figures, remembered for five minutes |
| Open a staff member | The record with their credentials |
| Add a staff member | See Add a staff member |
| Update a staff member | First name, last name, email and role only |
| Deactivate a staff member | Marks them inactive. No screen offers this. |
| Reactivate a staff member | Marks them active again. On the record header. |
| List expiring credentials | Every credential expiring within 60 days, or already expired however long ago |
| List the DELACARE positions | The eleven positions |
| Assign a position | See Assign a position. No screen offers this. |
Credentials
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Add a credential | Type, issued date, expiry date and issuer. Four further fields on the dialog are thrown away. |
| Edit a credential | Replaces type, expiry, issuer, certificate number and document link. The issued date cannot change. Any special status is cleared. |
| Remove a credential | Hidden, not erased |
| Verify a credential | Records the method, notes, link, time and an account reference for who did it |
| Show qualification gaps | Always refused, with "Staff member '…' has no position assigned for gap analysis.", because no one has a position |
Background checks
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Start a check | Refused if the person already has one that has not ended |
| Advance a check | Moves it one step, stamping today's date. See Record a background check. |
| List a person's checks | All of them |
| List pending checks | Every check in the organisation that has not ended |
Training
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Read the training catalogue | Open to anyone, signed in or not |
| Add a training record | See Track training compliance |
| Edit a training record | PTRS can. No screen offers it. |
| List a person's training records | All of them |
| Show a person's training compliance | Against the fifteen mandatory trainings |
| Show the organisation's training compliance | Fully, partially and non-compliant counts, and the ten biggest gaps |
| Show one site's training compliance | The same for one site. Used by Health and Safety, not by any Staff screen. |
Ratio compliance
These three feed the second screen called Ratio Monitor and are described under Attendance. See Read the ratio monitor.
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Show the ratio dashboard | Works it out live for every active site |
| Show one site's rooms | Room by room. No screen asks for it. |
| Show a site's ratio history | The 15-minute notes. The screen that would show them asks for the wrong page, so it never works. |
Personnel file
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Show a personnel file | Eleven requirements with the status of each document |
| Record a document | A link, not a file. See Build a personnel file. |
| Show Audit Readiness | The eleven requirements across every active staff member |
| Show a health record | Returns an empty record rather than an error when there is none |
| Save a health record | Creates it the first time, updates it after |
Scheduling
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Create a shift | Optionally repeating weekly for 1 to 52 weeks |
| List a site's shifts | Between two dates |
| List a person's shifts | All of them. A date range is accepted from the screen and ignored. |
| Edit a shift | Also clears its confirmation |
| Cancel a shift | Hidden, not erased |
| Confirm a shift | Refused if already confirmed |
| Show coverage gaps | One summary that the screen cannot read. See Schedule shifts. |
| Find cross-site conflicts | Across the whole organisation for a date. No screen asks for it. |
| Save float pool membership | Adds or updates. Nothing can remove. |
| List the float pool |
Onboarding
| Action | What PTRS does |
|---|---|
| Start onboarding | Creates five tracks and thirty-one tasks |
| Show a person's onboarding | The newest workflow that was not cancelled |
| Complete a task | Ticks one task, with an optional note of up to 1,000 characters |
| List active onboardings | Workflows in progress or not started |
Your organisation only
Every action, apart from reading the two lists that belong to no organisation (the positions and the training catalogue), first checks that your account belongs to an organisation and refuses with "Organization context is required." if it does not. Each then confines itself to your organisation's records.
When a staff member is created, PTRS is told which organisation to put them in and writes that down without checking it is yours. The screen always sends your own, so this cannot happen from any screen. Someone with technical access could create a staff member in another organisation. It is recorded for the PTRS team.
What some actions do in detail
Assign a position
PTRS can assign one of the eleven DELACARE positions to a person, after checking the position exists and the person meets its minimum age. Two things make this inert today. No screen asks for it; the Add Staff Member dialog shows a position list and throws the choice away. And the minimum age check only runs when the person has a date of birth on record, and nothing in PTRS records one. So even done by someone with technical access, any position can be assigned to anyone regardless of age.
The five-minute summary
The four figures on the Staff page that come from the summary are remembered for five minutes per organisation and site. Creating, updating, deactivating or reactivating a staff member refreshes them, and so does adding, editing, removing or verifying a credential. Adding a training record, recording a personnel document, completing an onboarding task and confirming a shift do not, so those figures can lag by up to five minutes.
Opening a staff member
The record's credential badges are worked out from the expiry date using the 30-day window. They do not read any special status, so a credential that had been marked revoked would still show as Current here. Nothing can set that status today, so this is latent.
Listing expiring credentials
Every credential in the organisation expiring within 60 days, or already expired, with no limit on how long ago. Ordered by expiry date, so the oldest expiries come first. Each entry carries the person's name and email address.
Reactivating
PTRS has two versions of reactivate. The one in use checks nothing. The other checks for a valid background check and at least one unexpired credential and writes what it found into the audit trail without acting on it. That second version is never connected to any screen.
Coverage gaps
PTRS walks 6 am to 10 pm in half-hour slots and reports each slot where the staff on shift are fewer than required, joining consecutive slots with the same shortfall. Required staff is the children in the site's rooms divided by the strictest ratio rule, applied to the whole site. No room in PTRS ever has a headcount, so no gap is ever reported.
Messages PTRS can give you
| What you see | When |
|---|---|
| Organization context is required. | Any action, when your account is not attached to an organisation |
| Staff member with ID '…' was not found. | The person does not exist, or belongs to another organisation |
| Invalid staff role: '…'. | Adding or updating a staff member with a role PTRS does not know |
| Invalid hire date format: '…'. | Adding a staff member with a date PTRS cannot read |
| Invalid credential type: '…'. | Adding or editing a credential with a type PTRS does not know |
| Invalid (field) format: '…'. | Any date PTRS cannot read |
| Credential with ID '…' was not found. | Editing, removing or verifying a credential that is gone |
| Invalid verification method: '…'. | Verifying with a method PTRS does not know |
| Staff member '…' has no position assigned for gap analysis. | Showing qualification gaps, always |
| An active background check already exists for staff member '…'. | Starting a check while one is open |
| Cannot transition from 'X' to 'Y'. | Advancing a check out of order |
| Background check is already in 'X' status. | Advancing a check to where it already is |
| Training catalog entry with ID '…' was not found. | Adding a training record for a training PTRS does not know |
| Personnel file requirement with ID '…' was not found. | Recording a document against a requirement PTRS does not know |
| Shift end time must be after start time. | Creating or editing a shift |
| Staff member '…' already has an overlapping shift on (date). | Creating or editing a shift |
| Shift '…' is already confirmed. | Confirming twice |
| An active onboarding workflow already exists for staff member '…'. | Starting onboarding while one is open |
| Onboarding task '…' is already completed. | Ticking a task twice |
| No active onboarding workflow found for staff member '…'. | Showing onboarding or ticking a task when there is no workflow |
| Staff member '…' is already active. | Reactivating someone who is active |
| Location with ID '…' was not found. | Coverage gaps, a site's training compliance, or ratio history for a site PTRS does not know |
Actions PTRS can perform that no screen offers
- Deactivate a staff member.
- Assign a position.
- Edit a training record.
- Find cross-site scheduling conflicts across the organisation.
- Show one site's rooms for ratio compliance.
- Show a site's ratio history. The screen that tries asks for the wrong page.
- Show one site's training compliance from within Staff.
- Show qualification gaps for anyone, since nobody has a position.
- Use the careful version of reactivate.
Related
- Staff fields and limits
- What happens automatically, the five nightly checks
- Roles, what each role can do across PTRS
- Read the ratio monitor
Checked against PTRS on 7 September 2026.