User Types classify users, and may also confer roles that grant access to protected areas of the website. Users can be retrieved through User Type in searches and reports tools, such as the User Data Report. User Types can classify users based on membership level, geographic region, market sector, area of interest, or any other classification that is meaningful to the organization.

In an individual-based or mixed organization, Individual Members and Individual Nonmembers may get the roles that confer site access through a User Type.

If Kavi Membership is installed on your website and your organization offers memberships to individuals, your site needs a User Type for each Individual Membership Type. User Types assigned through membership usually convey the 'member' role, which grants access to the Members Areas of the site.

Roles that confer high-level administrative access are usually associated with User Types so they can be assigned selectively to specific individuals. Highly privileged User Types convey administrative or editorial roles that grant access to Admin Tools or Kavi® Edit tools used to manage website pages and content.

Like other types, User Types can be used in searches and filters, to select email recipients for Scheduled Email, retrieve users in reports, etc. This document assumes you are familiar with the concepts introduced in Purpose, Roles, Types and Membership Types.

Every organization has at least three categories of User Types: Admin User Types, Editor User Types and General User Types. If Kavi Membership is installed on your organization's website, you'll also have the Category General : Assigned through Membership Only.

By default, Kavi Members installs two types that provide basic website access: Members Area Access (the confers the 'member' role) and Groups Access (that confers the 'wg_access' role). Other default User Types are all privileged administrative or editorial types that confer high-level access to the website (e.g., Organization Admin, Super Admin, Reports Admin, etc.). These are documented in Default User Types in the Appendix.

Unless Kavi Membership is installed on the site, additional User Types may not be needed. In some cases organizations define semantic User Types (i.e., types without associated roles). These might be used to classify users by geographic region, market sector, interest category or other attributes that are of interest to the organization.

The most common example are User Types that correspond to Individual Membership Types. These types are usually named after the membership types to which they correspond (e.g., 'Supporting', 'Sponsor', 'Academic', etc.), which allows users holding these types of memberships to be retrieved by the corresponding User Type. This kind of User Type is usually associated with roles conferring general access to the Members area (i.e., 'member') and custom roles conferring access privileges to areas used specifically by this type of member (e.g., 'board').

It isn't mandatory for every user to be assigned a User Type, but it is rare to see any who haven't. User Types based on purpose are used to classify individual members, nonmembers, staff and administrators. They may convey roles that grant access to the Members Area, Kavi Groups, Admin Area, Super Admin Area or Kavi Edit tools. If the organization allows nonmembers to login, these users need to acquire the 'member' role through a User Type or a Company Type assigned to their company, so they have access to Member Area Tools that allow them to manage their personal account data.

All User Types installed on the site are managed through Kavi Members.

Super Admins may add User Types for Individual Memberships or other needs that aren't met by the default set. Go to Manage Contact Types and click the link to Add a User Type tool. Use the Edit a User Type tool if you want to rename any one of the default User Types, or edit descriptions or roles.