Project Center Licensing and Roles

This topic explains how Project Center licensing and user roles work.

Project Center is licensed per Project Center user, no matter the user’s role.

Project Center has two main user types: NPC User, which is the type assigned any user who needs to work in the Project Center client; and NPC API Service Account, which is required to work with Project Center connectors.

Project Center has multiple roles – Non-Professional, Professional, Contract Manager, Financial Manager, Project Creator, Content Administrator, and Global Administrator (see below for descriptions). All licensed users can view almost all information, with the exception of the limits described under Financial Manager below. The licenses and roles determine which items a user can add, modify, and delete.

Roles are assigned by administrators in the Modify User dialog box, accessed from the Project Center Administration Activity Center Licensing tab. The number of licenses that administrators can assign is specified in the Project Center Server license file. You can see the total number of licenses per server in the General tab of the Project Center Administration activity center Servers tab.

The tasks for features that are not licensed for a user will be disabled. When a disabled task is clicked by an unlicensed user, a message appears indicating that the user is not licensed to use the feature. Users have the option to remove the disabled tasks from all activity centers. If they are subsequently given licenses to the activity centers, the tasks reappear and are enabled.

Licenses have an expiration date. When the user licenses expire, the license will also expire for the Newforma Project Center Server.

Removing users frees up licenses. To remove a user, go to the Project Center Administration activity center Licensing tab and click Remove Project Center User from the Tasks panel. This releases a Non-Professional license, and a Professional license if that role was assigned to the selected user. You might also want to uninstall the Project Center client from the user’s machine, as anyone starting the application will automatically take a license.

 

NPC User Roles

Non-Professional users

Non-Professional users can view all Project Center information.

Non-Professional users can create, modify, and delete items in the following areas: Newforma Viewer; markups; project email; project files; My Project Center activity center; meeting minutes; search.

Professional users

Professional is the default role.

Professional users can do all that non-Professional users can do, as indicated above, plus they can also create, modify, and delete any Project Center items except for contract management items.

Deleting items from certain Professional features is limited to global administrators.

Users who do not have a Professional role can add email messages to items via the Email Log tab in the various activity centers under the Professional category as well as file email messages to Project Center items from the legacy Project Center Add-in for Microsoft Outlook.

Contract Managers

Contract Managers (CMs) can do all that Professional users can do, plus they can create and modify contract management items. Once users are given a CM role, contract management tasks are enabled that allow CMs to create and edit contract management items. The CM role also enables filing these items from the legacy Project Center Add-in for Microsoft Outlook and the Newforma Viewer. A CM role is not a separate license. – it is an additional role that can be assigned to Professional users.

Users who do not have a Contract Management role can add email messages to contract management items via the Email Log tab in the various Contract Management Item activity centers as well as file email messages to contract management items from the legacy Project Center Add-in for Microsoft Outlook.

Financial Managers

Users assigned a Financial Manager role can view/create/edit/delete change order proposals, change orders, contracts, and potential change orders.

Users without the Financial Manager role cannot even view any of the indicated activity center items.

Document Controllers

Users assigned a Document Controller role can create, modify, delete, and issue record documents and record document packages in the Document Control activity center. Users without the Document Controller role can open, view, publish, and create exports. All users are assigned the Document Controller role by default.

Project Creators

Users assigned a Project Creator role can create Project Center projects.

Content Administrators

Users assigned a Content Administrator role can use the Newforma Contact Directory to add and modify companies, contacts, and keyword lists, and to add, modify, and delete form letters. It also enables the user to use the Modify Keyword Lists task in the My Project Center activity center to add and modify Project Center keyword lists.

Global Administrators

Users assigned a Project Center Global Administrator role have the following abilities and privileges that non-administrative Professional users don’t:

Access to the Edit Project Settings dialog box to edit a project’s settings and assign project administrators.

An Edit Project Settings task on the Project Home activity center to edit the open project’s settings.

The ability to delete submittals, transmittals, and action items, and send an email messaget to reset Info Exchange passwords.

The ability to add and delete milestones, phases, and holidays in the project timeline.

All of the administrative tasks that are listed under Project Center Administration in this Help system’s Table of Contents.

There are two levels of project administration:

Project Center Administrators (also called Global Administrators) – only Project Center administrators can access all administration features. Global administrators administer all projects on all Project Center Servers listed in the Servers tab. When Project Center administrators (users that have access to this activity center) are creating projects, they can select who has administrative rights for each project.

Project Administrators – When a Project Center administrator grants administrative rights to a project to Project Center users, those users have all of the administrative privileges listed under Project Center administrators, but only for the project they are assigned to. Use the Create Project dialog box or the Edit Project Settings dialog box to assign project administrators.

Once project administrators have access to the Edit Project Settings dialog box, they can then add other administrators to the project.

Restricted User

(option only available in version 12.4 and later)

Users assigned a Restricted User role are not able to see or interact with any projects unless they are on the project team for a given project. This allows a company to create a domain account for a third party, perhaps a contractor or consultant, and let the user operate as an internal user in Project Center, while limiting the scope of the projects they can access.

Restricted users can also be assigned any other role, with the exception of Global Administrator. For example, a restricted user can also be a Contract Manager if they need to process submittals and RFIs

Restricted users do not have access to the Project Assignment tab in the Add/Modify Project Team dialog box.

Restricted users do not have access to the Create Projects by Team Members Report task on the Project Center Administration Licensing tab

If a user has a project on their My Projects tab, and the user is then set to a Restricted user without access to that project, they will continue to see the project while Project Center is open. If they close and reopen Project Center and try to access the project, they will see the following message: "Unable to open the specified project". The message also appears if the project is selected from the top dropdown or the Select Project dialog box.

Newforma API Service Account

The Newforma API Service Account role automatically grants the permissions required for successfully interacting with Project Center connectors. See the Modify User dialog box topic for additional details.

Construction Administration

This API Service Account option is used with the Project Center workflow connectors for Procore, BIM 360, and ConstructEx workflow connectors.

The Construction Administration option is automatically granted the Professional User and Contract Manager roles.

ERP

This API Service Account option is used with the BST ERP connector.

The ERP option is automatically granted the Global Administrator, Project Creator, and Content Administrator roles.

Info Exchange licensing

There are no licensing restrictions on Info Exchange. All of the functionality is available to both internal and external project team members. They just need to be given access to it by a Project Center administrator.