Roles & capabilities

Roles are how MaxTrax decides what each person can do. This page is the reference for what each role can do. To actually assign roles to a user, see Manage users & roles.

The short version

A person’s access in MaxTrax is two things working together:

• Roles — what kinds of things they can do (view, record inspections, manage welds, administer).
• Project scope — which projects’ data they can touch (all projects, or a specific set).

Three rules make roles easy to reason about:

1. Roles are cumulative. Each role includes everything the roles below it can do. A Weld Associate can do everything an NDE Inspector and a Reader can, plus manage weld data.
2. A user can hold more than one role. When they do, their most powerful role decides what they can do.
3. The server enforces it. If someone reaches a screen or action their roles don’t cover, MaxTrax shows an Access required message naming what’s needed (for example, “You need a Corporate Administrator role or higher to manage users”) — hiding a button is never the only thing standing between a user and an action they shouldn’t take.

What each role can do

Roles are listed from most access to least. Because roles are cumulative, every ✓ below also belongs to every role above it.

Role	View data	Record inspection & NDT results	Manage weld data	Administer
System Administrator	✓	✓	✓	✓
Corporate Administrator	✓	✓	✓	✓
Project Administrator	✓	✓	✓	—
Project Associate	✓	✓	✓	—
Weld Associate	✓	✓	✓	—
NDE Inspector	✓	✓	—	—
Reader	✓	—	—	—

What the capability columns mean:

• View data — see the welds, ISOs, inspections, test packages, and reports within the user’s project scope. No changes.
• Record inspection & NDT results — create inspections, record their results, and log film intervals (the tasks in Record an inspection result and Record a film interval result).
• Manage weld data — create and update welds and ISOs, complete welds, and assign and sign test packages (see Complete a weld & test-package sign-off).
• Administer — manage users and roles, project and global settings, custom fields and reports, and the audit log.

The roles in detail

Reader

View-only access to everything in the user’s project scope, with no ability to make changes. A good fit for auditors, owner representatives, project managers, and anyone who needs to see the data but not enter it.

NDE Inspector

Records inspection and NDT results — creating inspections, recording pass/fail dispositions, and logging film intervals — on top of everything a Reader can do. This is the field-inspection role.

Weld Associate

Day-to-day weld data entry: create and update welds and ISOs, complete welds, and manage test packages, plus everything a Reader and an NDE Inspector can do. This is the everyday role for data coordinators and foremen who keep weld records current.

Project Associate

A higher tier for coordination roles such as welding engineering and document control. Includes all of the weld-data and inspection capabilities above.

Project Administrator

Oversees a single project’s setup, and includes all of the capabilities above. One everyday action is floored here rather than at Weld Associate: closing a welder qualification lot requires a Project Administrator role or higher.

Corporate Administrator

Full administrative access across projects: manage users and roles, project and global settings, custom fields and reports, and read the audit log. This is the role you assign to the people who run MaxTrax for your organization. Managing users and roles requires this role (or higher).

System Administrator

Reserved for CSDS operator use — it is the break-glass account for the people who run the MaxTrax platform itself. You won’t normally assign this to a project user.

Note

Today, MaxTrax’s admin area — users, roles, project and global settings, custom fields and reports, and the audit log — requires a Corporate Administrator role or higher. Project Administrator and Project Associate are recognized roles that rank above Weld Associate and carry all of the weld-data and inspection capabilities — and closing a welder qualification lot already requires Project Administrator. Finer-grained project-level administration beyond that is being built out, and this page will describe exactly what those roles unlock as it lands.

Roles work together with project scope

A role says what a person can do; project scope says where. A Weld Associate scoped to one project can manage weld data — but only on that project’s welds; the same role scoped to All projects can do it everywhere. You set both in the same place: see the Roles and Project scope sections in Manage users & roles.

Keep both aligned with what each person’s job actually needs, and review them periodically as people move on and off the job.

A note on role names

Some raw exports and older screens may show a role’s internal name. Weld Associate is the role MaxTrax stores as Editor, and NDE Inspector the role stored as NdeAssociate — they are the same roles, just shown with clearer, industry-facing labels in the app. If you see the older name in an export or the audit trail, it refers to the same role described here.

Related

• Manage users & roles — invite users and assign these roles.
• Roles & permissions — the audit-grade reference: exact role names, per-action minimum roles, and every entity-scope axis.
• Admin overview
• Getting started — vocabulary and how this help center is organized.