User accounts

A member of the public who wants to access ASSURE must first register as a user. They must provide or state:

• Name and postal address.

• Email address that is unique to them.

• A preferred telephone number.

• Password of their own choice, subject to certain rules.

• Whether they prefer the authority to contact them by email or post.

  This is their preferred method of written contact or PMoWC (sometimes PMOC).

• For ASSURE Land & Property only, whether they intend to use ASSURE primarily in an Applicant or Agent role.

  (For ASSURE Public Protection, they are assumed to be an Applicant.)

Local authority users, statutory consultees, and local consultation users do not need to register; their user accounts are created for them by others — usually system administrators.

ASSURE supports the following user roles:

• Applicant

  Members of the public who want to submit public-facing Building Control, Planning, or Public Protection applications and worksheets on their own behalf.

  Members of the public who want to submit comments on, or track the progress of, various applications in the Planning, Building Control and Asset Explorers.

• Agent

  Members of the public who want to submit public-facing Building Control or Planning applications on someone else's behalf.

• Authority User

  Officers within your local authority, or persons granted equivalent access.

• System Administrator

  Officers responsible for system administration within your local authority.

• Statutory Consultee

  Persons who need to be able to view and comment on Public Protection applications.

• Local Consultations

  Persons who need to be able to review and comment on Planning applications in a professional capacity.

The user roles associated with each user account define the user's ability to use particular functions and to see particular screens and fields.

A user can have more than one role, although there are restrictions:

• Someone with the Applicant role cannot also have the Agent role (and vice versa).

• Someone with the Statutory Consultee role cannot also have the System Administrator role.

• Someone with the Local Consultations role can also have the Applicant or Agent role.

• Someone with the Authority User role cannot also have the Applicant or Agent role.

• Someone with the System Administrator role must also have the Authority User role.

It is unusual for someone with the Authority User or System Administrator role to also have the Local Consultations role, but this is allowed.

After registration, an ASSURE Land & Property public user may change their role by using the Manage My Account option. Alternatively, the user must choose their role when they make their first online Planning or Building Control application.

The Local Consultations role is initially assigned by an authority user or system administrator. However, a local consultation user (LCU) can then assign this role to any other member of their professional body, optionally with the Applicant or Agent role.

When an authority worker is added to ASSURE, their role is initially Authority User. They can change some of their user details — but not their email address — by using the Manage My Account option.

The Authority User and System Administrator roles can be granted only by system administrators. The System Administrator role can be granted only to someone who is already an Authority User.

A user's account can be active, locked, deactivated or deleted.

• Active

  Normally, a user's account will be active, allowing them to use ASSURE according to their assigned roles.

• Locked

  While a user's account is locked, they cannot log in to ASSURE. This can occur if the user enters an incorrect password multiple times. A system administrator may also lock an account temporarily (for example, during system upgrades).

• Deactivated

  An authority user's account should be deactivated by a system administrator when no longer required (although, exceptionally, it can be reactivated).

• Deleted

  An applicant, agent, or local consultation user (LCU) can delete their own account. The user must confirm that this is what they want to do.

  • Their user account is anonymised.

  • Their name is removed from all audit records and error records.

  • Their draft public-facing applications and comments are deleted, along with any attachments.

  An LCU's account can also be deleted by any other LCU within their professional body, by an authority user, or by a system administrator.

  

Usually, every authority user is a particular officer of the authority, and officers are grouped into teams.

• For ASSURE Land & Property, officers and teams are defined by Officer and Team records. An authority user is identified with an Officer record that has the same name and email address. Teams are defined in terms of their members, so a user automatically becomes a member of their officer's team or teams.

• For ASSURE Public Protection, officers and teams are defined by the Officer and Team code types. An authority user is identified with an officer and a team in their user account; an officer can be a member of at most one team. Notice that these teams are not defined in terms of their members.

There is no strict requirement for an authority user to be identified as an officer or as part of a team — this is simply the usual practice. Conversely, of course, not every officer of the authority will be an ASSURE user.

A user's ability to access and use the various features of ASSURE is defined separately from their user account.

• For ASSURE Land & Property, a user's access is determined by their permissions, which are organised into groups of functions and users.

  Tell me more

• For ASSURE Public Protection, a user's access is determined by the keys in their security profile.

  Tell me more

Authority users can be assigned a default dashboard type, that is displayed to them as soon as they log in to ASSURE.

ASSURE shows pop-up notifications to authority users and system administrators when significant events occur. Some of these notifications can be individually enabled and disabled in a user's account.

Whenever an authority user account is created, a corresponding NEC Document Management user account will be created automatically the first time the user tries to access NEC DM.