Universal roles

Most roles in SteadyOn are filled by a specific subset of people — First Aiders, Site Supervisors, Forklift Operators. A few roles genuinely apply to everyone — Worker, Inducted Personnel.

A universal role is one with the Universal flag set. SteadyOn auto-assigns it to every non-exempt person in your roster.

Why this is useful

Without universal roles, you’d have to manually assign every person to “Worker” — which means you’d inevitably forget someone, and your training compliance percentages would be wrong.

With universal, the assignment is automatic. New person added → auto-assigned to Worker → required induction training shows up immediately as a gap (until you enrol them).

When to mark a role universal

Tick Universal when every person in your roster (with rare exceptions) is in this role. Common cases:

Worker — every paid person doing work.
Inducted Personnel — once they’ve passed induction.
Site User — for orgs that bring visitors into a register and expect minimum standards (e.g. PPE).

Don’t tick it when coverage is the point of having the role. Examples:

❌ First Aider. You have a specific number of trained first aiders; the role’s value is that it’s not universal.
❌ Site Supervisor. Specific people are supervisors; you want to know who.
❌ Fire Warden. Same.

Exceptions: marking a person exempt

Some people in your roster shouldn’t pick up the universal roles — typically external contractors who don’t fall under your training regime. On the person’s record, tick Exempt from universal roles. They’re skipped over by the auto-assignment.

This is the “rare exceptions” escape hatch. It keeps your universal roles useful (auto-applies to almost everyone) without forcing you to mistakenly mark contractors as Workers.

Universal roles and gaps

A universal role can carry training requirements. When the requirement exists and a person’s enrollment doesn’t, that’s a gap. Gaps roll up into the dashboard’s compliance overview percentages.

Example flow:

Define role Worker with Universal ticked.
Add a Requirement: Worker → HSWA Induction (Required).
Add a Person: Bob Wilson.
Bob is auto-assigned to Worker.
Bob doesn’t have an HSWA Induction enrollment.
The role’s Assignments tab shows “Bob: gap — HSWA Induction missing”.
The dashboard’s compliance overview includes this gap.

When you enrol Bob in HSWA Induction with status Passed, the gap clears.

What gets recalculated when

Add a new person: auto-assignment runs immediately.
Add a new universal role: assignment runs across every existing non-exempt person.
Mark an existing role universal: same.
Remove the universal flag from a role: existing assignments stay. They become regular assignments.
Mark a person exempt: auto-assignments are removed; manual assignments stay.