HappenBoard defines its own set of permissions rather than reusing the WordPress ones. Activation grants them to two roles: Administrator gets everything, Editor gets the day-to-day work. This guide says exactly where the line falls.
Administrator and Editor side by side
Each line is one permission, followed by who holds it out of the box.
- Manage events: Administrator and Editor. Create, edit and trash any event, and manage the event categories and tags.
- Manage venues: Administrator and Editor.
- Manage organizers: Administrator and Editor.
- View attendees: Administrator and Editor. Read the Attendees screen and the sign-up list on an individual event.
- Export attendees: Administrator only.
- Manage settings: Administrator only.
- Manage integrations: Administrator only.
- Manage booking types: Administrator and Editor.
- Manage availability: Administrator and Editor.
- View bookings: Administrator and Editor.
Authors, Contributors and Subscribers receive nothing. They can browse the public site like any visitor, but the HappenBoard menu does not appear for them.
Nothing here overlaps with the standard WordPress capabilities. Someone who can already publish posts on your site still gets no access to your calendar unless one of these permissions is granted to their role.
Why exporting attendees is separate
Reading the attendee list and downloading it are two different risks. The export produces a file of names, email addresses and whatever your form asked for, sitting on someone’s laptop outside WordPress. Handing that to every Editor by default would be careless, so the permission is granted on top of viewing, never instead of it. Editors can still work with individual sign-ups on the Attendees screen; they simply cannot bulk-download them.
The same reasoning shapes how HappenBoard handles personal data requests.
What Editors do not see
The menu is built from these permissions, so an Editor signing in finds no Settings and no Integrations entry at all. Everything behind the settings permission is out of reach for them, including:
- General and email settings
- Migration from another plugin and .ics import
- The CSV and settings backup tools
- Health and the maintenance actions
- The system status report
That is worth knowing before you ask an Editor to run an import for you. See the health and maintenance guide for what sits behind that wall.
Changing the defaults
The permissions are ordinary WordPress capabilities, so any role editor plugin can move them around. The names to look for are:
happenboard_manage_eventshappenboard_manage_venueshappenboard_manage_organizershappenboard_view_attendeeshappenboard_export_attendeeshappenboard_manage_settingshappenboard_manage_integrationshappenboard_manage_booking_typeshappenboard_manage_availabilityhappenboard_view_bookings
There is an eleventh, happenboard_host, which no role holds by default. It is meant to be assigned to one person at a time so that they see only their own availability and their own bookings rather than everybody’s.
When the grants are applied and removed
Permissions are granted when you activate the plugin, and adding them again is harmless, so an update never wipes a grant you added by hand. Deactivating HappenBoard leaves them in place. They are only stripped from every role if you uninstall with data removal deliberately turned on.
HappenBoard Pro adds further permissions of its own for tickets, orders and check-in. Those are covered in the Pro roles guide.