Your gift shop lead needs to add new items, receive a shipment, and fix an inventory count. Today that means one of two bad options: hand them a near-admin role that also opens constituent records, revenue, and membership settings, or have them email someone in the office every time a SKU changes. Neither holds up for long.
Altru doesn’t come with a role built for the shop manager, so you’ll have to make one. The good news is that Altru’s security model is built for exactly this: a system role is a named bundle of permissions, and you assign it to the staff who need it. The work is less about clicking through screens and more about deciding what the job actually is.
Start with the job, not the permission list
Altru’s permission lists are long, and if you open them with no plan you’ll grant too much just to make errors go away. Before you touch anything, sit down with the shop lead for twenty minutes and write down what they do in a normal month. A typical list looks like this:
- Create and edit merchandise items, including descriptions, prices, and departments
- Manage vendors and purchase orders, and receive inventory against them
- Run physical counts and adjust inventory when stock is damaged, lost, or miscounted
- Ring up sales and process returns at the shop register
- Run merchandise sales and inventory reports
Then write down what they should not do. This list matters just as much. Common answers: edit constituent records beyond what a sale requires, see donor giving history, change membership programs or ticket pricing, post revenue to the general ledger, or manage other users’ security.
Some items will be judgment calls, and those are where you’ll want a decision from leadership, not just from IT:
- Inventory adjustments. Letting the same person receive stock, count it, and write it off is convenient, but it removes a natural check. Some organizations split this so a second person approves or reviews adjustments.
- Price and cost visibility. Should the shop manager see unit cost and margin? Usually yes. Should seasonal register staff? Usually no.
- Refunds and discounts. Decide whether the manager can issue refunds on their own and whether there’s a limit you expect them to respect.
Build the role
System roles are managed in the security area of Altru’s administration. The basic pattern:
- Create a new system role with a clear name, such as “Merchandise Manager,” and a description that states who it’s for and when it was last reviewed.
- Grant the merchandise features from your “should do” list. Work feature by feature rather than granting a whole functional area at once, unless you’ve confirmed that everything in that area belongs in the job.
- Add only the supporting access the job needs. Point-of-sale work usually needs some ability to look up or add a constituent at checkout. Reporting usually needs access to the specific merchandise reports or queries, not the full query area.
- Assign the role to the right application users. A person can hold more than one role, so a shop manager who also works the admissions desk can keep their existing desk role and add this one.
If someone already has a role that’s close, such as an existing shop or POS role, it can be faster to copy it and adjust. Before you copy, review what the original grants. Copying a role that’s too broad just gives you a second role that’s too broad.
We’re not listing exact feature names here on purpose. They vary with how your Altru instance is set up, and a guessed label is worse than none. Search the role’s feature list for “merchandise,” “inventory,” “purchase order,” and “vendor” to find the relevant ones in your environment.
Test it as the user, not as an admin
Admins can’t test permissions from their own login, because they can already do everything. Create a test user (or use a staff member who’s willing), assign only the new role, and work through the “should do” list one item at a time. Then try a few things from the “should not” list and confirm they’re blocked.
Expect a few rounds. The common pattern is that the main task works but a step in the middle fails: the item saves, but the department picker is empty, or the purchase order opens but receiving it throws a permission error. Each error message usually points to the missing feature. Grant that one feature, not the whole area around it.
If you’re unsure whether a specific merchandise action can be separated into its own permission, for example whether inventory adjustments can be granted separately from item editing, test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before you build a process that depends on it.
Keep it from drifting
Roles drift. Someone hits an error during the holiday rush, an admin grants a broad permission to get them through the day, and nobody takes it back. A few habits help:
- Write the role down. Keep a short document listing what the role is for and which features it grants. When something gets added, record why.
- Review after updates. When Blackbaud releases new merchandise functionality, check whether your custom role needs the new features. Don’t assume they’ll be added to custom roles on their own.
- Review at staff changes. When the shop manager leaves or a seasonal lead takes over, confirm the role still fits the person and remove it from anyone who no longer needs it.
- Check once a year. Pull the list of users assigned to the role and compare it to who actually runs the shop today.
Quick answers
Is there a built-in merchandise manager role in Altru?
Not one designed for that job that we’d rely on as-is. Build a custom system role scoped to your shop’s actual tasks, and treat any existing role you start from as a draft.
Can the shop manager have this role and a front desk role at the same time?
Yes. Altru users can hold multiple system roles, and their permissions combine. That’s usually cleaner than one oversized role that tries to cover both jobs.
Should register staff get the same role?
Usually not. Give cashiers a narrower role that covers selling and simple returns, and keep item setup, purchasing, and inventory adjustments with the manager.
