Lawmaker is a shared service than enables users to work on projects and documents with other users. However, because it is used across different organisations and jurisdictions, it needs to carefully manage who can see and edit projects and documents within Lawmaker.
This page explains the basics of how user permissions are managed in Lawmaker and sets out some scenarios for how you might use Lawmaker’s features to collaborate with others.
Organisations and users
In Lawmaker, each user is assigned to an organisation (and only one).
Organisations within Lawmaker are configured by the Lawmaker Service Team and their suppliers and generally match real-life organisations. So, for example, there is an organisation in Lawmaker for the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and there is one for HMRC. When a new user group joins Lawmaker, the Service Team work with the organisations concerned to establish the most appropriate organisational structure within Lawmaker. The organisation setup can be modified over time as well, e.g. to reflect changes in government.
Why are organisations important?
In Lawmaker, when you create a project or a document in that project, by default all users in the same organisation as you can see and edit that document. Users in other organisations will not be able to edit those documents and won’t even be aware they exist. So the organisation setting is crucial for ensuring
(You can lock down permissions to specific named users within an organisation but you can’t extend permissions to edit beyond your organisation - see Managing document permissions.)
Collaborating on documents within the same organisation
TBC
working on the same document at the same time - Locking document fragments/multi-user editing
Working on separate documents within the same project - Documents and folders on the Project Tab
Copying provisions between documents - Copying provisions between documents - push/pull
Collaborating on documents between organisations
TBC
Sharing a document with another organisation - Sharing a document with another organisation
Some example scenarios
SI drafter is based in one organisation, submitter in another
tbc - set out SI hub example
Drafter is doing “agency” work on behalf of another organisation
tbc - set out version of DCMS example