Administration

The Administration module allows authorised users to configure the core functionality, appearance, and data structures of the MuseumStack instance.

General Settings

Manage your museum’s identity, contact information, and public-facing profile.

Museum Name & Slug: Configures how your museum appears in the application and its URL.
Contact Details: Publicly accessible email and phone for visitor enquiries.
Policies: Define internal data management policies and access rules.

Users & Roles

Manage who can access the system and what they can do.

Inviting Users: Send email invites to new staff members. Invites can be created individually or in bulk via CSV.
Role Assignment: Assign pre-defined roles (e.g., Curator, Admin, Researcher) to control feature access.
Custom Roles: Create custom roles with a tailored set of permissions for your organisation’s structure.
Permission Overrides: Grant or restrict individual permissions for a specific user, independent of their role.

Collection Setup

Define the data structure for your catalogue.

Custom Fields: Add entity-specific fields (Item, Accession, Entry, Contact) to capture unique metadata for your collection.
Form Layouts: Use the Form Builder to arrange fields into named layouts for different departments or data entry workflows (e.g., an “Art Object” layout vs. a “Natural History” layout).
Vocabulary Management: Maintain controlled terms and authority lists for dropdowns and authority-controlled fields.

Compliance Settings

Configure the Compliance Checklist for Accessions — the list of conditions that must be confirmed before an acquisition can progress to approval (e.g., provenance verification, export certificates, CITES permits).

Navigate to Administration > Compliance.
Add checklist items with a label, description, and whether they are mandatory.
Reorder items using the drag handle.
Staff will see this checklist on every Accession form.

Methodology Templates

Define reusable step-by-step process templates that can be attached to collection entities.

Navigate to Administration > Methodologies.
Click New Methodology and specify the Entity Type it applies to (Item, Accession).
Add ordered Steps, each with a name, description, and type.
Staff can start a methodology instance on any compatible record from its detail page.

AI Settings

Configure MuseumStack’s AI features for your museum.

Enable/Disable AI: Toggle AI features on or off globally.
Monthly Credit Limit: Set a spending cap to prevent runaway usage.
Review Before Save: Require staff to manually review AI suggestions before they are applied to records.
Per-Feature Configuration: Enable or disable individual AI features (OCR, describe, cataloguing, condition, paper import, research drafting) and set their model tier.
Purchase Credits: Buy AI credit packs via Stripe (Starter 200 / Standard 1,000 / Pro 5,000 credits).
Usage Report: View credit balance, monthly usage, and a breakdown by feature.

See the AI Assistant guide for full details.

Research Settings

Configure how the Research Requests module handles incoming inquiries.

Auto-Acknowledgement: Automatically send a confirmation email to new web form submissions.
Default Assignee: Assign new requests to a default staff member.

Navigate to Administration > Research Settings.

Audit Logs

Review a chronological log of all significant system actions — who created, edited, or deleted what, and when. This is accessible only to users with the system_admin permission.

Navigate to Administration > Activity Logs.

Permissions Required

Administrative access is highly restricted:

Museum Admin (museum_read, museum_update): Access to general settings and policies.
User Management (users_read, users_manage): Invite staff and assign roles.
Collection Configuration (collections_setup_read, collections_setup_manage): Modify fields and layouts.
AI Management (museum_settings_write, museum_settings_read): Configure and monitor AI features.
System Admin (system_admin): Highest level — required for audit logs and system-wide operations.