Topic and item
A Topic is a register you design. Each record in it is an item, with a reference such as INC-0042.
Members and roles
Nobody sees a Topic until they're added to it as a member and given at least one of its roles. Each Topic has its own roles:
Owner - can do everything (though still bound by the workflow).
Topic Admin - a built-in role whose permissions the Owner can adjust.
Your own roles - such as Investigator, Area Manager or Birmingham Manager.
One role at a time
When you open a Topic you pick one role, and everything you see and do is in that role. If you hold two roles and need the other one's view, switch roles. Every change is recorded with your name and the role you were using.
What a role sees
Each role has:
Field access - for each field: Hide, See or Edit. The fields it can edit are its zone, its area of responsibility.
Scope - which parts of a list or tree it covers (for example Midlands, and everything below it). It only sees items in its scope.
States - which workflow stages it can see items in, and which moves it can make.
Nothing a role can't see ever leaves the server: not in forms, grids, exports or PDFs.
Broad or Narrow
When an item has several values that limit who sees it (say, two sites), a Topic is either:
Broad - a role sees the item if it covers any of them, and edits only the values it covers;
Narrow - a role must cover all of them.
An empty value neither hides nor reveals an item.
Draft and publish
A Topic is designed as a draft. Publishing makes a new version that everyone then works with. You can keep improving the draft without disturbing people; they get your changes when you publish again.