Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): A Practical Guide for SaaS Dashboards
How to design roles and permissions for a SaaS dashboard — and the mistakes that lead to data leaks.
Most SaaS dashboards start with two roles: "admin" and "user." That works fine until a customer asks for a third role, or two users on the same team need different permissions, or an admin action needs to be restricted to account owners specifically. This guide covers how to design roles that hold up as those requests come in.
The focus here is on practical design, not a specific framework, though the same principles apply whether you're using Supabase, a custom backend, or anything in between.
Why 'Admin' and 'User' Usually Isn't Enough
Real organizations have more nuance than a binary split: a team owner, members with different permission levels, billing contacts, read-only viewers. Designing for exactly two roles from the start often means awkward workarounds later — like giving someone "admin" access just so they can see a billing page.
Designing Roles Around Real Workflows
Rather than starting from generic role names, start from the actions that need to be restricted: who can invite team members, who can change billing, who can delete data, who can view but not edit. Roles fall out of grouping those permissions in ways that match how your customers actually work.
Enforcing Permissions on the Backend, Not Just the UI
Hiding a button from users without the right role is a UX nicety — it is not access control. The underlying API or database call needs to independently verify permissions, because a user can call that endpoint directly regardless of what the UI shows them.
Row-Level Security as Your Last Line of Defense
Even with correct application-level checks, Row-Level Security policies at the database level provide a backstop — if a bug in application logic lets a request through that shouldn't be allowed, RLS can still prevent the wrong data from being returned.
Auditing Who Can Do What
As roles and permissions grow, it becomes valuable to be able to answer "who can currently do X" for any action — both for your own debugging and for customers who ask about their team's access. A simple permissions matrix, kept up to date, goes a long way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should permission checks happen on the frontend or backend?
Both, but for different reasons — frontend checks improve the user experience by hiding actions a user can't take; backend checks are what actually prevent unauthorized actions and must never be skipped.
Is RLS necessary if our API already checks permissions?
It's not strictly required, but it's a strong safety net — bugs in application logic happen, and RLS limits the damage if one slips through.
How do you add RBAC to an app that wasn't designed with it?
Usually by identifying the actual roles needed based on how the product is used, then adding a roles and permissions table and updating API routes and RLS policies to check against it — without changing the existing UI structure.
Related Reading
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