Creating custom roles and assigning agents

On Enterprise plans, you can define your own agent roles and assign agents to those roles. This allows you to define agent roles that suit your own organizational structure and workflow.

Admins and agents in custom roles with permission can create and assign custom roles. However, agents can't modify their own role assignments or permissions.

This article contains the following topics:

• Creating custom agent roles
• Assigning agents to custom roles

Related articles

• Understanding native custom agent roles in Zendesk Support

Creating custom agent roles

You can create your own agent roles or base a new role on a native role that is predefined for you. You can either edit or clone most existing roles, or create a new role from scratch. You can create a maximum of 197 custom roles for your account. Each of your custom roles must have a unique name that isn’t too similar to the names of existing roles, such as Admin or Administrator.

To create a new role

1. In Admin Center, click People in the sidebar, then select Team > Roles.
2. Click Create role.

   

   Alternatively, you can copy an existing role for your new role. Hover over the row of the role you want to clone, then click the options icon () and select Clone.
3. Enter a unique Name and Description for the role.

   The name must not be too similar to the name of existing roles, such as Admin or Administrator.

4. Define and create the agent role as described in Permissions that agents with custom roles can have.
5. When you've finished defining the new role, click Save.

Permissions that agents with custom roles can have

When creating custom agent roles, you choose from an extensive list of permissions that define what agents can do.

Permissions	Description
Tickets	You can define an agent's access to tickets, the types of comments they can make, and their editing permissions. An agent may access tickets in one of the following ways: Assigned to them Requested by end users in their organizations Within their groups Assign tickets to any group: Assign tickets to groups they don't belong to, including private groups. All within their groups and all public groups: Enable agents to access and assign tickets within their groups, all public groups, and tickets that haven't been assigned to a group. Assign tickets to any group: Assign tickets to groups they don't belong to, including private groups. All (including suspended tickets) Notwithstanding ticket access restrictions, cc'ing an agent (including a Light Agent) on any ticket lets the agent receive email notifications of all public and private updates to the ticket. Interacting with tickets: Edit ticket properties : Be assigned to tickets and edit properties. Edit ticket tags: Add and remove tags on tickets. Agents without this can still set custom fields, but can't add tags with macros. Redact ticket content: Permanently remove sensitive ticket attachments and text in comments and side conversations. Merge tickets: Merge two tickets. Delete tickets: Delete tickets and mark a ticket as spam. The agent must also have permission to delete end users. View deleted tickets: Access the deleted tickets view, recover deleted tickets, and delete tickets permanently. Agents can add ticket comments in one of the following ways: Private comments only Public and private comments Additional ticket settings: View satisfaction prediction for tickets: View the predicted satisfaction ratings for tickets. Agents without this permission can still see the satisfaction prediction in views they can access. Manage ticket fields: Create, modify, and delete ticket fields. Manage ticket forms: Create, modify, and delete ticket forms.
People	You can define an agent's access to users and user profiles. An agent may view and edit end user profiles in one of the following ways: Read only: View end user profiles, but can't create new end users. Add and edit within their organization: Newly-created end users will automatically be assigned to the agent's organization. If your account has multiple organizations, the end user is assigned to the agent's default organization. Add, edit, and delete for all end users: Newly-created end users won't have an organization associated with them. Permissions to edit end users enables the agent to verify end users. Only admins can change a user's role. Managing roles: Create, edit, and delete roles: Create and modify all roles other than their own. Viewing and managing customer lists with the Customer List add-on: View only Add and edit personal lists Add and edit personal and groups lists Add and edit personal, group, and global customer lists Managing groups: Add and remove team members from groups: Manage team members assigned to groups. Manage groups: Create, edit, and delete groups. Managing organizations: Manage organizations: Add, update, and delete organizations. Manage end users assigned to the organization. Manage organization fields: Add, edit, and delete custom fields for organizations for end users. (Only admins can manage organization fields for agents and other admins.) Other user-related permissions: Manage user fields: Create, modify, and delete custom fields for user profiles for end users. (Only admins can manage user fields for agents or other admins.) View user profile lists: Search for users by name, email address, phone number, or organization. Doesn’t affect the agent’s ability to add end users or edit their profiles.
Channels	Depending on the channels and admin permissions that have been enabled for your account, agents may also be allowed to do any of the following: Manage channels and extensions: Manage channels including email, social messaging apps, and other modes of communication. Extensions include targets, webhooks, and integrations. Note: Depending on your admin permissions, some channels may not appear in the menu. Manage Facebook pages: Add Facebook pages that create tickets from Facebook wall posts. Access saved Twitter searches: Access Tweets from the Twitter saved search stream. Access Chat requests: Access chats from end users. Answer and place phone calls: Answer calls from and place calls to end users.
Agent workflow	The Agent workflow section includes access and editing permissions for views, reports, macros, and dynamic content. Views are predefined conditions for a collection of tickets. Agents may access views in one of the following ways: Play views only See views only Add and edit personal views Add and edit personal and group views Add and edit personal, group, and global views Macros apply predefined actions to a ticket. Agents may do the following with Macros: Apply only: Can apply macros, but can't add or edit them. Add and edit personal macros Add and edit personal and group macros Add and edit personal, group, and global macros Additional agent workflow settings: Access dynamic content: View, add, and edit dynamic content. Manage contextual workspaces: View, add, and edit contextual workspaces. Contribute to side conversations: Reply to or start new side conversations with third parties or other agents outside the ticket flow. Without this, agents can only view side conversations. This option is only available if your Zendesk plan includes side conversations (see Using side conversations in tickets).
Business rules	You can decide if agents can manage business rules. Automations: View, add, edit, and delete automations. Skills: View, add, edit, and delete skills. Service level agreements (SLAs): View, add, edit, and delete SLAs. Triggers: View, add, edit, and delete triggers. Business rules analysis: Can access business rules analysis.
Help center (if enabled)	You can give agents help center permissions. Manage Guide: Access the help center as an admin to manage articles, themes, and setting. When this option is selected, agents in this role have Guide admin permissions. When this option is not selected, agents in this role have Guide viewer permissions. For more information, see Understanding Guide roles. When this setting is not selected, it does not necessarily mean that agents can't add and edit articles and posts. Permission to add and edit articles is determined by user management permissions set on each article (see Setting agent editing and publishing permissions on articles). Permission to add and edit posts is set at the topic level and applies to all posts in the topic (see Allowing agents to add or edit posts in community topics).
Analytics (if Explore is enabled)	If Explore is enabled, you can configure the level of access that agents have to analytics by defining what agents can do with the Explore reports. Explore permissions include: No access View reports: View shared dashboards only. Can't access shared reports in the Report Builder. Create reports: Create, edit, and share reports. Create reports and manage permissions: Full admin permissions to Explore. Permissions for the Reports tool in Support include: No access View only: View reports only. Create reports and manage permissions: Full admin permissions to Explore. Additional Analytics settings include: View Talk dashboard: View details about calls on the Talk dashboard.For more details, see Giving agents access to Explore.

Permissions that agents with custom roles can't have

There are some permissions that are available to admins that you can't assign to agents with custom roles. For example:

• Create or edit other agent or admin profiles
• Install apps
• Change a user's role
• Create custom agent roles
• Bulk import orgs or users
• Delete call recordings from tickets
• Assume other agents
• Edit subscriptions (including trials)
• Generate and manage API tokens

For more information about agent and admin permissions, see Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.

Assigning agents to custom roles

You can assign agents to a custom role from the role's settings or from the agent's profile.

To add agents to a custom role

1. In Admin Center, click People in the sidebar, then select Team > Roles.
2. On the role you want to add agents to, click the options icon () and select Edit.

   A detailed view of the custom role's settings is displayed. A list of team members in this role is visible in a panel on the right.

3. Click the Actions menu, then Assign role.

   The Assign role window is displayed.

4. In the Select team members field, select a team member from the list or search for a team member’s name and select it from the search results.

   To add additional team members, search again and select another team member.

   To remove an agent from the Select team members field, click the x next to their name.

5. Click Assign role.

   An updated list of agents in the role is displayed on the role settings page.