Understanding default roles in Zendesk Chat

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All administrators and agents using Zendesk Chat are assigned roles that allow or restrict the Chat-related tasks they can perform.

There are two types of roles:

• Default roles, which are defined by Zendesk, and discussed in this article.
• Custom roles, which are defined by your account administrator. See Creating custom Chat roles and assigning users for more information.

This article contains the following topics:

• About Chat default roles
• Using Chat default roles

About Chat default roles

By default, your Chat account includes three roles: Agent, Administrator, and Account owner. Each of these roles by default has standard permissions and abilities.

• Agents can:
  • Chat with customers
  • Create shortcuts
  • Ban visitors
  • View past chats
  • Configure personal settings

  See Getting started for Chat agents for more information on Agent permissions.

• Administrators have all of the default agent privileges. In addition, an administrator can:
  • Configure global and personal settings
  • Manage agents, triggers, and departments
  • Delete chats
  • Use Chat Analytics
  Note: Administrator permissions cannot be modified

  See Getting started for Chat admins for more information on Administrator tasks.

• Account owner has all the default administrator and agent privileges. In addition, the account owner can:
  • Upgrade or downgrade the account's plan
  • Change billing information
  • Access invoices
  • Cancel the account
  Note: Account owner permissions cannot be modified

How these roles are assigned and used is determined by how you use Zendesk Chat:

• Integrated Chat accounts (those that are using both Zendesk Chat and Support) need to consider their agents’ Support roles when assigning Chat roles: An agent must be an administrator in both Chat and Support, or an administrator in neither. However, accounts on some plans can create custom roles with certain administrative privileges in the respective products, and assign them to non-admin agents. For information on roles in integrated accounts, see Setting up Zendesk live chat in Zendesk Support. 

• Chat-only accounts can assign roles as needed, even if they are also Zendesk Support customers , as long as their Chat and Support accounts are not linked together.

See Using Chat default roles, below, for information on working with default roles based on your Chat account version.

Using Chat default roles

You can view the details of a default role on the Roles page in the Chat dashboard.

To view default roles

1. In the Chat dashboard, go to Settings > Roles.
2. Click the role you want to view.

See the following articles for more information:

• To change an agent's or administrator's role, see Creating and updating agents.
• To change the account owner, see Changing your Zendesk Chat account owner.