Creating custom WFM roles and assigning users

Admins can create custom workforce management (WFM) agent roles that reflect the unique positions in your organization.

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Workforce Management (WFM) or Workforce Engagement Management (WEM)

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Create custom workforce management roles to align with your organization's structure by defining specific permissions and access for agents, team leads, and managers. Assign users to these roles to ensure they have the appropriate access to teams, locations, and workstreams. Note that users can only have one role at a time, and role changes are effective immediately upon assignment.

Admins can create custom workforce management (WFM) agent roles that reflect the unique positions in your organization.

Use custom roles to allow or restrict access based on your organization’s structure and access management needs. Create roles and assign different permissions for agents, team leads, admins, managers, or other users.

This article contains the following topics:

• Creating custom WFM roles
• Assigning users to custom WFM roles

Related articles

• Understanding WFM roles and permissions
• Managing WFM roles and permissions

Creating custom WFM roles

Before creating roles, you may want to align with other stakeholders in your organization on what roles you’ll need. To learn more, see Who uses Zendesk Workforce management and when.

To create custom WFM roles

1. In Workforce management, click People in the sidebar, then select Roles and permissions.
2. Click the Add Role icon ().
3. Enter a Role name, then click Add role.

   The new role appears in the All roles panel.

4. Define permissions by switching the toggles to the on position.

   

   Use the search box to find a permission quickly.

   See WFM permissions for more information.

5. Click the Scopes tab.
6. Define the Teams, Locations, and Workstreams that users assigned to this role will have access to.

   

7. Click Save.

   Next, assign users to the role.

Assigning users to custom WFM roles

Users can be assigned to only one WFM role at a time. By default, all users are automatically assigned to either the standard WFM admin or agent role depending on their role in your Zendesk account. See Standard WFM roles.

When you assign users to a new WFM role, the change takes effect immediately. Users will see the change when they refresh their browsers or navigate to another page.

Be aware of auto-scope expansion for custom role users. Teams, Locations and Workstreams created by users assigned to a custom WFM role are automatically added to the scope of that role. This means that all users with this custom role can also see and edit new teams, locations, and workstreams.

For example, if a user with the "Manager" custom role creates the location "London", all users with the "Manager" role will be able to see and edit that same “London” location.

Teams and workstreams that admins create aren’t subject to this auto-expansion. Review scopes whenever a custom role user creates new organizational items. See Best practices for controlling access in WFM.

Note: You cannot change your own role. To do so, you need to request assistance from another user with admin permissions. This policy is in place to prevent the accidental loss of admin privileges.

To assign users to a custom WFM role

1. In Workforce management, click People in the sidebar, then select Roles and permissions.
2. Select the role to which you want to assign users.
3. Click the Agents tab.
4. Find the users you want to assign to the selected role.

   You can filter the list of agents by group, team, location, role, or view all users in your account. Or, use the search bar to find a specific agent.

5. Hover over the user’s default role and click Reassign.

   

6. Continue to assign users to the role, then click Save.