Understanding WFM roles and permissions

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

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Understand workforce management roles and permissions to control access to features and data. Use standard roles like Admin and Agent or create custom roles to match your organization’s structure. Assign permissions for tasks like scheduling, reporting, and time-off management, and define scopes to limit access to specific teams and locations. This setup ensures users have the necessary access without overexposure.

Zendesk Workforce management (WFM) roles and permissions ensure that agents and admins have access to the WFM features they need to use.

Your account includes standard, predefined roles that all Zendesk users are initially assigned to. You can also create your own custom WFM roles to reflect your organization's structure and access management system.

This article contains the following topics:

Overview of WFM roles and permissions
Standard WFM roles
Custom WFM roles
WFM permissions

Overview of WFM roles and permissions

WFM roles and permissions allow you to manage who can do what in your account. They help your organization run smoothly by making sure everyone has the access they need.

There are two kinds of roles:

Standard roles are predefined and can’t be deleted. All users in your Zendesk account are assigned to a standard role initially depending on what their role is in Zendesk.
Custom roles are defined by admins who determine which parts of your WFM account users in these roles can access. This includes who can see which teams, locations, and workstreams.

When you assign someone to a role, they inherit the permissions and scopes associated with the role. Note that users can be assigned to only one role at a time.

Both standard and custom roles have the same structure, which include:

Permissions – Allows users to access certain areas of your WFM account, such as scheduling, reporting, or admin settings. Permissions keep your account secure and ensure that users have access only to what they need.
Scopes – Determines the teams, locations, and workstreams that users have access to in their role. Setting the scope for a role allows admins to give users permission for certain features, without sharing information about all teams, locations, and workstreams.
Agents – The users assigned to the role.

Standard WFM roles

Your WFM account has two standard, predefined roles: Admin and Agent. By default, Zendesk admins are automatically assigned to the WFM admin role. The rest of your Zendesk team members are assigned to the WFM agent role.

In addition to the standard roles, you can create custom roles that reflect your organization’s structure and reassign users to those roles.

Admin role

The standard WFM admin role can’t be edited, except to be renamed, or deleted.

WFM admins have permissions for all features, can manage which users are assigned to each role, and their scope includes access to information about all teams, locations, and workstreams.

Your account must always have at least one user assigned to the default WFM admin role. For example, you may want your system administrator to be assigned to this role so that they have full access to all features and resources in the system.

Agent role

The standard WFM agent role can’t be deleted.

By default, the standard WFM agent role gives permission for agents to access only the Schedule in Zendesk Support. Admins can edit this role to give permission to access more features though.

The scope for users assigned to the standard WFM agent role includes access to information about their own teams, locations, and workstreams.

Custom WFM roles

Custom WFM roles are roles admins create that reflect your organization’s structure. Create custom roles to allow or restrict access and specify different permissions for your agents, team leads, admins, managers, or other roles.

Common examples of roles you may want to create include:

Manager
Supervisor
Team lead

See Creating custom WFM roles and assigning users.

WFM permissions

WFM permissions are configured for each role. By configuring permissions for a role, you’re defining whether users assigned to a role have access to certain WFM features.

Note: When you configure permissions for a role, keep in mind that they are limited to the role’s scope.

WFM permissions are segmented by the general feature area and include the following:

Permissions	Description
Forecasting and scheduling:
Forecast	Access the Forecast page to make changes to forecasts, including recalculating or regenerating.
Schedule	Access the Schedule page to generate, publish, edit, delete and import schedules.
Time off management	Access the Time off management page to view, approve, deny, and reopen time off requests.
Trades management	Access the Shift trades page to view pending and closed trade requests.
Unassigned shifts management	Access the Unassigned shifts page to view pending and closed unassigned shifts requests.
Reporting:
Custom reports	View, edit, create, export, and delete custom reports.
System reports	View, duplicate, and export system reports.
Scheduled reports	View, create, edit and delete scheduled reports.
Dashboards	View, edit, create, and delete dashboards, including editing dashboard widgets.
Agent activity	Access the Agent activity page and edit and delete activities.
Agent attendance	Access the Agent attendance page.
Agent status	Access the Agent status page.
Performance boards	View, edit, create, and delete Performance boards.
Forecast vs actual (EAP)	Access the Forecast vs actual page (EAP).
Admin:
Organization structure	View and edit the account’s organization structure, which includes locations, workstreams, teams, and time off reasons.
Automations	View, create, edit, and delete automations.
Integrations	View and edit the Google calendar integration and the Workday integration (EAP) by changing their parameters, including turning them on and off.
Settings	Access and edit account settings.
Agent:
Agent schedule	Access their schedule, request time off, and create and manage shift trade requests when shift trading has been activated.
Team schedule	Access the Team schedule tab to view team schedules, time off, and shift trade requests when shift trading has been activated.