Controlling agent access with Roles

Roles allow you to create special privileges and profiles that specify what an agent can see and do within your Freshdesk support portal.

Roles help you categorize your team into different sections and assign them different capabilities so that they can do what they need to on their helpdesks without getting in each other's way. They're especially useful for larger teams, where there are different groups of employees trying to handle different areas.

By default, Freshdesk lets you choose between 4 roles for your team members:

• Agents: Can view, respond to, and assign tickets, as well as modify ticket properties.
• Supervisors: Can view and respond to tickets, generate reports, and can also enable automatic ticket assignment of the member groups under the Admin tab.
• Administrators: Can access everything and edit configurations under the Admin tab but cannot view or modify billing information. 
• Account Administrators: Have complete access to everything, including billing and account management. You must have at least one account administrator at all times.
  

You can click the role to view its permissions in detail. Default roles cannot be edited or removed. In addition to default roles, you can create custom roles for your organization. See Creating a custom role.

Each time you add a new agent to your helpdesk, a role must be specified. Once you apply a role to an agent, the agent will no longer be able to view or access options or updates outside their role. For example, if an agent has the role of "Agent", they won't be able to see the Admin settings.

Note: The default Agent role will have access to only Canned responses, Account exports, and Scenario automations settings.

If you assign multiple roles to an agent, the highest privileges allowed across these roles will apply. For example, if you have one role that gives a user access to your community forums and another that allows them to reply to tickets, a user with both roles will be able to access your community forums and reply to tickets.

How to assign a role to an agent

To add agents to a role:

1. As an Admin or Account Admin, go to Admin > Team > Roles.
2. Next to each role, the Assigned agents column shows how many agents have that role. Click a value to bring up the list of agents.
3. In the Add Agent field, start typing the agent's name to assign them the role and click Save.

Alternatively, you can assign roles when adding or editing an agent:

1. As an Admin or Account Admin, go to Admin > Team > Agents.
2. Click New Agent to add one or hover over an existing agent and click Edit.
3. Scroll down to the Roles section and click the dropdown.
4. Check all roles that you want to assign to this agent and click Save.
   
5. For more help, see Add, Edit, or Delete Support Agents.
6. When adding a role to an agent, also set the scope of tickets that the agent can view. See Ticket Scope vs. Agent Role - what’s the difference?

Important:
If you have the Admin or Account Admin roles, you won't be able to make changes to your own role and scope settings. Ask another admin or account admin in your account to make the required changes for you.
Only an Account Admin can grant the Account Admin role to another agent. If your only account admin is no longer with your organization, contact support@freshdesk.com.