Managing Roles and Permissions in BoldDesk
Roles and permissions provide fine-grained access control for support agents within the Agent Portal. BoldDesk supports both predefined and custom roles. This article explains how to manage roles and permissions to ensure secure, organized access across modules, helping administrators tailor agent capabilities to organizational needs.
- Permissions are not considered when automation rules are run.
- Agents need to be assigned to a role having a set of permissions. The permissions cannot be assigned to an agent directly.
- An agent can be mapped to multiple roles.
- An agent should have at least one mapped role.
Roles and Permissions List Page
This page lists both system and custom roles. The roles can be categorized into two types:
- System role and
- Custom role
System Roles
A system role is a predefined role that cannot be deleted or edited but can only be cloned. The list of available system roles is as follows;
| System Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Account Owner | Has access to all the features and settings, including the Billing module. |
| Support Administrator | Has access to all the features except billing-related settings. |
| Support Manager | Has access to features that would help in managing the support activities by support leads or managers. |
| Agent | Has access to features to carry out day-to-day support activities by an agent. |
A system role has a tag named “System”.
Custom Roles
If predefined system roles do not suit your organization’s requirements, you can create a custom role and map the required permissions to a role. There are options available to create, edit, clone, or delete the custom roles.
Creating a Custom Role
To create a custom role
- Go to Admin > Roles and Permissions > Create Role.
- Fill in the Role Name and Description (optional). Select the Permissions which need to be assigned to the role and click Create.
- After creating a custom role, click Add Agent and select an agent to be assigned to the created role on the role details page. You can also open the role details page by clicking the role name on the list page.
Editing a Custom Role
The Role Name and Description of permissions of a custom role can be edited from the roles list page or from the role details page by clicking the Edit icon.
- Editing from the role list page.
- Editing from the role details page.
Deleting a Custom Role
To delete a custom role,
- On the Roles list page, click More Actions next to the desired role and select Delete.
- Choose an alternate role to map the agent before deleting the existing role permanently, then click Yes, Delete.
Cloning a Role
The clone role option is useful if you want to quickly create a copy of any system or custom role to generate a new role.
To clone a role:
- On the Roles list page, click More Actions next to the desired role then select Clone.
- Provide the role name and description then click Clone.
Only the permission settings will be cloned; the agents present in the role cannot be cloned.
Adding/Removing an Agent from Existing Roles
You can add or remove agents from a role through the following available options:
- Using role details page to add/remove agents
- Using agent profile page to edit agent details
Using Roles Details Page
An agent can be added/removed using the Agents tab on the role details page. This page can be opened by clicking the role name on the role list page.
Using Agent Profile Page
While creating a new agent or editing an agent, the agent form consists of the roles field. This roles field can also be used to add/remove an agent from a role.
Viewing Roles and Permission Assigned to an Agent
To view an agent’s assigned roles and permissions:
- Navigate to Admin > Agents.
- Click the agent’s name to open their details page.
- Select the Access tab to view the roles and permissions assigned to the agent.
If an agent is assigned to more than one role, then the permission of both roles will be combined. To view, the combined final permission sets assigned to an agent,
- Open the agent profile page.
- Navigate to the Permissions section where the final set of combined permissions is listed.
- Agents can themselves view their assigned role using the Personal Settings profile page.
To manage roles and permissions, agents should have admin role with this permission enabled.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1: Can I assign permissions directly to an agent?
No. Permissions must be assigned through roles.
Q2: Can an agent have more than one role?
Yes. Permissions from all assigned roles are combined.
Q3: What happens if I delete a role assigned to an agent?
You must reassign the agent to another role before deleting the current one.
Q4: Can I clone a role and keep the same agents?
No. Cloning only copies permissions, not agent assignments.
Q5: Do roles affect automation rules?
No. Automation rules run independently of agent permissions.
