Custom roles in Freshdesk let you create profiles for agents which define the level of access each of them will have in your account.


For example, you may have a team to handle the user community just to keep it engaged, but not respond to any support tickets. In this case, you don't have to provide access to ticket details and assignments. Similarly, your finance team may not need access to view or edit your knowledge base articles. 


You can do all this and more with custom roles. You can define the level of access permissions each agent can have across Freshdesk:

  • Tickets: Allow agents to create, view, forward or reply to a ticket, edit personal or other's notes, and manage personal or other's ticket list views.
  • Scenario automation: Allow agents to manage personal or shared scenario automation.
  • Solution: Allow agents to create a category or publish a solution.
  • Forum: Allow agents to view, create, and participate in forum discussions.
  • Customers: Allow agents to view or edit customers (or contacts).
  • Reports: Allow agents to generate reports.
  • Admin: Give admin access to agents.


Roles and privileges in Analytics:

You can now provide agents with View, Edit, or Manage (includes edit and exports) access 

  1. View - Agents can access curated reports and custom reports (based on your visibility). With view access, agents will not be able to add Filters but can view underlying data. They can also subscribe to reports
  2. Edit - In addition to view access, agents can create custom reports and add/edit filters in existing curated and custom reports (based on your visibility) and delete custom reports. Underlying data will also be visible
  3. Manage (includes edit and exports) - Along with edit access, agents can access Analytics settings and create/edit/delete and enable/disable schedules and exports
  4. By default, if an agent has View access in old Reports, they will have Edit access in Analytics. If they have Export reports access in old Reports, they will have Manage (includes edit and exports) in Analytics



Roles and privileges in FSM:

Field agents can access Scheduling Dashboard, and manage automation rules for service tasks. You also give them access to create/update/delete service tasks


Note: All agents can still view tickets (of course, you can control the scope of what tickets they can view), add notes, and create solutions as drafts (though only agents with Publish permissions get to push them out to the public).


From a management perspective, you could also use roles to specify three levels of Admin controls. First, you can create users with no access to admin controls at all. Second, you can create an Operational Admin, and allow them to manage agents and/or set up automation, but not modify configurations. Third, you can nominate agents as Super Admins, who get complete configuration access to your Admin tab. 


You can specify whether a Super Admin may or may not access Account and Billing information. Learn more about Admin Roles, Assuming Identities, and Deleting Agents here.


How to create a custom role

  • Login to Freshdesk as an Admin.
  • Go to Admin > Team > Roles > New Role, and enter a name and description for this role.
  • Enter the privileges that an agent with this role should have by selecting the appropriate checkboxes under Tickets, Solutions, Forums, Customers, Reports, and Admin.
  • Save the settings you just created for this role.


You can now select and apply this role to an agent when you edit or create the agent's profile (learn how).


If you have a custom role configuration in mind but aren't sure how to implement it in Freshdesk, please do get in touch and we'll help you out.


Custom Roles in Freshdesk lets you create profiles for agents, and dictate exactly what you want each agent to see, do, and act on in your support portal. They let you create specific types of profiles defining what level of access each of your agents should have within your support. 


For example, you might have a bunch of people whose job is just to keep your user community engaged and happy, but not respond to support tickets. It doesn't make a lot of sense then, to distract them with ticket details and assignments. Similarly, you don't need your finance team who are working on billing tickets to take a look at or edit your knowledge base articles.


Most importantly, if you have a bunch of junior support reps who have just joined in, you would want them to have an eye on what's happening in your helpdesk, but not shoot out replies to customers just yet. You can do all this, and more with custom roles. But before you get started, here is a complete list of configurable items inside your helpdesk that can be controlled by a custom role. 



You can define the level of access that agents will have on each role with respect to:

  • Tickets: Can the agent view, forward, reply to a ticket?
  • Solution: Can the agent create a category or publish a solution?
  • Forum: Can the agent view, create and participate in forum discussions?
  • Customers: Can the agent view or edit customers (or contacts)?
  • Reports: Can the agent generate reports?
  • Admin: What level of admin access will this agent have?


Note: All agents can still view tickets (of course, you can control the scope of what tickets they can view), add notes, and create solutions as drafts (though only agents with Publish permissions get to push them out to the public).


From a management perspective, you could also use roles to specify three levels of Admin controls. First, you can create users with no access to admin controls at all. Second, you can create an Operational Admin, and allow them to manage agents and/or setup automations, but not modify configurations. Third, you can nominate agents as Super Admins, who get complete configuration access to your Admin tab. 


You can specify whether a Super Admin may or may not access Account and Billing information. Learn more about Admin Roles, Assuming Identities and Deleting Agents here.


Quick Guide to creating a Custom Role

  • Login to Freshdesk as an Administrator
  • Click on Admin > Team > Roles
  • Enter a name and description for this role
  • Enter the privileges that an agent with this role should have, by selecting the appropriate checkboxes under Tickets, Solutions, Forums, Customers, Reports and Admin
  • Save the settings you just created for this Role
  • You can now select and apply this Role to an agent when you edit or create the agent's profile (learn how)

Custom roles offer a great way for you to manage large teams. If you have a setup in mind but aren't sure about how to get it implemented in Freshdesk, please feel free to drop us an email and we can get it sorted out for you.