Understanding and setting light agent permissions

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Light agents can view tickets, make private comments, and provide expertise without full permissions. You can configure their access to tickets and reports based on your plan. Light agents can't be assigned tickets or change statuses unless they're the requester. Customize their permissions for ticket access and reporting to fit your team's needs while maintaining control over their capabilities.






Note: Most Zendesk Suite plans automatically include a default number of
light agents based on your plan type, but you can buy more light agents if needed. These restrictions
do not apply to legacy plans or add-ons.
Suite Team plans offer light agent seats as an add-on.
Suite Growth plans include up to 50 light agents.
Suite Professional plans include up to 100 light agents.
Suite Enterprise plans include up to 1000 light agents.
Suite Enterprise Plus plans include up to 5000 light agents.



Light agents have limited permissions but can stay informed about tickets and, when needed,
provide subject matter expertise and advice by adding private comments to the ticket. Ticket
comments by light agents are private, including the first comment of any tickets they create.
However, when a light agent is the ticket requester, and they're not a member of the group or
brand, their private comment will be converted to public.
To assign a light agent role, see Setting roles and access in Zendesk Admin Center.
This article contains the following sections:


Understanding what light agents can do
Configuring light agent ticket access and reporting permissions


Related articles:
About light agents and contributors



You are prohibited from using the API or any
Software to effectively provide light agents with access, functionality, or permissions that
they are not otherwise permitted to use or access in the Zendesk Support Agent user interface
(as set forth below).


Understanding what light agents can do

Light agents have the following access and permissions.

Note: If you've created shared macros, your light agents can't use a macro
that applies an action that they don't have permission to do. For example, if you have a
shared macro that changes the ticket status, light agents can access the macro but if they
try to apply it, the ticket status won't change.









Area
Light agents can...
Light agents can't...





Tickets



View either tickets assigned to groups they're in or view all tickets
Make private comments. On Enterprise plans and above, if they're the ticket
requester and lose access to the ticket because they're not a member of the
group or brand, their private comment will be converted to public.

Be the ticket requester
Edit ticket properties at the time of ticket creation
Be CC'd on tickets (see Setting permissions for CCs and
followers). End users won't be
able to see light agents who are CC'd on a ticket.
Be added as a follower and add other agents as
followers
Create tickets on behalf of existing end users. However, the end user won't be
able to see it until another agent adds a public comment.
Edit ticket properties for tickets they're requesters on after the ticket is
created
Add, access, and download attachments
Create, reply to, close, and reopen email-based side conversations

Add and remove tags from tickets where they're the requester. They can also bulk
add tags where they're the requester but cannot bulk remove tags.

Use agent email forwarding to forward an
email to your support address, creating a ticket with a private comment.

Reassign tickets to another agent in any of the light agent's groups, if they
are the requester.
Respond to an approval request if designated as the approver




Be assigned to tickets
Change the ticket status, unless they're the ticket
requester
Reassign tickets to another group, unless they are the ticket requester
Edit ticket properties, unless they're the ticket requester
CC agents or end users other than themselves, except for when they create a
ticket on behalf of someone else via email
Use the @mention feature
Respond to CSAT surveys

Create, send, or be assigned side conversation child tickets

Use agent email forwarding to forward an
email to your support address, creating a ticket with a public comment

Create or withdraw approval requests
View highlighted entity values or redaction suggestions

View the pages viewed by the requester in the
customer context panel





People



View user profiles
View the Customers page, regardless of their
ticket access (Suite Growth and Professional plans only)





Edit user profiles
Assume a user's identity
Change a user's password
Create new end users
View a user's device information






Help center (not available in Team plans)



View areas of the Help Center knowledge base and community that are restricted
to agents
Add and edit articles in the knowledge base where agents have permission

Add and edit articles and posts in the community where agents have permission. See Creating community moderator
groups.




Be a Knowledge admin (see note at left).
View article revisions





Reports



View Explore dashboards that have been shared with them in Zendesk
(Professional and Enterprise plans only)
External link sharing is available only on Enterprise plans


Create, edit, and delete reports and dashboards.




Manage administrative settings and permissions for Explore.





Views



See views
Filter views




Create or edit views





Business rules



Apply macros
(non-Enterprise plans) View triggers and automations




Create, view, edit or delete macros.
Create, edit, or delete triggers and automations. On Enterprise plans, light
agents also can't view triggers or
automations.
Typically be used as conditions in business rules For example, you can't
create a ticket trigger notifies the assigned agent when a light agent adds a
comments to a ticket. However, you can define trigger conditions that identify
when the ticket requester is a light agent.






Channels




Serve a chat or messaging conversation
Respond to calls
Manage channels





Mail API




Use the Mail API





Apps



Use most installed Zendesk apps within Support
Perform permitted actions on their tickets in the Zendesk Support Mobile
app










Configuring light agent ticket access and reporting permissions

After you understand when to use the light agent role and what they can
do, you can configure some of the permissions. The method you use to configure permissions
for light agents varies depending on whether you are on a Suite Growth, Professional, or
Enterprise plan. You can configure options for ticket access for light agents, and, if
you're on Suite Professional or above, you can additionally configure access to reports. The
other light agent permissions shown in the table above can't be changed.

Configuring light agent permissions with Suite Growth and Professional
Configuring light agent permissions with Suite Enterprise



Configuring light agent permissions with Suite Growth and Professional

If you're using Suite Growth or Professional, you can configure light agent permissions
for reports and ticket access.
To edit reporting and ticket permissions for light agents (Suite Growth or
Professional)

In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Agent interface.
Next to Light Agent access, select an option for What kind of tickets can
this agent access?:

All within this agent's group(s) for light agents to access only tickets in
their groups.

Requested by end users in this agent's organization for light agents to
access only tickets requested by end users in their organization. This also means
the light agent won't be able to update organization fields for end users or lookup
relationship fields that point to
organizations.

All for light agents to access all tickets.


If you selected All within this agent's group(s) above, and you want light
agents to still be able to assign tickets to any group when they're the requester, also
select Agent can assign to any group.
For What can this agent do with reports, set Insights reporting permissions to
Can view only or Cannot view.
When you are finished, click Save.




Configuring light agent permissions with Suite Enterprise

If you're using Suite Enterprise, you can only configure light agent permissions for
reports, Explore, and ticket access.
To edit reporting, Explore, and ticket permissions for light agents
(Enterprise)
You can't clone or modify the light agent role, except for the settings for tickets and
reporting.


In Admin Center, click
People in the sidebar, then select Team > Roles.
Next to the Light agent role, click edit.
Under Tickets, select an option for What kind of tickets can this agent
access?:

Requested by end users in their organizations for light agents to access
only tickets requested by end users in their organization. This also means the
light agent won't be able to update organization fields for end users or lookup
relationship fields that point to
organizations.


All within their groups for light agents to access only tickets in their
groups.

Assign tickets to any group for light agents to be able to assign
tickets to groups they don't belong to, including private groups.



Within their groups and all public groups

Assign tickets to any group for light agents to be able to assign
tickets to private groups they don't belong to.



All for light agents to access all tickets.


If you selected All within this agent's group(s) above, and you want light
agents to still be able to assign tickets to any group when they're the requester,
also select Agent can assign to any group.
For Reports permissions, set reporting permissions to No access or
View only. This setting applies to the Reports tool in Support, not
reports within Explore.

For Explore permissions, set permissions to No access, View
only, or Manage reports and dashboards.
Click Save.