Understanding standard user roles for Zendesk Support

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<p id="docs-ai-summary-content">Understand the roles of end users, agents, admins, and account owners to streamline support operations. End users submit and track tickets. Agents handle customer interactions and ticket management. Admins manage settings, business rules, and can promote agents. The account owner oversees subscription and billing. Customize roles and permissions to fit your team's needs, especially on Enterprise plans with custom agent roles.</p>
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<p class="p">Zendesk Support provides several standard user roles designed to meet common user needs and
responsibilities. These roles give users predefined access and
capabilities.</p>
<p class="p">Each user's role is defined when they are added, although you may change a user's
role as needed. When users sign in, they are only shown the parts of Zendesk
Support that they are allowed to see and use.</p>
<p class="p">This article describes the standard user roles in Zendesk Support. Depending on
your plan, other roles may be available on your account, as described in
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832171034" target="_blank">About team member product roles and
access</a>. </p>
<p class="p">Enterprise plans don't use a standard agent role. Instead, admins <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882153882" target="_blank">define custom agent roles</a>.</p>
<p class="p">This article contains the following sections:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_srp_bfk_xlb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_hlt_cbp_cc">End users, or customers</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_nqx_cbp_cc">Agents, administrators, account owner (team members)</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ibd_fdq_cc">Agents</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_evb_dbp_cc">Administrators</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_fjb_ffq_cc">Account owner</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_hlt_cbp_cc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">End users, or customers</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">End users are also sometimes referred to as customers. These are the people who generate support requests from any of the available support channels. End users don't have access to any of the administrator and agent features of Zendesk Support. They can only submit and track tickets and communicate with agents publicly, which means that their ticket comments can never be private. </p>
<p class="p">How your end users interact with Zendesk depends first on the support
channels you've made available to them and then by how you've
defined public access. You can provide either open or closed
support. Open support in Zendesk means that anyone can submit
tickets. Closed support in Zendesk means the opposite. For example,
you might use closed support for an internal support operation
within a corporation. </p>
<p class="p">In a closed Zendesk, you add the end users. In an open Zendesk, you can
either add users yourself or end users can add themselves by
submitting tickets. If end users can add themselves, you can either
require them to register or not. In a closed Zendesk, all end users
must be registered.</p>
<p class="p">You can also control if and how your end users access your help center.
This is the end user's view and includes the Submit Request page,
the Knowledge Base, the Community (if available), and a view of
their tickets. For more information on how end users can access
Zendesk Support, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887573274" target="_blank">Understanding options for end-user access and sign-in</a>.</p>
<p class="p">However, if your end users aren't registered, they don't have access to
that view of tickets (they must be signed in). For these end users,
all communication with the support team is through email. For more
information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408888722842-Setting-up-to-provide-email-only-support" target="_blank">Turning off ticket management
in your help center to allow email-only support</a>.
</p>
<p class="p">You also have the option of adding your end users to an organization,
which is a collection of users (both end users and team members)
that can be used in many ways throughout your ticket workflow. For
more information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886146842" target="_blank">About organizations and
groups</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_nqx_cbp_cc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Agents, administrators, account owner (team members)</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">The people who resolve support requests play different roles in setting
up and managing your ticket workflow. Agents, admins, and the
account owner are all <em class="ph i">team members</em>.</p>
<p class="p">Other Zendesk products might have a dependency on Support user roles. For
information about user roles in Chat, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882929946-Understanding-default-roles-in-Zendesk-Chat" target="_blank">Understanding default roles
in Zendesk Chat</a> and for Knowledge, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827842458-Understanding-Guide-roles-and-setting-permissions" target="_blank">Understanding Knowledge user
roles and privileges</a>. </p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested2" id="topic_ibd_fdq_cc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title4">Agents</h3>
<div class="body">
<div class="note note" id="topic_ibd_fdq_cc__note_xm4_j1z_chc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Enterprise plans don't use a standard
agent role. Instead, admins <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882153882" target="_blank">define custom agent
roles</a>.</div>
<div class="p">Agents are the bulk of the support staff. They are assigned tickets and interact
with customers as needed to resolve support issues. The agent's role and privileges are
defined by admins and may include the following:<ul class="ul">
<li class="li">May be added to more than one group (must be added to at least one)</li>
<li class="li">Add, edit, and delete end-user profiles. Agents cannot create or edit other agent or
administrator profiles, and may not have permission to edit all properties in an end-
user's profile.<p class="p">Agents can edit end users
only if they have access to all tickets (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886939930-Adding-agents-and-administrators#topic_3zw_yl2_yg" target="_blank">About agent privileges and ticket access</a>).
</p>
</li>
<li class="li">Add public or private comments or both to tickets</li>
<li class="li">Create and edit their own macros</li>
<li class="li">Create and edit their own views</li>
<li class="li">Can view reports. Only agents with access to all tickets in your Zendesk account will be
able to view reports.</li>
<li class="li">Moderate and manage articles in the help center</li>
<li class="li">Access tickets in one of the following ways:<ul class="ul">
<li class="li">All tickets in your Zendesk account.
Agents
must have access to all tickets if you want them to be able to assign tickets to other
groups.</li>
<li class="li">Only tickets assigned to the group or groups to which they belong. Restricting an
agent's permissions prevents them from making certain edits to users, including adding
notes to user profiles. </li>
<li class="li">Only tickets received from the organization to which they belong</li>
<li class="li">Only tickets that they are assigned to</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">The
agent's groups and ticket access are <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886939930#topic_3zw_yl2_yg" target="_blank">configured in the agent's profile</a>.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Admins can add new agents either manually one at a time or as a
bulk import operation (you can set the user role in the CSV
data file used in a bulk import). Agents can be promoted to
the administrator role by an administrator. </p>
<p class="p">Agents can be restricted to tickets within their <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886146842" target="_blank">organizations and
groups</a>. All agents must belong to at least
one <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408894175130" target="_blank">group</a>. Agents
and end users can both belong to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882246298" target="_blank">organizations</a>.
Agents with restricted ticket access (that is, access set to
anything other than <strong class="ph b">All tickets</strong>) can't create or edit
end users.</p>
<p class="p">Notwithstanding ticket access restrictions, CC'ing an agent on
any ticket lets the agent receive email notifications of all
public and private updates to the ticket. For example,
suppose an agent is only allowed to see tickets in the L2
group. After the agent is CC'ed on a ticket in the L3 group,
the agent gets email notifications of all public or private
updates to the ticket even though she's not authorized to
see L3 tickets. </p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested2" id="topic_evb_dbp_cc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title5">Administrators</h3>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">Admins are agents with additional privileges to manage and customize your
Zendesk. Admins can be assigned tickets like agents but they may also do the
following:
<ul class="ul">
<li class="li">Access all tickets (not just the tickets they are assigned to)</li>
<li class="li">Access, create, and edit business rules (automations, macros, SLA service
targets, triggers, views)</li>
<li class="li">Access and edit targets</li>
<li class="li">Install and configure apps</li>
<li class="li">Create reports</li>
<li class="li">Edit all reports</li>
<li class="li">Access and manage settings (account, security, channels, ticket fields, and so on)</li>
<li class="li">Add, manage, and delete end users, agents, and
admins</li>
<li class="li">Promote agents to the admin role</li>
<li class="li">Create groups and organizations</li>
<li class="li">Assume an end user's identity</li>
<li class="li">Create custom agent roles (Enterprise plan only)</li>
<li class="li">Access and manage settings for voice</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Admins on Enterprise plans can assign some of these permissions
to agents by using custom roles. For more information and a
list of permissions you can assign, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882153882" target="_blank">Creating custom roles
and assigning agents</a>.</p>
<p class="p">Administrators are responsible for designing and implementing the
ticket workflow. They add customers, agents, and other
administrators; define the business rules (automations,
triggers, views, etc.); and customize and extend Zendesk
Support. Where an agent's primary function is to interact
with customers and resolve support requests, administrators
may do that as well as set up and manage the workflow. </p>
<p class="p">Administrators can do all of the actions that agents can do. </p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested2" id="topic_fjb_ffq_cc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title6">Account owner</h3>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">The account owner is a type of administrator. The account name is
associated with this person's name, usually the person who
created the account. There can only be one account owner;
however, account ownership can be reassigned by the account
owner to another administrator if needed. The account owner
has access to areas of Zendesk that other
administrators do not. Examples:
<ul class="ul">
<li class="li">Subscription changes</li>
<li class="li">Billing and payment management</li>
<li class="li">Account changes</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Only the account owner can update their account owner profile.
Other admins cannot do this.
For a full list of unique
permissions associated with the account owner, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846746778" target="_blank">Understanding account
owner permissions</a>.</p>
</div>
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