Roles and Permissions
What you see in the application depends on who you are. This page explains how that works, what each built-in role can do, and how to ask for more access when a menu or a button is missing.
Roles and permissions in plain language
- A permission allows one thing, such as Use the messaging workspace or Manage Contact Center queues. Each menu item and each button checks for a permission.
- A role is a named bundle of permissions, such as Agent or Supervisor. Your administrator gives each user one or more roles.
- You get every permission of every role you have. A team lead who also takes calls can have both the Agent and the Supervisor role.
A screen also needs its feature to be turned on. A feature is one part of the product, such as Contact Center Supervision & Live Dashboard. If a feature is off, nobody sees its screens, whatever their role. Only administrators turn features on; see Features and settings.
Why menus differ between people
Two people at the same company see different menus because:
- Their roles differ. An agent sees My workspace and Activities; a manager also sees Interaction Center > Management; an administrator also sees Settings and Tools.
- Features differ by site. A site that does not use the CRM has no Leads menu, and a site without the dialer has no Dialer Profiles.
- Some screens also need a setup record. The live dashboard and shared voicemail show only the queues on your own agent entitlement record. Without one, the page opens but is empty, even for an administrator.
- Some tabs and buttons need a site setting. For example, Pause recording in the agent workspace only appears when the administrator allows it in Contact Center settings.
The built-in roles
The product comes with ready-made permission sets for three role names: Administrator, Agent and Supervisor.
- The Administrator role has every permission.
- When your administrator creates a role named exactly Agent or Supervisor, it receives the permissions below automatically, for every feature that is turned on. Turning on a feature later adds that feature's permissions to these roles too.
- There is no built-in Manager role. Most companies create one and pick its permissions by hand (see A role for managers).
Your administrator can change any role's permissions at any time, so your site may differ from the lists below.
Agent
Agents take and place calls, work their activities and answer text messages.
| Area | Permissions the Agent role gets |
|---|---|
| Contact center | Sign in to Contact Center queues and campaigns; View interactions; Pause recording on own live interactions; Initiate secure capture on own live interactions |
| Activities | List activities; List Contact activities; Complete own activity; Create and edit activities |
| CRM | Convert leads |
| Messaging | Use the messaging workspace |
Agents usually also need, added by the administrator:
- Use the telephony soft phone, to open the soft phone in the phone apps. The Agent role does not get it automatically.
- The content permissions for your contact type, such as List content items, to see and edit contacts.
Supervisor
Supervisors watch the floor, step into live calls, work the shared voicemail and read reports.
| Area | Permissions the Supervisor role gets |
|---|---|
| Contact center | Monitor the Contact Center in real time; View interactions; Transfer Contact Center calls externally; View Contact Center reports; Take over, end, transfer and record live Contact Center calls, and set agents' state |
| Voicemail | Access shared queue voicemail for entitled queues; Manage shared queue voicemail: delete messages and take over other users' claims |
| Messaging | Use the messaging workspace; Send group messages; View all messaging conversations; Manage the messaging workspace |
The Supervisor role does not include signing in to queues. A supervisor who also takes calls needs the Agent role as well, and every supervisor needs an entitlement record with the queues they supervise.
Administrator
The Administrator role can see and change everything, including Settings, Tools > Features, users and roles. Keep it for the few people who run the site.
A role for managers
Managers build the contact center: contacts, subjects, campaigns, queues and so on. A manager role typically gets the Manage ... permissions for the screens that person looks after, for example:
| To work on... | Permission |
|---|---|
| Load activities | Manage activity batches |
| Manage activities in bulk | Manage activities |
| Subjects and subject flows | Manage subject flows |
| Dispositions | Manage dispositions |
| Campaigns | Manage campaigns; Manage campaign groups |
| Cadences | Manage cadences |
| Lead statuses and opportunity stages | Manage lead statuses; Manage opportunity stages |
| Omnichannel addresses | Manage omnichannel addresses |
| Queues and entry points | Manage Contact Center queues |
| Skills | Manage Contact Center skills |
| Agent entitlements and agent states | Manage Contact Center agents |
| Business hours | Manage Contact Center business hours |
| Dialer profiles | Manage the Contact Center dialer |
| Voice media | Manage the Contact Center voice media library |
| Extensions | Manage telephony extensions |
| Reports | View Contact Center reports; View Omnichannel reports |
Each User Manual page names the permission it needs in the table at the top.
Ask your administrator for access
When a menu, a page or a button is missing, look up the page for that task in this manual. The table at the top names the Menu, the Permission and the Feature it needs. Then send your administrator a message like this one, filled in with what you found:
Hi,
I need access to [screen or task, for example: Interaction Center > Management > Queues] for my work on [what you need to do].
According to the User Manual, this needs:
- Permission: [permission name from the page]
- Feature: [feature name from the page]
I currently have the [your role or roles] role. Could you add the permission to one of my roles, or give me a role that has it? If the feature is turned off on our site, could you let me know whether we plan to use it?
Thank you, [Your name]
For administrators
- To create users and give them roles, see Users.
- To create roles such as Agent, Supervisor and Manager and choose their permissions, see Roles.
- To turn on the features a role needs, see Features and settings.