Content last updated 2025-12-26

Roles

Documentation on Zendesk user roles

This guide covers how to create, edit, and manage Zendesk user roles at GitLab. Administrators should review the Administrator tasks section.

Understanding roles

What are Zendesk user roles

Zendesk uses Roles as a way to maintain permission sets for agents.

How we manage roles

We currently manage all roles within Zendesk itself.

Current roles in use

For more information on what permissions the roles have, please see this doc (internal).

Zendesk Global

Zendesk US Government

Creating a role as a non-admin

For the creation of a role, please create a Feature Request issue (as it will require manual intervention by the Customer Support Operations team).

Editing a role as a non-admin

For the modification of a role, please create a Feature Request issue (as it will require manual intervention by the Customer Support Operations team).

Deleting a role as a non-admin

To request the deactivation of a role, please create a Feature Request issue (as it will require manual intervention by the Customer Support Operations team).

Requesting a role change

All Zendesk role changes follow this approval process:

  1. Submit Request: File an access request issue
  2. Manager Approval: The requester’s manager must approve the request
  3. Security Review: A Fullstack Engineer, Customer Support Operations reviews the business justification
  4. Decision: If approved, Customer Support Operations will make the needed changes

Administrator tasks

Viewing roles in Zendesk

To view roles in Zendesk:

  1. Navigate to the admin dashboard for the Zendesk instance
  2. Go to People > Team > Roles

You can click on the role’s name if you need to see the permissions and membership of a role.

Creating a role

To create a role in Zendesk:

  1. Access the roles page
  2. Click Create role at the top-right of the page
  3. Fill out a name for the new role
  4. Fill out a description for the new role (optional)
  5. Fill out the various permission information as needed for the new role
  6. Click Create role on the bottom-right of the page.

Editing a role

To edit a role in Zendesk:

  1. Access the roles page
  2. Click the name of the role to edit
  3. Make the needed changes on the role
  4. Click Save on the bottom-right of the page.

Changing an agent’s role

To change the role of an agent in Zendesk:

  1. Navigate to the admin dashboard for the Zendesk instance
  2. Go to People > Team > Team members
  3. Search for the person in question using their email address
  4. Click their name
  5. Click the drop-down to the right of the Support product and select the new role to use
  6. Click Save at the bottom-right of the page

Deleting a role

To delete a role in Zendesk:

  1. Access the roles page
  2. Click the name of the role to delete
  3. Click Actions on the top-right of the page
  4. Click Delete role
  5. Click Delete role on the confirmation pop-up to confirm the deletion

Common issues and troubleshooting

This is a living section that will have items added to it as needed.

Last modified February 12, 2026: Remove aliases from frontmatter (f895738e)
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