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Set up roles with recommend permissions
Set up roles with recommend permissions

Not sure which permissions you teammates need? Follow this guide to create custom roles.

Laura Joyce avatar
Written by Laura Joyce
Updated yesterday

Before you invite teammates/agents to Intercom, you can create custom roles to easily manage permissions. Here are some best practices for setting up roles and permissions...

Support team roles

When using Intercom for support, we recommend creating the following custom roles when first getting started:

  • Super admin role

  • Support agent role (limited or standard)

  • Support manager role

  • Specialty team roles

Super admin role

You should always have at least one "Admin" on your team with Complete Access to every available permission. They'll be responsible for controlling the permissions the rest of the team has access to.

Make sure you've selected Allow all permissions for this teammate.

Support agent role (limited)

Many teams often require individual contributors to have a limited set of permissions that allow them to work from the Inbox and not much else. Depending on your business, you may want to limit them to only some conversations (e.g. their team only, not all conversations).

  • Conversations Access

    • Conversations assigned to them only

  • Inbox

    • Can reassign conversations and edit lead or user ownership

Support agent role (standard)

If you'd like to give you agents more responsibility, we can grant them the following additional permissions:

  • Conversation access:

    • Can access all conversations

  • Data and security

    • Can access people, companies, and account lists

    • Can access lead and user profile pages

    • Can manage tags (optional)

  • Knowledge

    • Knowledge Access (all permissions)

  • Inbox

    • Can access real-time dashboard

    • Can reassign conversations and edit lead or user ownership

    • Can manage shared Macros

    • Can use personal macros

  • Reports

    • Can access Reports

      • Can access Chart drill-in

      • Can delete Reports

      • Can create, edit and internally share Reports

      • Can schedule and download PDFs of Reports

      • Can export CSV

      • Can access Chart drill-in

      • Can manage Workspace folders

Support manager role

  • Conversation Access:

    • Can access all conversations

  • Settings

    • Can manage teammates, seats and permissions

    • Can manage teams

    • Can change status

    • Can manage Messenger settings

    • Can edit sender domain

  • Data and security

    • Data and security Access (all permissions)

  • Knowledge

    • Knowledge Access (all permissions)

  • Automation

    • Automation Access (all permissions)

  • Outbound

    • Can publish News

    • Can send outbound emails from custom addresses

    • Can export Proactive Support data

    • Can set Product Tours, Tooltips and Checklists live

    • Can set Surveys live

    • Can manage Surveys data

  • Inbox

    • Inbox Access (all permissions)

  • Reports

    • Can access Reports (all permissions)


Speciality team roles

Outside of the roles listed above, you may have people in your company who need access to other specific areas of Intercom. For example, you could create the following custom roles depending on the teams you have:

Marketing team:

  • Conversations Access

    • Conversations assigned to them only

  • Settings

    • Can manage Messenger settings

  • Knowledge

    • Knowledge Access (all permissions)

  • Automation

    • Can manage outbound Workflows

  • Outbound

    • Outbound Access (all permissions – except last permission "Has to use default rules in new messages")

Developers:

Below are the essential permissions for anyone connecting an integration, but most people just give their developer the equivalent permissions to a "Super Admin" role – especially if they're running tests.

  • Apps and Integrations

    • Apps and Integrations Access (all permissions)

Accounting:

  • Settings

    • Can manage Billing settings

The above roles and permissions are only suggestions and can be changed to suit your needs. Custom roles allow you to decide exactly which permissions each role has in your team.

Only one role can be assigned to a teammate at a time. A teammate can not be assigned multiple roles at once.


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