Creating custom Zendesk WFM roles

Plan requirement

Subscription Any plan
Also required Workforce Management
Access Admin

A role that fits a real job here. Start from what the person must not be able to do, not from what they need.

Create one

  1. Open the roles in Workforce Management.
  2. Create a role, starting from the closest standard one.
  3. Name it for the job.
  4. Set the permissions, and the scope of teams it covers.
  5. Assign it to one person and check it works for a real week.

The jobs that usually need one

  • A planner who builds schedules but does not approve time off.
  • A manager who approves absence and does not touch schedules.
  • A senior agent who sees the team schedule without managing it.
  • An analyst who reads reporting and changes nothing.

Design from the prohibitions

What must this person not do: publish a schedule, edit tracked time, see another team, approve their own absence. Those are the decisions.

Starting from "what do they need" produces roles that grow until they are administrator in all but name.

Scope by team

Most custom roles exist to limit somebody to their own team. That scoping is usually the point rather than the permission list.

Watch self-approval

A lead who can approve their own time off is a control gap that somebody will eventually notice. Decide it deliberately rather than by omission.

Test with a real week

Assign it and let them work normally. They will find the missing permission on the day they need it, which is better than a checklist review that misses it.

Keep the list short

Four or five roles. More than that and nobody can say who should have which, and assignment becomes guesswork.

See also

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