Change a user’s role

Adjust what a user can see and do by changing their assigned role. Common reasons: promoting an agent to Team Lead, granting Analytics access to a finance teammate, or rotating Owner responsibility to a new admin before someone leaves.

Before you start

• Admin permissions on Users (Owner, or any role with Users → Edit user roles granted, such as the standard Team Lead role) for non-owner role changes
• For non-owner role changes, Users → Edit user roles is necessary but not always sufficient. Your own role must also include every permission in the destination role. If it doesn’t, ask an Owner or another administrator whose role includes those permissions to make the change.
• To grant or transfer the Owner role, your own role must already be Owner. Admins or custom roles with Users → Edit user roles can change users to eligible non-owner roles, but they can’t promote someone to Owner.
• Confirm the destination role — see Standard roles reference for what each role can do
• For Owner transfers: identify both the current Owner and the new Owner before starting

Steps

1. Open Settings → Users.
2. Find the user in the Active list. Click the pencil icon on their row to open the Edit User dialog.
3. In the dialog, locate the Role field. The current role shows as a badge with a Change Role button next to it.
4. Click Change Role. A second dialog opens with a single dropdown.
5. Pick the new role from the dropdown. Both standard roles and any custom roles you’ve defined appear in the list.
6. Click Apply. The dialog closes and the Edit User dialog now shows the new role as an unsaved change.
7. Click Save on the Edit User dialog to commit.

The change takes effect on the user’s next request — usually immediately, but they may need to refresh their browser to see the updated permissions in the UI.

Verify it worked

1. Reopen the user’s row in Settings → Users — the role badge should show the new role.
2. Ask the user to refresh (or log out and back in). They should see menus and actions matching the new role.
3. If they’re losing access they expected to keep, double-check the role you picked — see Standard roles reference.

What changes — and what doesn’t

A role change affects permissions only. It does not:

• Reassign conversations the user owns (existing assignments stay with them)
• Remove them from teams they belong to
• Change their email, name, or login credentials
• Trigger a notification to the user — let them know out-of-band if it matters

If a demotion means the user shouldn’t be handling certain conversations any more, bulk-reassign those conversations yourself before or after the role change.

Custom roles

If your workspace uses custom roles, they appear in the same dropdown as standard roles. Pick whichever fits.

Switching between a custom role and a standard role (or between two custom roles) works the same way — the dialog doesn’t distinguish. However, the same permission ceiling applies: to assign any non-owner role, your own role must include Users → Edit user roles and every permission included in the role you’re assigning.

If the destination role includes permissions you don’t have, ask an Owner or another sufficiently privileged administrator to make the change.

Sole-owner protection

You can’t remove the Owner role from the last user who has it. The system protects against accidentally locking everyone out of admin functions.

Only an existing Owner can grant or transfer the Owner role. Admins and custom roles with Users → Edit user roles can change users to non-owner roles, but Owner promotion requires Owner status.

To demote the only Owner:

1. First, have an existing Owner change a second user’s role to Owner — now you have two Owners.
2. Then demote the original. The Edit User dialog will let you change the role.

The same protection applies when deactivating users: an Owner can’t be deactivated until their role is changed from Owner.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: The pencil icon is missing from the user’s row, or saving shows “You cannot give a permission you do not hold yourself.” Fix: Your own role doesn’t grant Users → Edit user roles, or it doesn’t include every permission in the role you’re trying to assign. Ask an Owner to change the user’s role, grant your role the missing permissions, or ask another administrator whose role already includes the destination role’s permissions to make the change.
• Symptom: The role dropdown is missing roles you expected. Fix: Standard roles are always available. If a custom role is missing, check Settings → Roles & permissions — it may have been deleted. Roles must exist in the workspace before they can be assigned.
• Symptom: “Cannot remove the last Owner” error. Fix: Sole-owner protection. Assign Owner to another user first, then try again.
• Symptom: Saved the role change but the user still can’t access the new feature. Fix: Ask them to refresh or log out and back in. Browser caches the previous permissions for the current session.

See also

• What are Users?
• What are Roles and Permissions?
• Standard roles reference
• Create a custom role