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Manage roles

Create, edit, and assign roles to organize what members can do.

What are roles?​

A role is a named set of permissions that you assign to members. Instead of configuring permissions for each member individually, you create roles that represent different responsibilities.

Every community starts with two default roles:

RolePurpose
EVERYONEAssigned to all members automatically. Sets the permissions all members start with. Cannot be deleted.
AdminFull control over the community. Assigned to the community creator.

You can create additional roles to match your community's needs:

Example rolePurpose
ModeratorHelps keep the community safe by managing messages and members
Trusted MemberActive members with extra abilities like uploading files
Team LeadMembers who manage specific channels or projects

Members can have multiple roles. When they do, Root grants a permission if any of their roles allows it. One of these roles is their primary role, which determines their display color. Changing the primary role does not affect what the member can do. See Set a member's primary role below.

Required permissions
  • Manage Roles

Create a role​

  1. Right-click the community tab, or select the community image in the sidebar.
  2. Select Community settings.
  3. Select Roles from the left navigation.
  4. Select Create Role.
  5. Enter a name for the role.
  6. Select a color. On the Palette tab, choose from preset colors. On the Spectrum tab, use the color spectrum and slider.
  7. (Optional) Under Who can use it, turn on Mentionable so members can @mention this role.
  8. Select the Permissions tab and enable the permissions for this role.
  9. Select the Channel assignment tab and select which channels and channel groups this role can access.
  10. Select the Members tab and select which members should have this role.
  11. Select Save changes.

New roles start with Use Global Mentions turned off. Without it, @All, @Here and roles that aren't set as Mentionable don't show up when members type @. Turn it on in the role's Permissions if the role needs it.

note

You can only grant permissions you have yourself. When editing a role, permissions you don't have appear grayed out, and you can only assign a role if you already have every permission it grants. This means Manage Roles can't be used to reach a more powerful role like Admin.

Edit a role​

  1. Right-click the community tab, or select the community image in the sidebar.
  2. Select Community settings.
  3. Select Roles from the left navigation.
  4. Select the role you want to edit.
  5. Make your changes on the Display, Permissions, Channel assignment, or Members tabs.
  6. Select Save changes.

Clone a role​

On desktop, you can copy a role to start a new one from it. The copy gets the same permissions and color, and the same Mentionable and self assignable settings. It's named after the original with "-Copy" on the end, and sits just below it in the list.

  1. Right-click the community tab, or select the community image in the sidebar.
  2. Select Community settings.
  3. Select Roles from the left navigation.
  4. Next to the role, select the options button (or right-click the role), then select Clone Role.

The copy opens so you can rename it and change what you need. You can also clone a role from its Display tab, under Clone. Save or discard your changes first.

You can only clone a role if you have every permission it has.

Assign roles to a member​

To give someone a role, you need both of these:

  • The Manage Roles permission
  • Every permission that role grants, since you can't hand out a permission you don't have yourself

That second point is the one people miss: a moderator with Manage Roles still can't give out a role if it includes even one permission they don't have. If a moderator can't assign a role they should be able to, check that they have all of that role's permissions.

  1. Right-click the community tab, or select the community image in the sidebar.
  2. Select Community settings.
  3. Select Members from the left navigation.
  4. Find the member and select the + icon next to their name.
  5. Select or deselect roles as needed.

Set a member's primary role​

When a member has multiple roles, their primary role determines their display color. Changing the primary role is purely visual. It does not change what the member can do.

  1. Open the member's profile.
  2. In the Roles section, select the role you want to set as primary.
  3. The primary role is highlighted with a blue border.

Reorder roles​

The order of your roles sets the order members are grouped in on the member list.

  1. Right-click the community tab, or select the community image in the sidebar.
  2. Select Community settings.
  3. Select Roles from the left navigation.
  4. Drag a role up or down the list. The new order is saved when you drop it.

Delete a role​

You can delete any role except the EVERYONE role. When you delete a role, members who had that role lose the permissions it granted.

  1. Right-click the community tab, or select the community image in the sidebar.
  2. Select Community settings.
  3. Select Roles from the left navigation.
  4. Select the role you want to delete.
  5. At the bottom of the Display tab, under Delete, select Delete role.
  6. Type the role name to confirm.
  7. Select Delete.