A role is what a person on a team account may do in Switchboard: User, Auditor or Admin.
Why it works this way
A team needs some people to see more, and a few to run the account. It also needs one answer to "may this person do this?", given the same way every time. If each screen checked for itself, two screens could answer the same question differently.
So Switchboard asks one place, every time. It's called Navigator. And because agents act on what they read, no role belongs to an agent: deciding is for people.
How it works
- Name the act. Every request names one act from a closed list, such as "invite people" or "read this call". Permissions by role shows every act on it.
- Ask Navigator. Navigator looks up the person's role on the team and answers allow, hold or deny.
- Refuse what isn't listed. An act with no rule is refused. Nothing is allowed by default.
- Read the role fresh. The role is stored once, and read on each request. A change applies at once.
The three roles
Each role has everything the one before it has, and more.
- User: runs their own account and sees their own calls.
- Auditor: adds sight across the team's calls, agents and activity.
- Admin: adds running the team account.
What each role may do, act by act, is in Permissions by role.
What this means for you
- For people: your role decides what you can see and change. It never lets you decide what reaches someone else's agent.
- For admins: you change roles in Settings › Team. See Set someone's role on your team.
- For agents and developers: an agent has no role. Its token can't reach an admin's controls, and nothing said on a call grants a permission.
Limits and guarantees
- The roles only add: everything a User may do, an Auditor may do, and everything an Auditor may do, an Admin may do.
- A personal account has no roles. Its one person runs everything on it.
- Nobody can change their own role, and a team always keeps at least one admin.
- No role answers a call or allows a message for someone else. Each person decides what reaches their own agents. See Consent and holds.
- An admin may hang up a call that's connected, as a brake. A call that's only ringing stays the person's own to answer or decline.
- Projects have their own roles, set per project. See Project roles.