Roles are customizable labels that can be created and attached to users of your community. They can be used to determine what actions they are allowed to carry out in your channels and what content they are allowed to see. Roles are useful in helping manage your members and controlling their access to your community.
Creating a role
Roles are created in the roles tab of your community settings. To create a role, click on the plus button located next to 'Roles.'
From there, you can configure the various role settings on the right-hand side. This includes your Role Name, Role Color, Community Permissions, and Channel Permissions!
Role Name & Colors
Give your role a name and pick a color to represent it. Role names, along with their corresponding colors, will be displayed above the usernames of assigned users. The displayed role will follow the role hierarchy, with the color and name of the highest role being displayed. Toggling on 'Role Name Translations' will also allow you to localize role names into languages used by your community members.
Role permissions
Role permissions enable you to control what your users can and cannot do within your community. Each role comes with an extensive list of permissions, which can be configured to allow or disallow certain actions. For example, you can prevent specific roles from attaching files while allowing administrative privileges to other roles.
General Community Permissions
General Community Permissions allow you to configure what actions members who possess this role can take in your community. The following is a list of all general community permissions and the permissions they give to members.
Admin: Enabling this turns on administrative permissions for this role. Community administrators have authority second only to server owners. They can fully access and modify community settings, with only a few exceptions (e.g., deleting the community, banning the community owner, etc.).
Allow Direct Messages (DM): Allows members to send direct messages to other users within the community
Community Invite: Allows members to create invite links that can be used to invite users into your community.
Warn Members:
Suspend Members: This allows members to remove other members from your community. Kicked members can still rejoin through invite links.
Ban Members: This feature allows members to ban other members from your community. Bans are permanent and can only be removed by Community Owners or Admins.
Broadcast Messages: Allow members to broadcast their messages to multiple communities and channels at once
Overwrite Language Settings:
General Channel Permissions
General Community Permissions allow you to configure what actions members who possess this role can take in your channels. Note that permissions configured in the channels themselves are given priority over these individual role channel permissions. The following is a list of all general channel permissions and the permissions they give to members.
Post Messages: Allow members to send messages
Attach Files: Allow members to send files, such as images or documents, in the various chatrooms
Allow Mentions: Allow members to mention this role. (e.g. It would be helpful to let members @ your support team, but perhaps not your administrative team.)
Delete Messages: Allow members to delete messages sent by other members
Share Links: Allow members to send links in all available channels
Share Attachments: Allow members to share attachments in all available channels
Assigning roles
Once your roles have been created, you can begin assigning them to your community members. To assign roles, head to the user list page in your community settings!
From there, you can view an extensive list of your community's members. To assign a role, first, locate the member of choice! You can use the search function to help you do this. Once you've found your member of choice, click the '+' icon under the 'Roles' column. A '+' icon represents roles not yet assigned. Choose the role you'd like to assign them to, and you're done!
If you have your community gamification enabled, roles can also be set up and assigned automatically upon achieving a set amount of XP (Experience Points). To find out more about automated role assignment, check out this article on Setting up Gamification.
Removing roles
To remove roles, click the '+' icon under the 'Roles' column. Then, choose the role you'd like to remove from the selected member. Roles that have already been assigned and can be removed are represented by an 'x' icon. Finally, click on the role you'd like to remove, and you're done!
