Customize Roles

Owned by Kevin Pham (Deactivated)
Last updated: Oct 10, 2024 by Dominik Trygar
4 min read

Starting October 11, 2024 (Zephyr Enterprise 8.2), the Zephyr Enterprise documentation moved from its current location on Atlassian to a dedicated, standalone Zephyr Enterprise documentation page. Please see: https://support.smartbear.com/zephyr-enterprise/docs/en/zephyr-enterprise/zephyr-administration-guides/system-setup/customizations/customize-roles.html


Zephyr comes with several default roles (Test Manager, Test Lead, Tester, Defect User, Dashboard User, Project Admin) but then allows you to create (or modify or delete) additional roles and decide which applications those roles can have access to on their account. Only one dashboard role will be created and you cannot create other dashboard roles. The default roles are not editable except for the Test Lead and Tester project apps.

Administrators can create and customize individual roles and determine the permissions for specific applications in Zephyr for each role. Once a role has been created, users can be assigned it. Users must be allocated to a project and given a role in order to log into Zephyr and use the specific project-level applications that they were assigned to.

The following fields for creating a new user role are the following:

  • Name – A required field for the name of the user role.
  • Description – An optional field that is used to provide the context of the role if need be.
  • Role Template – A required field to determine the level of permission for certain applications in Zephyr.

Administrators can create roles within any of the following Role Template categories:

  • Administration Apps - This role template is only visible in the User Setup and can be assigned to users exclusively through the User Setup interface.
  • Project Apps - This role template is only visible at the project setup or group setup level, allowing each user to have a different role in different projects.
  • Global Repository Apps - This role template is only visible in the User Setup and can be assigned to users exclusively through the User Setup interface.

Roles can only have one template and you cannot create a role with multiple templates. You cannot create a role without any Apps selected. At least one App is mandatory to create the role. Users cannot delete the last Administration app role.

Managers will end up having three roles: one for Administration Apps, one for Project Apps, and one for Global Repository Apps.

Users can filter roles by "Role Template" or search for roles by keyword, and the roles table has pagination. 

When selecting the permissions for the role, the Test Repository for the Project Apps and Global Repository Apps have read-only permission. The read-only permission will allow the user to only view the items in the test repository/global test repository but will not allow the user to perform certain action items (Create/Edit/Delete). When you select the permissions for a project application, read-only will be automatically selected.

  • Read-only users cannot use any of the grid view buttons (Add/Import/Clone/Delete/Edit/Map/Reorder Test cases).
  • Read-only users cannot use any of the folder operations (Add/Edit/Delete/Sync/Import).
  • Read-only users can view different test case versions but cannot edit or perform any actions with the test case versions.
  • Read-only users can utilize the export function for the folders, the test cases in the grid view and the test cases in the detail view for the test repository/global test repository.

When selecting the permissions for the role, you can select the option for 'Create and Edit' which will allow users with this permission to be able to create and edit the content corresponding to the application selected. This is beneficial to prevent any unauthorized users from creating new or editing existing requirements, test cases, folders, etc.

When selecting the permissions for the role, there may be an additional “delete” check box option for certain applications that can be selected. This is a feature that provides the administrator creating the role with the ability to customize the role’s permission to delete the content corresponding to the application. This is beneficial to prevent any unauthorized users from deleting requirements, test cases, folders, etc.

For example, If the “delete” option is selected for the requirements application, then the users with this role are given permission to be able to delete requirements. If the option isn’t selected, users with this role cannot delete requirements.

Roles can be set up with the administration apps so that users with the role can manage the Zephyr system, users in the system, projects in Zephyr, manage the defects administration section, and any groups in Zephyr. To manage other users and groups in the system, you can create a role with the 'User Setup' or 'Group Setup' application selected which allows the user of that role to manage other users/groups and their access/information in Zephyr.