How to manage Profiles in Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk profiles control what your team can actually do inside the platform, from replying to tickets to importing records or customising layouts. Getting profiles right means each agent has exactly the access they need, no more and no less.

Default and custom profiles

Zoho Desk ships with default profiles that cannot be edited: Support Administrator, with full access to all features, Agent, with limited feature access, and Light Agent, with very limited, mainly read only permissions. You can also create your own custom profiles tailored to roles such as a newer agent, a supervisor or a support manager. Imported users default to the Manager role and Agent profile, which you can change afterwards.

What profiles control

Permissions are grouped into four categories:

• Module Permissions: access to modules such as Tickets, Accounts and Contacts, including whether a profile can view, create, edit or delete records.
• Ticket Permissions: actions on tickets, such as sending replies, closing tickets, or changing ticket ownership.
• Administrative Permissions: higher level controls such as managing agents and teams, automation setup, rebranding, and data import or export.
• Multi-department Permissions: cross department collaboration, such as sharing or moving tickets and accessing organisation-wide data.

How to create a new profile

1. Go to Setup > User Management > Profiles.
2. Click New Profile.
3. Enter a Profile Name and select an existing profile to clone from the dropdown.
4. Add a Profile Description.
5. Click Save.
6. Adjust the permissions as needed.

Editing profile permissions

Go to Setup > User Management > Profiles, select the profile you want to change, and update its module, ticket, administrative or multi-department permissions, then save your changes.