# Roles and permissions

_Category: Team and account_

Everyone on your team has a role in each help center. The role decides what they can see and change, from reading a private help center to running its settings and billing. Give each person the role that fits their job.

**Who can do this:** Owners and Admins assign roles · **Plans:** All plans

## The five roles

- **Owner**: the person who created the help center. The owner can do everything, including deleting the help center. Each help center has one owner, and the owner's role can't be changed.
- **Admin**: runs the help center with you, including its content, design, settings and team.
- **Editor**: writes, edits and publishes articles, and keeps an eye on statistics and comments.
- **Translator**: translates existing articles into your other languages.
- **Viewer**: reads your help center while it's private. Viewers don't get the dashboard.

## What each role can do

| What they can do | Owner | Admin | Editor | Translator | Viewer |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Read the help center when it's private | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Open the Articles page in the dashboard | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Translate articles into other languages | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Create, edit, publish and delete articles and categories | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Use Statistics, Comments, Trash and Change sets | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Delete articles permanently and empty the Trash | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Design the help center in the template editor | Yes | Yes | Yes, from **Customize** on the help center | No | No |
| Manage Settings (custom domain, single sign-on, API keys, integrations), Localization, Users and Embeddables | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Use Danger zone: request the full PDF export or delete the help center | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Manage billing and subscriptions | Yes | No | No | No | No |

- **Translators** edit an article's other languages only. They can't change the default-language version or create new articles.
- **Change sets** are part of the Catalyst plan.
- **Billing** belongs to the account owner, the person who pays for the help center. Only they can manage its subscription and billing details under **Billing & Invoices**.

**AI agents follow the same roles.** An AI app someone connects by signing in can do only what that person's role allows on each help center. See [Connect Claude, ChatGPT and other AI agents](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/connect-ai-agents).

## Custom roles

On the Catalyst plan, you can also create your own roles with exactly the permissions you choose. The most common is a Reviewer, who writes, edits and translates articles but never publishes them, so an editor checks their work first. See [Create custom roles for your team](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/custom-roles).

## Roles are per help center

If you run several help centers, invite people to each one separately. Someone can be an Editor in one help center and a Viewer in another.

## Readers who sign in with single sign-on

If your help center signs readers in with your own login (JWT SSO), those readers aren't team members. They don't appear under **Users** and never get dashboard access, whatever your login system sends. To give a colleague access to the dashboard, invite them under **Users**. See [Sign readers in with your own login (JWT SSO)](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/jwt-sso).

## Give someone a different role

1. In the left menu, click the gear icon, then **Users**.
2. Pick a new role in the dropdown next to the person's name.

![Screen recording. Pick a new role next to their name. It applies at once. The bin icon removes someone. Their articles stay.](https://helpcenter-io.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/self/rAJfIygAjgzjZ0Nto79yexQj6GfsAi89B3RqE1rw.gif)
A new role applies straight away.

See [Change someone's role or remove them](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/change-roles) for the details.

## Related articles

- [Create custom roles for your team](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/custom-roles)
- [Invite your team](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/invite-your-team)
- [Change someone's role or remove them](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/change-roles)
- [Make a category private](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/private-categories)