Roles and permissions

Requirements

You must have the Admin role to create, edit or delete roles. If your organization uses custom roles, your role needs the Create Roles, Update Roles or Delete Roles permission for each task.

This article explains what each built-in role can do, how to create your own roles, and lists every permission.

Every user in your organization has one role. The role decides what they can do, such as edit emails, change an Email Design System or invite users. Which projects they can see is decided separately, by the teams and workspaces they belong to.

Built-in roles

EmailShepherd has four built-in roles:

• Viewer: for people who review emails. Can see and comment on emails, but can’t change anything.
• Editor: for people who build emails. Can create, edit and publish emails.
• Developer: for people who build and maintain your Email Design Systems. Can do everything an Editor can, and set up Email Design Systems, dynamic content and connectors.
• Admin: for people who run your organization. Can do everything, including managing users, roles, teams and workspaces, and can see every team’s projects.

For exactly what each role can do, see Permissions.

To give a user a different role, see Change a user’s role.

Create a custom role

If none of the built-in roles fits, create a custom role with exactly the permissions you need.

1. In the top-left of the sidebar, click your organization’s name, then select Organization settings.
2. Select the Roles tab.
3. Click Create new role.
4. In Name, enter a name for the role, such as Designer.
5. Under Permissions, tick each permission the role needs. To tick every permission in a group, click Select all beside the group.
6. Click Create.

You can now assign the role to users.

Caution

A user with the Manage API Keys permission can create API keys with any scope, including access their own role doesn’t have. Only give it to people you trust with full access.

Edit a custom role

1. In Organization settings, select the Roles tab.
2. Beside the role, click the edit icon.
3. Change the Name or the permissions.
4. Click Save.

The changes apply straight away to every user with the role.

You can’t edit the built-in roles. To change what they can do, create a custom role instead.

Delete a custom role

You can only delete a role that no users have. First, give each user with the role a different role.

1. In Organization settings, select the Roles tab.
2. Beside the role, click the delete icon.
3. Confirm that you want to delete it.

Permissions

This table lists every permission, using the names shown when you create a custom role, and which built-in roles have it.

Area	Permission	Viewer	Editor	Developer	Admin
Workspaces	Update Workspaces	No	No	No	Yes
Workspaces	Create Workspaces	No	No	No	Yes
Workspaces	Delete Workspaces	No	No	No	Yes
Workspaces	Access All Workspaces	No	No	No	Yes
Workspaces	Manage Workspace Access	No	No	No	Yes
Teams	Update Teams	No	No	No	Yes
Teams	Create Teams	No	No	No	Yes
Teams	Delete Teams	No	No	No	Yes
Teams	Access All Teams	No	No	No	Yes
Email Management	Update Emails	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Create Emails	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Delete Emails	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Add/Remove/Reorder Email Components	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Add/Remove Conditionals from Components	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Add/Remove Locales from Emails	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Submit Emails for Approval	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Publish Emails	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Management	Force Publish Emails	No	No	No	Yes
Email Management	Convert Emails to Draft	No	No	No	Yes
Image Library	Update Library Images	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Image Library	Create Library Images	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Image Library	Delete Library Images	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Projects	Update Projects	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Projects	Create Projects	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Projects	Delete Projects	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Folders	Manage Email Folders	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Design Systems	Update Email Design Systems	No	No	Yes	Yes
Email Design Systems	Create Email Design Systems	No	No	Yes	Yes
Email Design Systems	Delete Email Design Systems	No	No	Yes	Yes
Brand Profiles	Update Brand Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Brand Profiles	Create Brand Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Brand Profiles	Delete Brand Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Content Blocks	Update Content Blocks	No	No	Yes	Yes
Content Blocks	Create Content Blocks	No	No	Yes	Yes
Content Blocks	Delete Content Blocks	No	No	Yes	Yes
Layouts	Update Layouts	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Layouts	Create Layouts	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Layouts	Delete Layouts	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Component Presets	Manage Component Presets	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dynamic Content Profiles	Update Dynamic Content Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Dynamic Content Profiles	Create Dynamic Content Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Dynamic Content Profiles	Delete Dynamic Content Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Personalization tags	Update Personalization Tags	No	No	Yes	Yes
Personalization tags	Create Personalization Tags	No	No	Yes	Yes
Personalization tags	Delete Personalization Tags	No	No	Yes	Yes
Conditionals	Update Conditionals	No	No	Yes	Yes
Conditionals	Create Conditionals	No	No	Yes	Yes
Conditionals	Delete Conditionals	No	No	Yes	Yes
Link Tracking Profiles	Update Link Tracking Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Link Tracking Profiles	Create Link Tracking Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Link Tracking Profiles	Delete Link Tracking Profiles	No	No	Yes	Yes
Connectors	Create Connectors	No	No	Yes	Yes
Connectors	Update Connectors	No	No	Yes	Yes
Connectors	Delete Connectors	No	No	Yes	Yes
Organization	Update Organization	No	No	No	Yes
Organization	Manage Billing	No	No	No	Yes
Organization	Manage API Keys	No	No	Yes	Yes
Organization	Manage OAuth Apps	No	No	No	Yes
Organization	View Audit Logs	No	No	No	Yes
Organization	Manage Organization SSO Settings	No	No	No	Yes
Organization	Manage App Configuration	No	No	No	Yes
Users	Update Users	No	No	No	Yes
Users	Create Users	No	No	No	Yes
Users	Delete Users	No	No	No	Yes
Roles	Update Roles	No	No	No	Yes
Roles	Create Roles	No	No	No	Yes
Roles	Delete Roles	No	No	No	Yes
AI	Access AI Chat Copilot	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI	Can create emails using background agents	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI	Can trigger AI Reviews	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI	Generate AI Images	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI Agents	Manage Agents	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
MCP Connectors	Manage MCP Servers	No	No	Yes	Yes
Test emails	Send Test Emails	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Test emails	Manage Test Lists	No	No	Yes	Yes
Exports	Create HTML Exports	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exports	Create JSON Exports	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exports	Create Connector Exports	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Collaboration	Commenting on emails	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Feeds	Manage Feeds	No	No	Yes	Yes
Review Groups	Manage Review Groups	No	No	No	Yes