Managing Roles

In Zoho CRM, you can set up the organization-wide hierarchy using the Roles module. Users at higher hierarchy can always access all the records of at lower hierarchy. For example, Sales Manager can access all the Sales Reps' records where as Sales Reps can access only their records.

Key Features

• User with CEO role has access to manage entire data in your organization.
• Managers in the role hierarchy cannot view or edit their subordinates' records if they do not have the "Read" or "Edit" user permissions for the type of record.
• Users at higher role can access other users’ data below their hierarchy. Example: Sales Manager can access his/her sub-ordinates' data
• By default, users at the same role cannot access each others data. Example, VP Engineering cannot access the VP Marketing data and vice versa though they are at same position. However, using the Share Data with Peers option you can enable sharing of data among peers.
• By default, users at the top of the hierarchy cannot view the data shared to their subordinate users through custom sharing rules. However, you can enable access rights to the superiors by using the Superiors Allowed option while creating data sharing rule.
• One must have read/write access to the primary record to add Notes, attachments or send email to it.

Sample Organization Hierarchy

Physical Model of  Organizational Hierarchy

Representation of Organizational Hierarchy in Zoho CRM

Creating Roles

By default, CEO and Manager roles are enabled for your Zoho CRM account. In addition, you can create different types of roles as per users’ position in your organization hierarchy and type of your Zoho CRM edition.

In the <Roles Name> form, you need to specify the role-related information. The following table provides description of the various standard fields in the form.

List of Role-related Fields

To create new roles

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup Home page, under the Admin Settings section, click the Roles hyperlink.
3. In the Roles List page, click the New Role icon.
   
4. In the New Role page, do the following operations:
   1. Role Name: Specify the name of the role.
   2. Reports To: Select the immediate superior's role.
   3. Share Data with Peers: Select the check box if you would like to enable access rights to peers.
   4. Description: Specify information about the role.
      For more information, refer List of Role-related Fields table.
      
5. Click Save.

Assigning Roles to the Users

After creating roles, you can assign them to the users in your organization.

To assign roles to the users

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup Home page, under the Admin Settings section, click the Users hyperlink.
3. In the Users page, click the <User Name> hyperlink.
4. In the User: <User Name> page, click the Edit button.
5. Under the User Settings section, select the specific role from the Role tree.
6. Click Save.
   

Editing Roles

You can modify the user roles as per changes in your organizational hierarchy. As part of the modification of the roles, you can perform the following:

• Rename the role
• Change the Superior Role
• Change the setting for sharing data with Peers
  

While changing the role names, all the data sharing rules will be updated automatically. Hence you need not calculate the data sharing rules or update the user details.

To edit a Role

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup Home page, under the Admin Settings section, click the Roles link.
3. In the Roles List, click on the Role name.
4. In the View Role page, click Edit button.
5. In the Edit Role page, update the new properties for the role. For more information, refer List of Role-related Fields table.
6. Click Save.
   

Deleting Roles

You cannot delete the existing roles without transferring the users to the new role.

To delete a Role

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup Home page, under the Admin Settings section, click the Roles link.
3. In the Roles List, click on the Role name.
4. In the View Role page, click the Delete button.
5. In the Delete Role page, Click on an existing Role from Role tree to transfer the child-roles to the existing role.
   
6. Click the Transfer & Delete button.
   Now role and child-roles are transferred to the new role and a different organization hierarchy is created.