Granting Agents Access to Explore – Barbara Demos

To use Explore, your agents must have licenses (see Explore pricing) and be granted access. How you grant access will depend on the version of Zendesk Support you use.

Use this article to learn how to ensure correct access to your business information in Explore Professional. If you are using Explore Lite, all your agents have view-only access to predefined dashboards.

This article contains the following topics:

Granting access to agents with Support Professional
Granting access to agents with Support Enterprise custom roles
Granting access to agents with Support Professional

If you're using Zendesk Support Professional and you have the Support admin role, you configure access to Explore in two places:

Explore's default role
Explore Permissions
Understanding the default role of Explore

The default role is configured in the Explore admin page. This role is applied to an agent when they first sign in to Explore and a role has not been defined in Zendesk Support. You must be an Explore administrator to configure the default role.

Example: you have imported agents from a CSV file, so no Explore functions are applied. When the agent logs in for the first time, it is assigned the default Explore role.

Always set the default role. When adding agents in bulk, such as from a CSV file, for example, you will have a basic level of access defined. If needed, you can modify access for selected users later in their agent profiles. You can change the default role for new Explore users on the Account Information page of the Explore Admin menu.

Default role setup for new users

Use the following procedure to change the default role that will apply to new users who do not have access to Explore.

How to change explore default user role

In Explore, click the Admin icon. ().
The Dashboard Delivery by Email page opens. From the menu on the page, click the account information icon ().
From the Default Explore Role drop-down list, choose the role you want to apply by default to all new Explore users, or choose No Access if you want to grant access to new users manually.
When finished, click Update Account.
Understanding Explore features

Explore roles are configured by an administrator in the Zendesk Admin Center and override any previously applied default roles.

Important: When manually adding a new agent to your Zendesk account or viewing the profile of an agent who does not yet have access to Explore, by default the agent will not have access to Explore regardless of the default role configured. If you want the agent to access Explore, you must activate the product in the Zendesk Admin Center and configure the role.

If Explore is in the Admin Center disabled position, it will not be able to access the product regardless of other access settings.

User role configuration

Use the following procedure to grant a user access to Explore. You must be a Support admin to configure users.

How to configure a user's access to Explore

In the Admin Center, click the People () icon in the sidebar and select Team > Team Members.
Select your username. The user you choose must have the User Type of Team Member.
In the user's profile, under Role, click Manage in the Admin Center.

The Zendesk Admin Center is displayed under the Roles & Access tab.

In the Explore section of the page, select the Access check box. If you do not select this check box, you will not be able to access Explore.
In the Role drop-down list, choose the user role you want from the following table:
Permissions Role
Administrator

Includes all editor permissions plus:

Update editor permissions for custom datasets (see Setting editor and administrator permissions).
Change the default colors of color-coded charts and metrics.
Edit Excel settings when exporting dashboards. This includes column and tab separators, decimal precision, decimal separator, and thousands separator.
Manage dashboard delivery schedules for all Explore users.

Editor
Create and customize new dashboards, queries, and datasets.
Edit created and shared dashboards, queries and datasets.
Share dashboards with Support agents and groups.
Set email dashboard delivery schedules (see Shared dashboards via email).

viewer
View dashboards shared with him.
Cannot create queries or dashboards.

When finished, click Save.
Repeat the steps for the other users you want to configure.

the user now has access to the Explore you set up.

Granting access to agents with Support Enterprise custom roles

If you are using Zendesk Support Enterprise and have the Support admin role, you configure access to Explore with custom roles accessed from the Support console. Custom roles let you control access to multiple Zendesk products from multiple users simultaneously. If you apply one of the default custom roles to one of your users, they will automatically receive the following Explore role:

Support Enterprise custom role Explore role
Administrator Create reports and manage permissions
Lead agent Create reports
Team View reports
Light agent View reports
New custom function View reports
Advisor No access

For help with custom roles, see Creating custom roles and assigning them to agents.

Note: If you have Light Agents on your Zendesk instance and assign them the Light Agent custom role, they will be able to see all dashboards shared with them in Zendesk (only applicable to Suite Enterprise and Support Enterprise plans and legacy Explore Professional plans) .

Additionally, you can configure access to Explore in your own custom roles.

How to configure Explore settings in a custom role

In the Admin Center, click the People () icon in the sidebar and select Staff > Roles.
In the list of roles, choose the role for which you want to configure access to Explore and click edit. For details on creating a new role, see Creating Custom Roles and Assigning them to Agents.
On the role's settings page, set the setting Explore > What can this agent do in Explore?. Choose from the following permissions:
Permissions Role
Create reports and manage permissions

Includes all editor permissions plus:

create reports
Create and customize new dashboards, queries, and datasets.
Edit created and shared dashboards, queries and datasets.
Share dashboards with Support agents and groups.
Set email dashboard delivery schedules (see Shared dashboards via email).

view reports
View dashboards shared with him.
Cannot create queries or dashboards.
When finished, click Update Role.

Now, whenever a custom role is assigned to one or more users, that user will have access to Explore.