Workiva Support Center

This feature is currently in beta. This beta feature is provided to you for technical testing and evaluation only until October 28, 2026. Workiva may adjust the testing period at its discretion. To add this feature to your workspace, contact your Customer Success Manager.

Custom roles allow your workspace to create role configurations tailored to your organization's needs. Instead of assigning only predefined system roles, you can create custom roles with specific actions and access levels, then assign those roles to workspace users.

Use custom roles to standardize permissions across teams, simplify user management, and ensure users have access only to the actions they need to perform. To learn more about roles, read Understanding roles.

Requirements

Before you create or manage custom roles:

• You must have permission to manage workspace roles.
• You must be a member of the workspace.

Manage custom roles

To view available roles:

1. Open Workspace Settings by clicking the workspace name and selecting Settings.
   
2. Select the Roles tab.

The Roles list displays:

• Role: The role name.
• Source: Whether the role is provided by the system or created in the workspace.
• Number of users: The number of users currently assigned to the role.

Use Filters to narrow the list of roles or use Search to find a role by name.

Create a custom role

Duplicate a role

Workiva provides a set of system-defined roles that cover the majority of customer needs. These roles have the System label in the Source column. You can duplicate these roles and make changes to them. You can also duplicate any roles with a Workspace source.

To duplicate a role:

1. Open Workspace Settings and select the Roles tab.
2. Click Create and select Duplicate role.
   
3. Select the role you want to copy.
4. Click Duplicate.
   
5. Enter a role name and description. Click Save.
6. Select any actions and access levels for the role to have.
7. Click Review.
8. After you’re done reviewing, click Confirm and save.

Create a new role

Instead of duplicating a role, you can create a brand new one.

To create a new role:

1. Open Workspace Settings and select the Roles tab.
2. Click Create and select New role.
   
3. Enter a role name and description. Click Save.
   
4. Select any actions and access levels for the role to have.
5. Click Review.
6. After you’re done reviewing, click Confirm and save.

Understand actions

Actions determine what users assigned to a role can do in Workiva. When you disable an action in a role, Workiva prevents users assigned to that role from using that action. When you enable an action you may be able to select an access level that determines whether resource permissions can determine user access.

To make actions easier to find and manage, they're grouped into categories based on the product area or experience they affect. For example, actions related to comments are grouped under Comments, while actions related to files are grouped under Files.

Select a category from the left panel to view its available actions. Use Search actions to find a specific action across all categories. Each category contains one or more actions that can be enabled or disabled for the role. 

Understand access level types

When you’re enabling or disabling actions for a role, you can customize the role’s access level.

• Always: Users can perform the action on all applicable resources in the workspace, including resources created in the future.
• Shared resources only: Users can perform the action only on resources they have permission to access.

Edit a custom role

You can make changes to your custom role.

Note: You can only make changes to roles with a Workspace source. System roles can’t be edited.

To edit a custom role:

1. Open the Roles tab.
2. Click the role that you want to edit.
3. Click Edit.
   
4. To edit the role name and description, click the pencil icon next to the role’s name.
5. Edit actions or access levels within the actions area.
6. Click Review.
7. After you’re done reviewing, click Confirm and save.

Note: Changes apply to users currently assigned to the role.

Set default roles

You can set default roles to automatically assign to a new workspace user. In Roles, click Set default(s) and save any changes made.

Disable roles

You can disable a custom role when it’s no longer needed, but it can be easily enabled in the future.

To disable a role:

1. Open the Roles tab.
2. Select the role you want to disable.
3. Click Disable.
4. Confirm the action.

Note: Disabled roles can no longer be assigned to users.

Archive a custom role

Archive a custom role when it’s no longer needed but you want to retain it for reference.

To archive a role:

1. Open the Roles tab.
2. Click the three dots menu next to the role that you want to archive.
3. Select Archive.
   
4. Confirm the action.

Note: Archived roles won’t be available to assign to any more users. Archiving a role may affect users currently assigned to the role.