Roles and permissions

5sDesk controls access through two separate questions: which data can a person see, and which modules can they use. On top of that there are three account types and the department lead role. This page explains how they work together and answers the most common support question: “Why can’t I see this?”

Where to set permissions

Admins assign all permissions under Administration › Settings › Team:

“Users”: account type (Admin, Owner), department membership and “Department lead” for each department.
“Departments”: the “Enabled areas” for each department.

User form with the Admin, Owner and Department lead options

The three account types

Account type	Who this is	What else they can do
“User”	Every regular agent	Work in the Inbox, Boards, CRM and the enabled areas of their own departments
“Admin”	Manages the organisation	Everything under Administration › Settings, Forms, Content, Billing & plan, AI log, creating boards and pipelines, reports across all departments, dashboard and time report for everyone
“Owner”	The organisation’s contracting party	Same as Admin, plus changing the plan and seats, cancelling the subscription and resetting all data

The first agent in an organisation is automatically Admin and Owner. Admin and Owner are set as checkboxes in the user form. Owner status must be transferred before an owner can be permanently deactivated.

Departments: who sees which data

Department membership decides which data a person sees. This applies to:

Tickets with a department (a new ticket inherits the department of its mailbox)
Boards and pipelines assigned to a department
Canned responses with visibility per department
Internal knowledge base articles with a department

Everyone can see objects without a department. An agent can belong to several departments and then sees the data of all their departments.

Areas: who uses which modules

Each department has “Enabled areas”. An agent can use every area that is enabled in at least one of their departments. The Inbox is always enabled. Admins have all areas.

Area	What is missing without it
“Sales”	Sales menu, pipelines, deal box and “Create deal” on the ticket, sales report
“Boards”	Boards menu, task boards, card box and “Create card” on the ticket, cards on the dashboard
“CRM (customers & companies)”	Customers menu, customer and company pages, CRM box on the ticket, bulk emails
“Calendar”	Calendar menu
“Appointments”	Appointments menu, own working hours in the profile
“Time report”	The time report. Everyone can still track time, as long as time tracking is switched on in the General settings
“Content”	Administration › Content, AI drafts for articles, “Content page from ticket”

If someone opens a page without the matching area, they see the message “This area is not enabled for your department. Ask an admin if you need it.”

Department lead

Department lead is not a separate account type. It is set for each department in the user form with “Department lead”. The lead role only applies in the departments the person leads. On boards without a department, every lead has these rights.

A department lead can also:

Permanently delete archived cards
Create, rename, sort, colour, delete and clear board columns and pipeline stages
Delete customers and companies
See the reports under Reports › “Tickets” and Reports › “Sales”, limited to the departments they lead
View their own team members’ data in the dashboard, calendar, sales agenda and time report
Manage the ticket tags under Administration › Settings › Team › “Tags”
Manage the other tag lists if the department they lead has the matching area itself: “Customers & companies” with “CRM (customers & companies)”, “Content” with “Content”, “Cards” with “Boards” and “Deals” with “Sales” (see Tags)
Import and export customers and companies as CSV if the department they lead has the “CRM (customers & companies)” area itself. The “Import/Export” button then appears in the lists under Customers › Customers and Customers › Companies (see CRM import and export)

When doing so, a lead only sees what they would be allowed to see themselves. If a team member also works in another department, that department’s tickets and boards stay hidden.

Apart from the tag lists, a lead has no access to settings and cannot manage users. Creating, editing, duplicating, exporting and deleting boards and pipelines remains reserved for admins. An admin who also has the lead option set is treated as an admin.

Who sees what: overview

Action	User	Department lead	Admin	Owner
Settings, forms, content management	no	no (exception: “Tags”)	yes	yes
View billing & plan	no	no	yes	yes
Change plan and seats, cancel the subscription	no	no	no	yes
Reset all of the organisation’s data	no	no	no	yes
Request deletion of the organisation	no	no	yes	yes
Create or delete boards and pipelines	no	no	yes	yes
Maintain columns and stages	no	own departments	yes	yes
Archive and restore cards	yes	yes	yes	yes
Permanently delete archived cards	no	own departments	yes	yes
Delete customers and companies	no	yes	yes	yes
Import and export customers and companies as CSV	no	with the “CRM (customers & companies)” area	yes	yes
Manage ticket tags	no	yes	yes	yes
Manage the other tag lists	no	with the matching area	yes	yes
Set tags on tickets, customers, content, cards and deals	yes	yes	yes	yes
Reports	no	own departments	all	all
Dashboard, calendar, time report of other people	own only	team members	all	all
AI log	no	no	yes	yes

Common questions

An agent can’t see a board. First check the board’s department and the agent’s departments. Then check whether the “Boards” area (or “Sales” for pipelines) is enabled in one of their departments.

An admin can’t see a department’s tickets. The admin must be a member of the department. The account type alone is not enough.

A department lead can’t create a user. That is intentional. Only admins manage users.

An agent should only track time, without seeing the report. Remove the “Time report” area from their department. Time tracking on tickets and cards remains available.