Roles central and planning your transition
Roles central is your one-stop hub in Confluence admin for managing your site's transition from custom access (legacy granular permissions) to roles. From here, you can:
Learn how role-based access works and what it means for your site
Track how much of your site's access is already covered by roles
Access tooling to plan and bulk transition your site from legacy permissions based access to role-based access
Set the fallback role that will apply to any unconverted custom access at the end of the transition window
Move your site to role-based access only when you're ready
Before you begin
You must be a Confluence admin to access Roles central.
Your site must have roles enabled. If you don't have roles enabled yet, the version of Roles central in your Confluence admin settings is more limited.
Access Roles central
Go to Confluence admin settings, then select Permissions.
Select Roles central.
Configure your roles and defaults
Now that your site has roles, you’ll want to start with a few foundational steps:
Audit your permissions data data to understand access across your site.
Create custom roles for your organization's unique access needs.
Set default access for new spaces, so newly created spaces use roles from the start.
Once these steps are complete, you’re ready to start transitioning your site to roles, space by space or in bulk (recommended).
As you go, you can mark each step complete by checking the checkmark next to the step.
Transition your site in bulk
Roles central provides access to the two primary tools for moving access across your site from legacy permissions combinations to roles. Once you’ve made a plan, use these tools to update access across your site. The methods for updating access to roles include:
Assigning roles by legacy permission combinations
Assigning roles by user, either in bulk or space by space.
Read more about how to transition to roles.
Tip: You can track your transition progress in the transition to roles tool in Confluence admin settings. There, you’ll be able to track both:
Custom permission combinations remaining – the number of distinct legacy permission configurations still in use across your site
Percentage of access covered by roles – how much of your site's total access is already managed by roles rather than custom access
Use this information to prioritize which permission combinations to convert next and to understand how much work remains.
Set your fallback role
The fallback role determines what happens to any custom access that hasn't been transitioned by the end of your transition window. Instead of removing access or making that decision for you, Confluence converts remaining custom access to the fallback role you configure.
The default fallback role is Collaborator. You can change it to any default or custom role available on your site.
To set or change the fallback role:
Go to Confluence settings, then select Permissions.
Select Roles central.
In the Fallback role section, select the role you want to use.
Select Save.
Important: Choose your fallback role carefully. At the transition deadline, any user, group, team, guest, or user class still on custom access will receive this role. Review what permissions each role includes before making a selection.
Transition to role-based access only
You have two paths to complete the transition:
Option 1: Transition at your own pace
Use the transition tool to convert custom access to roles across all or selected spaces. You'll get intelligent role recommendations, the ability to review access impact before applying changes, and a full audit trail.
Once all custom access is converted to roles, you can move to roles-only:
Go to Confluence settings, then select Permissions.
Select Roles central.
Select Move to role-based access only.
Review the confirmation, then select Confirm.
Option 2: Let the system apply automatic defaults
If you haven't fully transitioned by the end of your transition window, Confluence will automatically convert any remaining custom access to your configured fallback role.
What happens after you move to roles only
Once your site is in role-based access only:
All access is managed exclusively through default and custom roles, including changes made via Automations and API. The legacy granular permissions model and custom access are no longer available.
The transition tool, permissions data exports, and roles central transition view are no longer shown.
You can still manage your default and custom roles, configure system operations, and bulk update access to roles by individual user across your site.
Future migrations into this site (imports, restores, or Data Center to Cloud) may temporarily re-enable custom access to preserve migrated permissions.
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