What are Confluence's roles?

This article describes Confluence’s new role-based access model. This includes existing sites that signed up to participate in the beta for roles as well as new roles-only sites.

When roles are enabled in your Confluence instance, you can mange roles by going to Confluence settings > Security > Space permissions > Manage roles or to the Users page in Space settings.

If you don’t see those in your experience, your instance hasn’t been enabled for roles yet.

Roles make managing user access to spaces consistent, predictable, and scalable. Each role has a different set of individual permissions associated with it, giving you confidence in what each user can do.

You can also assign roles broadly to different classes of users such as All Confluence users or All Confluence admins, regardless of group membership.

Confluence’s roles

Confluence has four default roles, as well as the ability to define custom roles.

View the specific permissions included in each default role

Admin

Manages everything in the space.

Best for: IT teams, Space owners

Manager

Manages people and content but not settings.

Best for: Project leads, Team leads

Collaborator

Adds and edits content in the space.

Viewer

Views and comments on content in the space.

How the legacy permissions map to Confluence’s roles

The legacy space permissions table has a new look in the new world of Confluence roles. Here’s how it all fits together.

A view of Confluence's legacy roles interface

A view of Confluence's Manage access screen

Legacy permissions		Role permissions
All > View		“View content”
All > Delete own		“Delete own content“
Pages, whiteboards, databases, and Smart Links > Add		“Create content“
Pages, whiteboards, databases, and Smart Links > Archive		“Archive any content in the space“
Pages, whiteboards, databases, and Smart Links > Delete		“Delete anyone’s content“
Blogs > Add		“Create blogs“
Blogs > Delete		“Delete blogs“
Comments > Add		“Comment on content“
Comments > Delete		“Delete anyone’s comments“
Attachments > Add		“Add attachments“
Attachments > Delete		“Delete attachments“
Restrictions > Add/Delete		“Manage user access to content“
Space > Export		“Export space“
Space > Admin		“Manage everything in space“
New permissions If you migrated from the old permissions experience, you’ll notice more permissions available when creating custom roles and assigning access. These new permissions were split from the original Admin, View, and Comment on content permissions, enabling the creation of the default Manager role and more granular control. Anyone who had the original permissions will automatically have the new ones. If you didn’t have the original permissions, you won’t get the new ones by default.
NEW	-	“Manage all content in space”
NEW	-	“Create content templates”
NEW	-	“Manage look and feel of space”
NEW	-	“Delete own comments”
NEW	-	“Manage access to space“
NEW	-	“Allow and manage public links“
NEW	-	“Manage guest access to space“
NEW	-	“Allow and manage anonymous access“
NEW	-	“Delete space”
NEW	-	“Archive space”
NEW	-	“Edit content”
NEW	-	“Edit blogs”
NEW	-	“Export individual content”

Specific permissions in each role

View of an admin's permissions in Confluence

Permissions included with the Admin role

A view of permissions included in the Manager role

Permissions included with the Manager role

A view of the permissions available for the Collaborator role.

Permissions included with the Collaborator role

A view of the permissions available for the Viewer role.

Permissions included with the Viewer role

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