---
title: Creating and managing roles
description: Create, duplicate, rename, deactivate or delete a role, and track its changes in its history.
url: "https://illizeo.com/en/centre-aide/roles-create-and-manage/"
updated: "2026-11-05"
category: "Platform / Permissions & roles"
---

# Creating and managing roles

This article covers the life of a role: creating, duplicating, renaming, pausing and deleting it, and tracking its changes. It is intended for administrators who manage the organisation’s permissions. For how roles work in general, see [Understanding roles and permissions](https://illizeo.com/en/centre-aide/roles-understanding-permissions/).

## Before you start

- Roles are managed in **Settings › Manage Employees › Employee Roles**.
- Each action has its own permission, at **Execute** level, in the Roles & permissions section of the matrix: “Create a new role” (also used to rename), “Duplicate a role”, “Activate / Deactivate a role” and “Delete a role (non-preset)”. The History tab requires “View the change log”, and its export “Export the matrix to CSV”.
- By default, only the Administrator role holds these permissions.

## Role cards

Below the warning banner, each role has its own card: its colour, name, description and number of individual members (a dash when there are none). The **ILLIZEO** badge marks a role provided by Illizeo; the **INACTIVE** badge and a struck-through name mark a deactivated role.

Click a card to select the role. Its sheet opens below, with four tabs: **Target population**, **Authorized population** (followed by the total number of members), **Reminders** and **History**. The selected card also shows its action buttons: **Duplicate**, **Rename**, **Activate** or **Deactivate**, and **Delete**. Rename and Delete only exist on your own roles.

When a temporary role expires within seven days, a yellow box above the cards announces it, with the number of days left and members affected.

![The role cards, with the Manager card selected and its Duplicate and Deactivate buttons, the other cards with their ILLIZEO badge and member count, and the New role card](https://i0.wp.com/illizeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/roles-create-and-manage-01.en_.png?resize=800%2C135&quality=80&ssl=1)
A selected card shows its action buttons.

## Creating a role

1. Click the **New role** card, after the other cards.
2. The **Create a new role** window shows one block per language of the organisation, yours first. Enter the **Name**, required in your language, and an optional **Description**. A name left empty in another language takes the name entered in your language.
3. Click **Create**.

The new role starts empty: no permission, no target population and no member. It therefore grants nothing until you have set its permissions in the matrix (see [Setting permissions in the matrix](https://illizeo.com/en/centre-aide/roles-permission-matrix/)), its target population and its members. To start from a similar role, duplicate it instead.

Two roles cannot have the same name in the same language: Illizeo refuses the creation with the message “A role with this name already exists.”

![The Create a new role window: one block per language of the organisation (English, French, German, Italian), each with the Name and Description fields](https://i0.wp.com/illizeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/roles-create-and-manage-02.en_.png?resize=440%2C790&quality=80&ssl=1)
The Create a new role window, one block per language.

## Duplicating a role

1. Select the card of the role to copy, including a role provided by Illizeo.
2. Click **Duplicate**.

The copy is named after the original followed by “Duplicate” (“Dupliqué” in French), with a number if that name already exists. It carries over:

- the permissions in the matrix;
- the target population, its exclusions and the “Exclude the employee themselves” setting;
- the **Colleagues’ absences**, **Calendar** and **Allowed lists** cards;
- the reminders, copied as inactive.

It does not carry over the members: neither individual members nor automatic or dynamic members. Nor is it an administration role, and it does not require two-factor authentication, even if the original did. Rename the copy, then assign it.

## Renaming a role

1. Select the role’s card, then click **Rename**.
2. The **Edit name and description** window shows each language of the role. Change the name or description in each one.
3. Click **Save**.

A name left empty keeps the previous name in that language; a description, however, can be cleared. Roles provided by Illizeo cannot be renamed.

## Deactivating or reactivating a role

A deactivated role no longer gives its members anything. It stays on its card, greyed out, but disappears from the matrix columns. To deactivate it, select its card and click **Deactivate**; to reactivate it, click **Activate**, which is never blocked.

Illizeo refuses deactivation in four cases:

- the role still has individual members: the button is greyed out and its tooltip tells you how many members to remove first;
- the role designates approvers in an active workflow;
- it is the All employees role;
- the role is the last one able to administer the organisation’s permissions.

## Deleting a role

1. Select the role’s card, then click **Delete**.
2. Confirm in the **Delete role?** window by clicking **Delete**.

Deletion is permanent. It is only possible for your own roles, and Illizeo refuses it while the role has individual members (“Role cannot be deleted because employees are still assigned to it.”), while it designates approvers in an active workflow, or if it is the last one able to administer permissions. So remove its members first from the **Authorized population** tab. The deleted role is also removed from the announcements and groups that referred to it.

## Tracking changes

The **History** tab keeps the role’s log: creation, duplication, renaming, activation and deactivation, permissions changed, members added and removed, perimeter, exclusions, authorized population and temporality changed, reminders added, updated or deleted. Each line shows the date and time, in your time zone, the author and the details of the change.

The **Export matrix** button on the same tab downloads the matrix as a CSV file: one row per permission, one column per role displayed in the matrix, with each role’s level.

![The History tab of the Manager role: the line Log of all changes made to roles and permissions, the Export matrix button and, here, the No changes recorded message](https://i0.wp.com/illizeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/roles-create-and-manage-03.en_.png?resize=800%2C114&quality=80&ssl=1)
The History tab: the role's log and the matrix export.

## The Reminders tab

The **Reminders** tab schedules reminders sent to the role’s holders about the employees they follow: birthdays, end of trial period, contract end date, end of work permit… Its settings are described in [Alerts & notifications](https://illizeo.com/en/docs-category/platform-en/platform-alerts-notifications/).

## Good to know

- Each change applies immediately, with no overall save button.
- The number shown on a card only counts individual members. The total, including automatic and dynamic members, appears on the **Authorized population** tab.
- Roles provided by Illizeo can be duplicated, deactivated and configured, but cannot be renamed or deleted.

## FAQ

### The Deactivate button is greyed out.

The role still has individual members. Remove them in the **Authorized population** tab (see [Assigning a role to employees](https://illizeo.com/en/centre-aide/roles-assign-a-role/)), then deactivate the role.

### I have just created a role and its members see nothing more.

A new role has no permission and no target population. Grant it permissions in the matrix and define its target population (see [Defining a role’s target population](https://illizeo.com/en/centre-aide/roles-target-population/)).

### *Similaire*