Playbooks roles

reference australia Updated Sep 10, 2026 2 min read process-automation-designer-roles.md
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Grant users access to build, view, and act on Playbook.

Roles

Roles are hierarchical. A role grants everything it contains, so assigning playbook.admin grants every role beneath it.

Role Description Contains
playbook.admin Create, update, and delete trigger definitions. Launch the design environment to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks. Create, edit, and delete activity definitions. Add translations for a playbook. View the shared Experience activity types and properties tables. pd_author, pd_content_author, pd_operator, pd_cancel, pd_restarter, pd_shared.admin
pd_author Launch the design environment to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks. View all activity definitions. View the shared Experience activity types and properties tables. playbook.write, playbook.activity_def_read, pd_shared.user
pd_content_author Create, edit, and delete activity definitions and trigger definitions. View the shared Experience activity types and properties tables. pd_trigger_author, playbook.activity_def_read, pd_shared.user
pd_trigger_author Create, update, and delete trigger definitions. None
pd_operator View process executions, activity executions, and execution logs only. None
pd_cancel Cancel a running playbook without holding playbook.admin or write access to the parent record. Use to give a manager an ability that agents do not have. None
pd_restarter Restart active playbooks. None
pd_shared.user View the shared Experience activity types and properties tables. None
pd_shared.admin Edit the shared Experience activity types and properties tables. pd_shared.user
playbook.write Launch the design environment to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks. Grants no read access on its own. Assign to users whose content is restricted by content access filtering. playbook.designer_access, pd_shared.user
playbook.read Read access to all playbooks. None
playbook.designer_access Launch the design environment to view playbooks. Assign to users whose content is restricted by content access filtering. pd_shared.user, sn_workflow_studio.workflow_studio_read, sn_diagram_builder.db_read
playbook.activity_def_read View all activity definitions, unless the definition has required roles set. None
delegated_developer Granted automatically when a user is assigned as a delegated developer. Grants access to all activity definitions through the default content filtering rule. None
playbook.write.public_access Create and edit public access playbooks. Users without this role have read-only access to them. Required for delegated developers as well. None
playbook.content_author.public_access Edit the public access field on an activity definition. None
playbook.automation_runner The restricted runner that automations execute as in a public access playbook. Automations don't run with broad system access. None

Roles granted outside playbook administration

The playbook.designer_access role contains two roles that playbook administrators don't manage. The sn_workflow_studio.workflow_studio_read role allows a user to launch the design environment. The sn_diagram_builder.db_read role allows a user to view playbooks in diagram view.

All users need the snc_internal role to access internal resources, including playbooks. A user without it can encounter trigger validation errors when a playbook attempts to run. This is a platform requirement rather than a playbook role.

Note: Granting playbook roles does not grant access to the Workflow Studio design environment. Users who create activity definitions might also need Workflow Studio access.

Agentic playbooks and Otto for Playbooks carry their own roles, documented separately.

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