Role Based Access Control

Docs > Account Management > Role Based Access Control

Roles categorize users and define what account permissions those users have, such as what data they can read or what account assets they can modify. By default, Datadog offers three roles, and you can create custom roles so you can define a better mapping between your users and their permissions.

By granting permissions to roles, any user who is associated with that role receives that permission. When users are associated with multiple roles, they receive all the permissions granted to each of their roles. The more roles a user is associated with, the more access they have within a Datadog account.

If a user in a child organization has org_management permission, it does not mean that they have the same permission in the parent org. Users’ roles are not shared between parent and child organizations.

Note: If you use a SAML identity provider, you can integrate it with Datadog for authentication, and you can map identity attributes to Datadog default and custom roles. For more information, see Single Sign On With SAML.

Datadog default roles

Datadog Admin Role: Users have access to billing information and the ability to revoke API keys. They can manage users and configure read-only dashboards. They can also promote standard users to administrators.
Datadog Standard Role: Users are allowed to view and modify all monitoring features that Datadog offers, such as dashboards, monitors, events, and notebooks. Standard users can also invite other users to organizations.
Datadog Read Only Role: Users do not have access to edit within Datadog. This comes in handy when you’d like to share specific read-only views with a client, or when a member of one business unit needs to share a dashboard with someone outside their unit.

Custom roles

The custom roles feature gives your organization the ability to create new roles with unique permission sets. Manage your custom roles through the Datadog site, the Datadog Role API, or SAML directly. Find out below how to create, update, or delete a role. See Datadog Role Permissions for more information about available permissions. Only users with the User Access Manage permission can create or edit roles in Datadog.

Enable custom roles

Navigate to Organization Settings.
On the left side of the page, select Roles.
Click the gear in the upper right corner. The Custom Roles pop-up appears.
In the Custom Roles pop-up, click Enable.

Alternatively, making a POST call to the Create Role API endpoint automatically enables custom roles for your organization.

Create a custom role

To create a custom role:

Go to your Datadog Roles page.
Select New Role in the upper right corner of the page.
Give a name to your role.
Assign a set of permissions to your role. See Datadog Role Permissions for more information about available permissions.

Once a role is created, you can add the role to existing users.

Find an example of how to create a role in Create Role API Reference.

Update a role

To edit a custom role:

Go to your Datadog Roles page.
Select the edit button on the role you would like to modify.
Modify the set of permissions for your role. See Role Permissions for more information about available permissions.
Save your changes.

Once a role is modified, permissions are updated for all users with the role.

Find an example of how to update a role in Update Role API Reference.

Clone a role

To clone an existing role:

Go to your Datadog Roles page.
Hover over the role you would like to clone. A series of buttons appears to the right.
Select the clone button on the role you would like to clone.
Optionally modify the name or permissions of the role.
Click the Save button at the bottom.

List of two roles with Clone button highlighted

Find an example of how to clone a role in the Cloning A Role API reference.

Delete a role

To delete a custom role:

Go to your Datadog Roles page.
Hover over the role you would like to delete. A series of buttons appears to the right.
Select the delete button on the role you would like to delete.
Confirm your decision.

Once a role is deleted, permissions are updated for all users with the role. Users without any roles cannot use Datadog effectively, but still maintain limited access.

Find an example of how to delete a role in the Delete Role API reference.

Apply a role template

When creating or updating a role on the Datadog site, use a Datadog role template to apply a prescribed set of permissions to the role.

On the New Role or Edit Role page, click the Show Role Templates button on the right.
A dropdown menu populated with role templates appears.
From the menu, select the role template whose permissions you would like to apply to your role.
Click the Apply button.
Optionally make additional changes to your role.
Click the Save button.

Role Templates dropdown menu with Datadog Billing Admin Role selected

Restrict access to individual resources (granular access controls)

Some resources allow you to restrict access to individual resources by roles, Teams (beta), or users (beta). Datadog recommends that you use teams to map access to functional groups in your organizations (for example, restrict editing of a dashboard to the application team owning it), roles to map access to personas (for example, restrict editing of payment methods to billing administrators), and individual users only when necessary. This encourages knowledge sharing and collaboration.