Team Roles and Permissions
Who on your team can see and answer chats, and what your options are if you want support staff replying without handing out full admin accounts.
The short version
Replying from wp-admin requires an Administrator account. Every part of the chat admin – the Chats inbox, the conversation view, replying, closing, assigning, canned responses – is gated on the manage_options capability, which only administrators have by default.
If you want team members to answer chats without making them WordPress admins, use the Discord integration: anyone in your Discord channel can reply to visitors from Discord with no WordPress account at all.
For a support team, Discord is the path of least resistance. You get multiple people answering from desktop or phone, each with their own name, and none of them needs a WordPress login or the manage_options capability. Reserve Administrator accounts for people you already trust with the whole site.
What requires an administrator
| Action | Requirement |
|---|---|
| See the Super Speedy Chat menu and Chats inbox | manage_options (Administrator) |
| View a conversation and reply | manage_options |
| Close or assign conversations | manage_options |
| Manage canned responses | manage_options |
| Change plugin settings | manage_options |
| Reply from Discord | Discord channel access only – no WordPress account needed |
Assignment is also admin-scoped: the Assign dropdown in the conversation view lists users with the Administrator role.
Setting up a support team
Option 1 – Discord (recommended for non-admin staff). Connect the Discord integration and invite your support staff to the Discord channel. Each new conversation opens its own thread; staff reply from Discord (desktop or phone) and replies are relayed to the visitor in real time. Visitors see the replier’s name per your Display Names settings. See the Discord Integration Setup Guide.
Answering from your phone over WhatsApp. If you enable the WhatsApp integration you can also forward every chat message to a personal WhatsApp number and quote-reply from your phone to answer, routed back to the right conversation. This is a single-number channel rather than a multi-agent one like Discord, but it is handy when a solo owner or on-call person wants to reply without opening wp-admin. See the WhatsApp Integration Setup Guide.
Option 2 – Administrator accounts. If your support staff are trusted with full site admin, give them Administrator accounts and they get the complete wp-admin chat experience: shared inbox, filters, assignment, canned responses. Each admin can set a personal chat display name, or you can use one shared name like “Support” – see the Display Names guide.
Not currently supported: a dedicated “chat agent” role or capability that unlocks only the chat inbox. Granting manage_options to a custom role would work, but it is equivalent to making them an administrator – don’t do that for staff you wouldn’t trust with the whole site. If a dedicated chat-agent capability matters for your setup, tell us – it’s on the radar for a future version.
Adding manage_options to a custom “agent” role does not create a limited chat-only login. That capability unlocks plugin installs, user management, settings and everything else in wp-admin. If you need non-admins answering chats, route them through Discord instead.
Display names
Whoever replies, you control what the visitor sees:
- Shared mode – every reply appears under one name, e.g. “Support”.
- Individual mode – each admin sets their own chat name in their profile.
Discord replies show the Discord author’s name. Full details in the Display Names guide.
Visitors and login
By default visitors chat anonymously – no account needed. On the Behaviour tab you can prompt visitors to log in after a few messages (to save their chat history to their account), or tick Require Login so only logged-in users can chat at all. Logged-in visitors’ conversations are linked to their account automatically. See Behaviour and Session Settings.
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