Roles define a set of privileges that AppDynamics Controller users have within the AppDynamics managed environment. This is also called "role-based access control", or "RBAC".

Roles provide an easy way to define and clone a set of permissions for a user or a group without having to configure every user's or every group's permissions individually.

A user or group can have multiple roles.

Predefined Roles

AppDynamics provides the following predefined roles:

• Account Owner: Can manage security settings (users, groups, roles) as well as view and modify applications and dashboards. This role is also known as the account administrator.
• Administrator: Can view and modify components that change state: applications, business transactions, dashboards, etc. Can view and edit all applications and all custom dashboards.
• Custom Dashboard Viewer: Can only view custom dashboards. Cannot do anything else.
• Read Only User: Can view but not edit all applications.
• Workflow Executor: Can execute workflows.

You can view the configurations for predefined roles but you cannot change them. See View Predefined Roles.

Although you cannot modify the predefined roles, you can add or remove users and groups from the predefined roles by checking or clearing the Member check box in the Roles panel. See Configure Users and Configure Groups.

Custom Roles

You can create custom roles to manage user access by the application/tier level, the custom dashboard level, and the account level. When creating a role, you can create the role from scratch or duplicate an existing role, save it under another name, and then modify it as a custom role.

See Configure Custom Roles.

Permission Inheritance for Default Permissions

For application-level and custom dashboard permissions, AppDynamics provides a default set of permissions, named Default. The default permissions are inherited by new applications and new custom dashboards. The Default permissions are listed first in the Application Permissions subtab of the Roles tab.

Tier-level permissions are inherited from the containing application.

Account-Level Permissions

Permissions that can be granted at the account level include:

• Administer: Users with this permission can edit users, groups, roles, and the authentication provider.
• Configure Email/SMS: Users with this permission can edit email and SMS settings used by AppDynamics to send alerts. See Configure the SMTP Server and Notification Actions.
• Execute Workflows: Users with this permission can execute workflows. See Workflow Overview. 

Application- and Tier-Level Permissions

The following table lists the permissions that you can grant at the application level and tier levels. To enable or disable the application-level permissions for a role, see Configuring Application Level Permissions on Configure Custom Roles.

* Asterisks indicate activities that may be considered sensitive for purposes of security and data privacy. Carefully consider the security and data privacy policies of your organization before granting these permissions.  

Custom Dashboard Permissions

Learn More

• Configure Custom Roles
• View Predefined Roles