Custom roles

Define fine-grained custom roles for your organization on the Enterprise plan.

Custom roles are available on the Enterprise plan.

Cube comes with default roles (Admin, Developer, Explorer, Viewer) that cover common use cases. When you need finer control — for example, to let a user edit the data model on a single deployment but nothing else — you can define custom roles with a tailored set of permissions.

How custom roles work

Each custom role is built around three concepts:

1. Base Role (required) — Viewer, Explorer, or Developer. Determines the user’s license tier and the inherited level of access.
2. Global permissions — org-wide capabilities such as billing, customization, integrations, and account-wide deployment management.
3. Deployment permissions — one or more policies, each targeting “All deployments” or specific deployments.

Permissions stack: a user gets the union of every role assigned to them, so a user with multiple custom roles holds the broadest set of granted permissions.

Browsing roles

To see the list of custom roles, go to Admin → Custom Roles in your Cube account. Click on a role to edit it, or click Add Role to create a new one.

Anatomy of a custom role

The role builder uses a two-column layout. The left column (sticky as you scroll) holds the role’s identity and the Create / Update button. The right column (scrollable) holds the permission cards.

Name and description

• Name is required and must be unique within the account. The names Admin, Guest, Developer, None, and All are reserved.
• Description is optional but recommended — it shows up alongside the role on the Custom Roles list and on user profile pages.

Base Role

Every custom role has exactly one Base Role. It determines:

• The user’s license tier — Cube infers the tier from the highest Base Role across all of the user’s roles.
• The inherited capabilities the role grants out of the box.

Base Role	Description
Viewer	Read-only access to dashboards and chats.
Explorer	Viewer + create/edit workbooks, run queries.
Developer	Explorer + edit data model, manage deployments.

Inheritance is hierarchical:

• Explorer automatically grants Viewer access.
• Developer automatically grants Explorer and Viewer access.

The Base Role is required. Save is disabled until one is selected.

Auto-bump to Developer

If you check any deployment-scoped action stronger than Access deployment (DeploymentRead) — for example, Edit deployment or Edit data model — the Base Role is automatically forced to Developer, and the Viewer and Explorer options are disabled with a tooltip:

Selected actions require Developer role

Removing the elevated action re-enables the lower tiers. This mirrors the server-side rule that any deployment write or data-model write requires the Developer license tier.

Global permissions

Global permissions are org-wide. Check any number of them on the Global permissions card:

Group	Permission	What it grants
Audit & Billing	Manage audit log	Access and configure the audit log.
Audit & Billing	View billing	View invoices and usage.
Customization	Manage chart palettes	Create and edit org-wide chart palettes.
Customization	Manage dashboard themes	Create and edit org-wide dashboard themes.
Integrations / Network	Manage OAuth integrations	Configure OAuth integrations and clients.
Integrations / Network	Issue OAuth tokens	Mint OAuth tokens for integrations.
Deployment management (account-wide)	Manage deployments (account-wide)	Create and list deployments across the account.

Deployment permissions

Deployment permissions are scoped to specific deployments. A custom role can have any number of deployment policies, each represented as its own card. Click Add deployment policy to add another card.

Each card has two sections:

Scope

Choose which deployments the policy applies to:

• All deployments — the policy covers every deployment in the account, including ones added later.
• Specific deployments — pick deployments from a searchable multi-select picker.

Actions

Either grant Full access (a shortcut that enables every current and future deployment-scoped permission) or pick granular actions:

Group	Permission	What it grants
General	Access deployment	Foundation permission required to access the deployment at all. A Viewer needs this just to open it.
General	Edit deployment	Modify deployment settings.
General	Delete deployment	Remove the deployment.
Data Model	View data model	Read data model files and dev branches.
Data Model	Edit data model	Edit the data model on any branch, including the main/deploy branch. Allows committing and merging to main, force-syncing main, and starting dev mode against main.
Data Model	Edit data model on dev branches	Edit the data model only on non-default branches. Blocks any write that targets the main/deploy branch (including merging to main).
Monitoring	Access query history	View deployment query history, performance, and traces.

When Full access is checked, the granular checkboxes appear checked and disabled — granting Full access today also covers any deployment-scoped permissions added in the future.

Access deployment (DeploymentRead) is special. It’s the only deployment action that does not auto-bump the Base Role to Developer, because Viewers also need it just to open a deployment.

Walkthroughs

Create a Viewer with read access to all deployments

A common pattern: someone who consumes dashboards and chats but never edits anything.

1. Open the role builder

   Go to Admin → Custom Roles and click Add Role.

2. Name it

   Set the Name to, e.g., Org Viewer.

3. Pick the Base Role

   Select Viewer.

4. Add a deployment policy

   Click Add deployment policy, leave Scope on All deployments, and check Access deployment under General.

5. Save

   Click Create.

Create an Explorer for a single deployment

For an analyst who works in one deployment.

1. Set up the basics

   Name the role (e.g., Marketing Analyst) and pick Explorer as the Base Role.

2. Scope the policy

   Add a deployment policy, switch Scope to Specific deployments, and pick the relevant deployment(s) from the picker.

3. Pick actions

   Check Access deployment so the user can open the deployment, and add Access query history if they should see query performance.

4. Save

   Click Create.

Create a Developer with Full access to specific deployments

For a data engineer who owns a subset of deployments end-to-end.

1. Set up the basics

   Name the role (e.g., Sales Domain Owner).

2. Add the deployment policy

   Add a deployment policy, switch Scope to Specific deployments, pick the relevant deployments, and check Full access.

3. Confirm the auto-bump

   The Base Role automatically switches to Developer and the Viewer/Explorer radios are disabled.

4. Save

   Click Create.

Assigning roles to users

To assign a custom role to a user:

1. Navigate to Admin → Users.
2. Either change the role from the dropdown in the users table, or click into the user’s profile page.
3. Add one or more custom roles. Multiple roles stack — the user holds the union of permissions.

See Manage users for more.

Validation

The role builder enforces a few rules client-side:

• Name is required and must be unique. Reserved names (Admin, Guest, Developer, None, All) are rejected.
• Base Role is required — Save is disabled until one is picked, and an inline error appears if you try to submit without one.
• A deployment policy with no actions selected is silently dropped on save (treated as a no-op).
• A deployment policy with Specific deployments scope but no deployments selected is also dropped on save.

Reference: action catalog

This section lists every action a custom role can grant. The internal action names match the names shown in the audit log.

Base Role actions (Global)

Internal name	Label	Description
AIBIView	Viewer	Read-only access to dashboards and chats.
AIBIExplore	Explorer	Viewer + create/edit workbooks, run queries.
AIBIDevelop	Developer	Explorer + edit data model, manage deployments.

Global actions

Internal name	Label
AuditLogManage	Manage audit log
BillingRead	View billing
ChartPalettesManage	Manage chart palettes
DashboardThemesManage	Manage dashboard themes
OAuthIntegrationsManage	Manage OAuth integrations
OAuthIntegrationsIssueTokens	Issue OAuth tokens
DeploymentsManage	Manage deployments (account-wide)

Deployment-scoped actions

Internal name	Label
All	Full access (every current and future deployment action)
DeploymentRead	Access deployment
DeploymentUpdate	Edit deployment
DeploymentDelete	Delete deployment
SchemaRead	View data model
SchemaUpdate	Edit data model
SchemaUpdateDevBranches	Edit data model on dev branches
APMRead	Access query history