29. 09. 2025 Fabiana Pittalis Atlassian

Who Does What? A Useful Guide to User Roles

If you’ve ever opened Jira or Confluence and thought, “Wait, what’s my role here?”, don’t worry, you’re not alone!

In the Atlassian world, there are several roles, each with their own powers (and responsibilities). Understanding them can make the difference between a well-organized project and… chaos worthy of a sci-fi movie.

Let’s go through them all!

Organization Admin

The grand architect of the entire Atlassian Cloud ecosystem.

These admins can manage multiple sites, and centralize security, authentication, and domains. Basically, if Atlassian were a planet, they’d be the governor.

They don’t just handle a single product, they oversee the entire organization and its configuration.

Typical skills: IT governance, identity management (IdP, Azure AD, Okta), security, and compliance

What they can do:

Add/remove Atlassian sites
Manage company domains
Set up SSO, 2FA, and SCIM provisioning
Manage Organization Admins and Site Admins

❌ License: No

Site Administrator

The boss of all bosses.

Has access to everything, can add or remove users, manage products, configure licenses, and even reset your password (so… best not to annoy them).

They’re the ones keeping the Atlassian castle standing, and the ones who get all those boring system emails.

Typical skills: system administration, user management, Atlassian troubleshooting

What they can do:

Invite new users and assign product licenses
Access all products on the site
Configure global settings (URL, language, plans, billing)
Delegate Product Admin roles

❌ License: No

Product Admin

The power user of a specific product (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket…)

They manage permissions, projects, spaces, workflows, automations, and more for that product.

Typical skills: project management, process analysis, Atlassian configuration, scripting (for automations)

What they can do:

Create and modify projects/spaces
Manage schemes (workflows, permissions, screens, notifications, issue types)
Configure global automations
Integrate Marketplace apps and components
Set product-level security rules

✅ License: Yes, required to access and manage the product

Project Admin

The “operational team leader” for a specific Jira project.

They don’t control the system, but they can customize and manage their project independently, without bothering the Product Admins.

Often they’re the go-to person for development or support teams.

Typical skills: Jira expertise, team organization, project configuration, understanding permissions and workflows

What they can do:

Add/remove project users
Configure local roles and groups
Manage components, versions, queues, categories
Customize the board and filters
Modify local automations
Create custom fields and workflows independently (For “team-managed” projects only)

Limits:
Cannot modify shared schemes, global permissions, workflows, or system settings

✅ License: Yes (Jira user with advanced project permissions)

User

The beating heart of the organization.

Standard users create tasks, add comments, collaborate, and sometimes complain about overly complicated workflows.

They have no admin powers, but they’re the ones who actually get things done.

Typical skills: day-to-day use of Atlassian products (Jira, Confluence, etc.)

What they can do:

Create and edit issues
Collaborate with teammates
Add comments, attachments, mentions
View projects/spaces they have access to

✅ License: Yes

Role	License Required	Where They Operate	What They Do
Organization Admin	❌ No (management only)	Admin Center	Manages domains and security
Site Admin	❌ No (management only)	Atlassian Site	Adds users and assigns licenses
Product Admin	✅ Yes	Jira / Confluence / etc.	Configures and manages products
Project Admin	✅ Yes	Jira	Manage specific projects
User	✅ Yes	Atlassian Products	Uses products and collaborates

Extra Roles in Jira Service Management (JSM)

And now, the most confusing (but interesting) part: Agent vs Customer.

The agent works at the service desk: receiving tickets, responding to customers, updating statuses, adding internal comments, and resolving issues.

They’re the “front line” of IT support or customer service.

Agent

Typical skills: ITSM, customer communication, request triage, SLA management

What they can do:

View and work on all tickets
Comment internally or with customers
Create and manage queues and automations
Link issues with Jira Software
Add knowledge base content from Confluence

✅ Requires a JSM license.
Agents have full access to the support project, can see all tickets, and collaborate with each other.
In short: more agents = more licenses.

Customer

The customer is the end user – the one who creates tickets and waits for a response. They can only create and view their own tickets (unless they’re part of a customer organization).

What they can do: