---
title: "Introduction"
url: https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/authentication/user-management/roles/introduction/
description: "User Management allows you to directly add end-users to your application and assign them custom roles"
last_updated: 2026-08-06T05:54:02Z
service: Cloud Scale
type: general
---

# Roles

### Introduction

Roles define a set of permissions and the level of access granted for a user to access your application or modify its data. You can define the scopes and access permissions for certain Catalyst components to each role, and assign a role to every user. This categorization enables the users of your application to only access functionalities that are relevant to them.

*Roles* currently apply to the [Data Store](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/data-store/introduction/). You can define the [scopes and permissions](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/data-store/scopes-and-permissions/) of each table for each user role in the Data Store. These scopes and permissions also apply to [Search](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/search-integration/introduction/) and [ZCQL](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/zcql/introduction/) by extension, since these components are tied closely to the Data Store.

*Roles* is available as a section of the *User Management* feature in *Authentication*. 

Two system defined roles are present by default:

1. `App Administrator`: The users assigned to the `App Administrator` role essentially have an admin access to the application by default. You can override this and define their access levels to the tables in the [Data Store](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/data-store/introduction/).

2. `App User`: The users assigned to the `App User` role essentially have an end-user level access to the application by default. You can also override this and define their access levels in the [Data Store](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/data-store/introduction/).

> **Note:** 

* The `App User` role is considered to be the default role. When you create a custom role and do not specify the scopes of the role it needs to follow, the scopes of the `App User` role will apply to the custom role.

In addition to these roles, you can create your own custom roles and define their permissions. You can also make these custom roles as `Default` roles. When a user role is set as the **default role**, the users who are added to your application are assigned to that role automatically, and the permissions that have been set for that role are made available to them.