# Roles

A role is your team's own name for a group of its people, such as Sales or Finance. A
leader makes it up and says who holds it. A member may hold several roles.

A role by itself permits nothing. It is used where something asks which roles get it:

- **An address.** Mail to a role's address is copied to everyone who holds the role.
- **An app.** A leader can give one of the team's apps to chosen roles
  ([Your team's connections](/teams/connections)), and the app learns the roles a person
  holds ([Roles in your app](/developers/permissions)).

Roles are flat: no role holds another, and there is no role that denies.

## Making a role

On the **Roles** tab, press **New role**. Give it a name and tick its people under
**Members**, then press **Create**. People still invited can be ticked too: they hold the
role from the moment they join.

Open a role to rename it or change who holds it. **Delete** in its menu takes the role from
everyone, and asks first.

| Rule | Limit |
|---|---|
| A role's name | 1 to 40 characters: letters, digits, spaces and the marks - ' & , . ( ) |
| Roles in a team | 50 |
| Roles one person holds in a team | 20 |

Two roles of one team cannot have names that read the same, whatever their capitals.

## A role's address

Once the team has a domain of its own, a role can have one address on it, such as
`sales@` on your domain. Give it in the role's **Address** row: the part before the @, with the
domain beside it.

- Mail to it arrives in the mailbox of everyone who holds the role, as a copy of their own.
  It is not a shared inbox.
- A person who holds the role but has no address in the team gets none of it. The role's
  list marks them **no address**: give them an address on the **Mail** tab.
- While nobody can receive it, mail to the address is refused, so the sender knows.
- A role's address only receives. A reply goes from the person's own address.
- When a role is deleted, its address goes with it.

A change to who holds a role reaches its address within about a minute.