Update Role

Audience: Low-code Engineers

Skill Prerequisites: Actions, Tokens

Changes an existing security role in the current portal. You find the role by name or ID, then change its name, description, role group, status or options. Parameters you leave empty keep their current value.

For how roles are used in Plant an App, see Roles.

Typical Use Cases

• Rename a customer's role when the company name changes
• Approve a role that was created as Pending or Disabled
• Move a role to another role group, or take it out of its group
• Turn a role public or auto-assigned

Don't use it to

• Create a role. Use Create Role instead.
• Give a role to a user or take it away. Use Grant User Role or Revoke User Role instead.
• Clear a role's description. An empty value keeps the current description.

Related Actions

Action Name	Description
Create Role	Creates a role.
Delete Role	Deletes a role.
Grant User Role	Adds a user to a role.
Revoke User Role	Removes a user from a role.

Input Parameter Reference

Parameter	Description	Supports Tokens	Default	Required
Role Identifier	The role to change, as a role name (for example Editors) or a role ID (for example 42). A number is always treated as an ID. The role must be in the current portal.	Yes	empty string	Yes
Role Group Identifier	The role group to move the role to, as a group name or group ID. The group must exist in the portal. Use -1 to take the role out of its group. Leave it empty to keep the current group.	Yes	empty string (no change)	No
Role Name	The new name of the role. Leave it empty to keep the current name.	Yes	empty string (no change)	No
Role Description	The new description of the role. Leave it empty to keep the current description.	Yes	empty string (no change)	No
Role Status	The new status: Pending, Disabled or Approved. In expression mode, use -1 (Pending), 0 (Disabled) or 1 (Approved). Leave it empty to keep the current status.	Yes	empty string (no change)	No
Add to existing users	true to also give the role to the users already in the portal. See Considerations.	Yes	false	No
Is Public	true to make the role public, so users can subscribe to it themselves from their profile, or false to make it private. Leave it empty to keep the current setting.	Yes	empty string (no change)	No
Auto Assign	true to give the role to every user who registers from now on, or false to stop. Because of a product bug, the value of Is Public is used instead. See Considerations.	Yes	empty string (no change)	No

Output Parameters Reference

This action doesn't produce any output tokens.

Considerations

• There's no permission check in the action. Anyone who can run it can change any role in the portal, including Administrators and Registered Users. For example, making Administrators public could let users subscribe to it themselves. Only put it where administrators or other trusted users can reach it, and use a condition to block system roles.
• System roles aren't protected. The action lets you rename, disable, regroup or change the options of Administrators and Registered Users. Don't point it at them.
• Empty means "no change". You can't clear a description or name with this action. To take a role out of its group, use -1 in Role Group Identifier.
• Auto Assign reads Is Public. Because of a product bug, the action uses the value of Is Public for Auto Assign. If Auto Assign has any value and Is Public is empty, the action fails with Incorrect value ... provided for the Auto Assign parameter!. When both have values, auto-assign is set to the value of Is Public, whatever you put in Auto Assign.
• Add to existing users depends on Auto Assign. The action passes the setting to DNN, and DNN only adds existing users to roles that are auto-assigned.
• Boolean values must be true or false. Values like yes or 1 make the action fail with Incorrect value ... provided for the ... parameter!. Case doesn't matter.
• Status names are case-sensitive. Approved works, approved makes the action fail with Update Role : Incorrect value approved provided for the role status!.
• New names aren't checked for duplicates. The action doesn't check if another role in the portal already has the name you enter in Role Name. Check first, for example with a condition or SQL query.
• Numeric role names can't be found by name. A value like 2024 in Role Identifier is treated as a role ID.
• Errors. If Role Identifier is empty or the role isn't found, the action fails with Update Role : No value provided for the role identifier! or Update Role : No role was found with the Role Identifier (...)!. A group that isn't found fails with A invalid role group name (...) was provided. or A invalid role group id (...) was provided. Administrators see these messages. Other users see a general error message.
• Other role settings aren't available. The security mode, RSVP code, icon and billing settings can't be changed with this action.

Examples

tip

To understand how to use the below examples, please see Running Examples.

1. Approve and rename a customer role

This action finds the role by the ID in [RoleId], renames it after the company, and sets its status to Approved. Everything else stays the same.

{
    "Title": "Update Role",
    "ActionType": "UpdateRole",
    "Description": "Approve and rename the customer role",
    "Parameters": {
        "RoleIdentifier": "[RoleId]",
        "RoleGroupIdentifier": "",
        "NewRoleName": "Customer - [CompanyName]",
        "RoleDescription": "",
        "RoleStatus": "1",
        "AddToExistingUsers": "",
        "IsPublic": "",
        "AutoAssign": ""
    }
}

2. Take a role out of its group

This action moves the role named in [RoleName] out of its role group. The condition skips the Administrators and Registered Users roles.

{
    "Title": "Update Role",
    "ActionType": "UpdateRole",
    "Description": "Remove the role from its group",
    "Condition": "[RoleName] != \"Administrators\" && [RoleName] != \"Registered Users\"",
    "Parameters": {
        "RoleIdentifier": "[RoleName]",
        "RoleGroupIdentifier": "-1"
    }
}

Revised 09/27/2026