Permissions you need for impersonation and Test Drive

Two role permissions control the Impersonate and Run Test Drive menu items. Without them, both items stay hidden, and without the Test Drive permission your test profiles cannot open their panel inside the portal.

Impersonate: the Service actions permission

Impersonating a student requires the permission Service actions: impersonate, audit logs etc. You find it in the Service Operations group of a role on the Setup User Roles and Permissions page.

Open the roles list on the Setup User Roles and Permissions page and pick the role to check, then scroll to the Service Operations group. Every role that should be able to impersonate needs this permission ticked.

Test Drive: the test simulation permission

Running a Test Drive requires the permission Create and manage test simulation profiles, also in the Service Operations group.

This permission alone is not enough to test inside the portal: an admin running a Test Drive also impersonates the test profile, so the role needs both permissions. A colleague with only the Test Drive permission can create a test profile but cannot open it.

Test Drive must be switched on for your school

Test Drive is switched on per school through Feature Management at /admin/setup/features. Authorized users with the Manage feature configurations permission can enable the feature there. If the Create and manage test simulation profiles permission does not appear in the Service Operations group at all, Test Drive is not switched on for your school yet. If you do not have access to Feature Management, contact Housing Cloud support to enable it.

Sensitive profiles and admin profiles

Impersonation is blocked for two kinds of profiles:

• Staff and admin profiles: the menu shows Cannot impersonate an admin.

• Profiles marked sensitive: Impersonate stays hidden unless the acting admin has the required sensitive-profile access.

Test profiles behave like student profiles: any admin with both permissions can impersonate a [TEST] profile that a colleague created, and they all see and move the same simulated clock.