We have a large environment with multiple Unity clusters and a large number of support staff.  I need to write some automation which will add and remove roles to a user as necessary.  Our users are automatically created due to a sync with LDAP.  We are currently running v8.5
 
For example I would like to add the role "System Administrator" to user X

 
Here is a related post which indicates it is not possible via CUPI.  
http://developer.cisco.com/web/cuc/forums/-/message_boards/view_message/2691367
 
Is this possible via CUPI?  If it is not is it in another API?  Is direct SQL an option if nothing else is?  
 
Thanks for the help!