This is the first post in a series based on a training course I have delivered over the past three years. The course is a half-day workshop covering the basics of what is SharePoint through to managing a site. Designed for business users rather than IT, the course is very hands-on with a few slides followed by practical exercises. For the past two years, I’ve been meaning to convert it into a book for reference. Here goes for starters, a little later than planned…
Managing Site Permissions
The presentation below walks through how to manage permissions and control access to a SharePoint site. It assumes you are the owner of your own site, i.e. you have permission to change permissions:
Some additional notes and reminders:
- Always check with your IT department regarding the policy for managing SharePoint permissions. They may prefer to create directory groups for you that can then be added to SharePoint groups. This approach lets you decide what permissions each group is given without having to manage the users. It’s also great if you use a distribution list to send out email to everyone, as the same membership is used for both activities. IT can’t prevent you from applying your own permissions (short of not letting you be a site owner), but a good identity management system makes life easier for everyone.
- Do keep permissions as simple as possible. In most projects, I find people treat a lot of information as more sensitive than it really is. SharePoint is at its best when used for collaborative working. You can’t collaborate when documents are kept secret. Be sure there is a good reason for locking down access.
- To quote a good book, Don’t Panic! It’s easy to reset permissions by simply re-inheriting from the parent site. If you lock yourself out of your own site, after laughing for a while, IT can sort it all out using the SharePoint system account. Not ideal and they won’t thank you for the extra workload but all is not lost.
If you have any feedback or questions, please leave a comment here. Would a video be helpful to show setting permissions in practice?
Note on slide 29 – when using unique permissions, the Visitors group defaults to the parent Visitors group. Remember to click on "Create New Group" at Visitors and it will create a new group for you with your site name. You need to see you site name in all 3 groups. Otherwise all the visitors from the site above will still have access to your site.
Hi Sharon,
I saw this post on EnduserSharePoint.com. It's a great presentation for people who want to know the basics of security. You might be interested in the product we offer called Metadata Security for SharePoint (http://www.titus-labs.com/software/SharePoint_Metadata.html). It automatically sets item level permissions based on the item's metadata tags.
Cheers
Hi Sharon,
The download links on your site, including this one, are returning a “404 File Not Found Error”.
I’m a new Sharepoint site owner, grappling with permissions. Your presentation looks like just what I can manage at the moment!
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Robyn. I need to finish getting this site tidied up and seem to have gotten all the download links wrong. They’ll be updated shortly.
I’m now focusing more on SharePoint 2010 but if there’s anything around SharePoint 2007 that you’d be interested in seeing here, let me know.