I'm back from my conference and struggling to get caught up after being out of the office for a week, so I'm going to rely on the trusty SharePoint Blank Mailbag to jump-start my return to the blog. Today's question comes from a WSS 3.0 user who asks:
Can the "View" ability on a list or library be disabled for a specified user group?
I really can't say "thank you" enough to the folks who take the time to send in questions such as this one, as they almost always spark new discoveries for me. This current question is no exception, and represents an area I'd never even considered, which is essentially a request for a la carte permissions. Guess what? Turns out that with the Advanced Permissions feature, this is indeed out-of-the-box functionality for both WSS 3.0 and MOSS!
So how does one go about taking advantage of this functionality? The journey begins with the Settings drop down button within the Site Permissions page for the desired site:
On the resulting page, you'll notice an Edit Permission Levels hyperlink in the toolbar area. Be advised that clicking the hyperlink will render following warning pop up message:
Note: Breaking this permissions inheritance will mean that changes to the partent groups and permissions within this site will require manual oversight of groups/permissions within this site. Having said that, clicking OK (which you'll need to do in order to create a custom permission level) will render the Permission Levels page with your available editing options:
It may be difficult to see from this image, but Full Control and Limited Access are not active check boxes (for all intents and purposes). This is because Full Control and Limited Access are system permissions which SharePoint will not allow you to edit. While the remaining "stock" permission levels are customizable in an a la carte fashion, it is a strongly recommended best practice that, rather than modifying the permissions at the line-item level, an entirely new permission level should be created to your desired specs.
To create a new permission level using the a la carte options of your choosing, simply click the Add a permission Level link in the toolbar (as pictured at the upper left of the image above). In addition to allowing you to provide a Name and Description for the new custom permission level, you'll be presented with three groupings of permissions (with an option to Select All, or deselect all) : List Permissions, Site Permissions, and Personal Permissions.
Since there are clear and detailed descriptions provided for each line item, I'm going to show an image for each of the groupings to demonstrate what's on the menu:
List Permissions:
Site Permissions:
Personal Permissions:
Note that, in order to remove the ability to Add or Delete public views, you'd want to make sure that Manage Lists, the first line item under the List Permissions heading, is unchecked. To disable the ability for a user to create, change and delete personal views of lists, you'd want to ensure that Manage Personal Views (the first item under the Personal Permissions heading) is unchecked.
And there you have it ... custom permission levels, available out of the box!
Posted
Jun 08 2009, 04:53 PM
by
John Anderson
John Anderson joined Bamboo Solutions as Manager of Content & Syndication in May 2008 after a 12-year career at AOL. New to SharePoint at the time of his hiring, John was tasked with creating a new blog for the just-launched Bamboo Nation community in which he would document his daily SharePoint learning process. Thus was born the end user-centric SharePoint Blank, for which John authored 200 posts within a year, and which he continues to write today. John writes SharePoint Blank in addition to his responsibilities as Bamboo Nation's de facto managing editor and, while he has learned much about SharePoint in his first year, he gleefully awaits the release of SharePoint 2010, and the reset button that release will represent for SharePoint Blank.