SharePoint 2007Managing Site Permissions

Sharon RichardsonJoining DotsJanuary 2010

Presentation Notes

This presentation is intended for people who are responsible for managing their own sites within SharePoint. Technical knowledge is not required but you should be familiar with using SharePoint and what it looks like

All content is for information purposes only with no warranties or guarantees regarding accuracy. Use at your own risk.

Product names, logos, brands and other trademarks referred to within this presentation are the property of their respective trademark holders (that would be Microsoft).

Copyright © 2010 Joining Dots Ltd. All rights reserved.

The presentation will walkthrough how to apply

permissions and control who can access a SharePoint site

This information applies to SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint

Services 3.0

Welcome to your new site

A team within Finance have a new site for organising

year-end activities

Within the site, click on Site Actions – Site Settings

If you can’t see the Site Actions button, you are not a Site Owner and cannot edit permissions. (You’re stuck – go ask IT for help)

In Site Settings… click on Advanced Permissions

This is a SharePoint Foible (a.k.a ‘What was Microsoft thinking?’) • ‘People and Groups’ takes you to the first SharePoint group in the list

regardless of whether or not that group has anything to do with your site. • ‘Advanced Permissions’ displays the permissions for your site.

(Advanced Permissions really ought to be called Site Permissions)

Click Here!

Site Permissions shows who has what permissions for your site.This site is inheriting its permissions from its parent . If you can see check boxes next to the users/groups then your site is NOT inheriting permissions

You are in the correct place if ‘Site Permissions’ is selected

This siteParent site

Advanced Permissions = Site Permissions

Inheritance• A SharePoint site can either

inherit permissions from its parent site OR have its own set of permissions.

• In this site hierarchy:– Changes made to Finance

permissions will also be applied automatically to Payroll and Reports

– Year-end has its own set of permissions

– If you want changes made to Finance to be applied to Year-end, they have to be done manually

– Year-end is also a parent site, each year will inherit its permissions

Finance

Payroll

Year-end

ReportsX

X = Broken Inheritance

2010

2009

2008

To change permissions for your site, you need to break inheritance from its parent*

Under Actions, select Edit PermissionsYou will receive a warning, read it and click OK

* The alternative is to make changes to the parent site permissions, but those changes will be applied to all sites inheriting permissions, not just yours

If you can see checkboxes, you can edit permissions

• You can edit permissions of existing groups and users• You can create new SharePoint groups and add users

How to assign permissions

• Add users to the site

• Set permissions per user

• IT manages directory of users and groups

• Add directory group to SharePoint group

• Set permissions per SharePoint group

Individual Group Directory

• Create a SharePoint group

• Add users to the SharePoint group

• Set permissions per SharePoint group

Pros: Instantly see who has what access

Cons: Doesn’t scale well if large no. users or multiple sites

Best use: When you only own one site/have less than 20 users

Pros: Can re-use groups across multiple sitesCons: Can end up with lots of groupsBest use: minimal involvement required from IT, need different permissions to existing directory groups

Pros: consistent access to all resourcesCons: Can’t easily see who your site users are, may have to ask IT to create groups if they don’t existBest use: when you can use the same groups used for email and file shares

Before Proceeding…Check with your I.T. department

regarding the standard procedure for managing site permissions.

This presentation is focused on adding

users to SharePoint groups

SharePoint Permissions

The most likely permissions you will use:– Full control = use for site owners only– Approve = approving content before it is published– Contribute = authors and active participants in the site– Read = viewers who read but don’t modify content– View Only = Similar to Read but defaults to displaying

content within browser only where possible

Changing permissions pt 1• To edit permissions, select the check box next to the relevant group or

user. You can select more than one provided they are all being given the same permissions

• Click on Actions and select the appropriate action• In this example, we are going to remove the ‘Finance Readers’ and

‘Finance Visitors’ from our site

Changing permissions pt 2• Repeat for each group or user whose permissions you want to change• In this example, we are going to edit permissions for ‘Finance Members’

and change their permission from ‘Contribute’ to ‘Read Only

Adding UsersWe’re going to add an individual user as Site Owner

• Click New – Add Users

• Either type the user name in the box (click the icon to confirm) or use the address book (click the second icon) to find and add them

• Select the permissions you want to grant and click OK

Creating SharePoint Groups pt 1When you need to apply permissions to more than a few users, always create a SharePoint group. Assign permissions to the group and then add all relevant users to the group:

If you already use a directory group for the same set of users (e.g. you have a distribution list you send email out to), you can add that group to the SharePoint group to save adding users individually (this is how IT would manage permissions)

Creating SharePoint Groups pt 2

To add users to your SharePoint group, you will need to select the group in the sidebar:

When you’ve finished, don’t forget to click on ‘Site Permissions’ to return to viewing your site’s permissions

The End Result

• Two users have full control (the Site Owners)• Anyone who is in the Finance Members

group has read access to this site• We have a new SharePoint Group

‘Year-end Authors’ for everyone who is participating on the site

Re-inherit permissions from the parent. In Site Permissions, click on Actions and choose Inherit Permissions:

• The site will inherit permissions from its parent, removing any changes you’ve made. You can then start all over again.

• Worst-case scenario: You remove your own permissions and can no longer access the site (trust me, it happens) – ask IT for help (they can reset permissions for you)

What if it all goes wrong?

Beyond Site Permissions

You can apply permissions to the site, to any list or library within the site, and to any individual item or document within any list or library. The process is the same. Always keep in mind, the more granular the permissions, the harder it is to see who has access to what and the easier it is to get the permissions wrong. Many complaints about search arise because someone either finds something they shouldn’t or cannot find something they should. Both issues are caused by incorrect permissions…

The EndThis presentation is part of a non-technical series

for people who want to use and manage SharePoint 2007 sites. For more details, visit

http://www.sharepointsharon.com

Sharon RichardsonJoining Dotshttp://www.joiningdots.nethttp://www.sharepointsharon.com

Still here?

Here’s the bonus content…

TerminologySite A SharePoint web site – used to organise content and

activities around a topic such as a team, project or meeting

Lists and Libraries

The individual containers within a site to store and manage different types of information. Lists are used for items such as contacts or a diary entries. Libraries are used for objects such as documents or pictures.

Permissions Permissions control access to content and what you can do with it. They can be applied to the site, to lists and libraries and even to an individual item or document if required

Groups SharePoint groups are used to apply permissions based on different roles. A group of authors will have different permissions to a group of readers

User That’s you! A user is a person logged into SharePoint and able to access content based on their user identity

Setting permissions when you create a site

• This presentation focused on how to edit permissions for an existing site.

• If you are a site owner, you can create sub-sites (and your current site becomes parent to those sites).

• When you create a new site, you can choose to either inherit permissions or set unique permissions from the start

Create your sub-site pt: 1Within your current site, click on Site Actions and select CreateOn the Create page, select‘Sites and Workspaces’(Listed under the Web Pages category, don’t ask, it’s another of those foibles)

Complete the usual new site properties:• Title, • URL,• Template etc.

Under Permissions, select ‘Use unique permissions’

When you click Create, you will be taken to an additional screen…

Create your sub-site pt: 2

…Set-up groups for your new site

• SharePoint will create three initial roles: Visitors (read-only), Members (contribute) and Owners (full control). For each you can create a new group and add users to it, or use an existing group

• You can modify permissions and create additional groups or change it all (including choosing to inherit after all) once the site is created

The End IIThis presentation is part of a non-technical series

for people who want to use and manage SharePoint 2007 sites. For more details, visit

http://www.sharepointsharon.com

Sharon RichardsonJoining Dotshttp://www.joiningdots.nethttp://www.sharepointsharon.com