Item access controls

 

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You use access controls to determine what level of access a user or group has to an item, and who has access to an item on the live Web site. You assign item-level access by assigning users and groups different roles for each item. The role you assign determines what actions a user has access to for each item.

Actions	User	Contributor	Editor	Approver	Manager	Administrator
Add or move children		X	X		X	X
Add or remove child links		X	X		X	X
Apply authoring template		X	X		X	X
Approve				X		X
Batch-edit access controls			X		X	X
Cancel draft					X	X
Copy		X	X		X	X
Create draft				X Published or expired items		X
Delete			X Items you have created		X	X
Edit			X		X	X
Link to		X	X	X	X	X
Manage elements			X		X	X
Move			X		X	X
Next Stage			X			X
Preview item and view rendered item	X	X	X	X	X	X
Process now						X
Purge					X	X
Read	X	X	X	X	X	X
Reference	X	X	X	X	X	X
Reject				X		X
Restart workflow				X	X Published or expired items	X
Restore			X		X	X
Save version			X		X	X
Show hidden fields						X
System security						X
Unlock					X	X
View references	X	X	X	X	X	X
View versions	X	X	X	X	X	X

Creating new items

The ability to create new items is set at the library level, not item level. You must have at least contributor access to a library and editor access to an item-type to create a new item.

Button access on content items

You can choose to hide selected buttons on content item forms when creating an authoring template. This means a user may not have access to all buttons on a content item form regardless of their role. Administrators can choose to display hidden buttons if required.

Profiling versus security

Use profiling to personalize a site is different from using security to limit what items a user can access. In a profile based personalized site, although a user may not be able to access all the pages using personalized menus, they may still be able to access other pages by using navigators, or by searching for content. In a secured site, a user can only view items that they have been granted access to.

 

Inheriting access levels

There are two methods used to assign roles to access controls on items:

• Select users or groups directly.

• Allowing assigned roles to be inherited from parent items up to and including the library. Access roles are inherited in the following hierarchies:
  • Library/site/site area/content item
  • Library/taxonomy/category
  • Library/component
  • Library/authoring template
  • Library/presentation template
  • Library/workflow
  • Library/workflow stage
  • Library/workflow action

  You can stop inheritance at any point in an inheritance hierarchy. For example, you could allow inheritance down to a site area, but assign access roles manually for each content item under that site area.

  Inheritance from a library is based on the role assigned to the overall library, not on the role assigned to specific item types. For example, you may not have access to the presentation template view on a library, but if you inherit the role of editor to a presentation template, you will be able to view and edit that presentation template from the All Items view.

  Inheritance does not apply to draft items.

By default, inheritance is enabled for all roles and items.

 

View an item's security settings

The following sections are displayed on the security section of each item.

User Defined	If the item is not participating in a workflow, the user can edit access under user-defined.
Workflow	If an item is participating in a workflow, then the user-defined option does not appear and the workflow settings are displayed. This cannot be edited. Workflow-defined access is set in workflow stages.

Published items and workflow defined item security

• If you grant a user editor access to an item in a workflow stage that uses a publish action, then those users are able to edit the published item directly. No draft is created. The same is true for administrator defined security when applied to published items.

• If you grant a user manager access to an item in a workflow stage that uses a publish action, then those users are able to edit and delete the published item directly. No draft is created. The same is true for administrator defined security when applied to published items.

• If you grant a user approve access to an item in a workflow stage that uses a publish action, then those users are able to create drafts of the published item.

Administrator Defined Administrators can edit user access to an item at any time by changing the administrator defined settings. Inheritance You can also choose to inherit access assigned in the current Web content library, or from an item's parent. Inheritance for all user roles are enabled by default.

 

How security is set

When a new item is created, the creator is automatically given delete access to the item. Additional user and group security can be added in the user-defined and system defined settings.

If an item is participating in a workflow, the creator is given delete access to the item only in the first workflow stage. As the item progresses through a workflow, the item security is determined by the combined workflow and system defined security.

Security level	No workflow	1st workflow stage	Additional workflow stages
User	User defined Administrator defined Inherited	Administrator defined Workflow defined	Administrator defined Workflow defined
Contributor	User defined Administrator defined Inherited	Administrator defined Workflow defined or inherited	Administrator defined Workflow defined or inherited
Editor	User defined Administrator defined Inherited	Administrator defined Workflow defined or inherited	Administrator defined Workflow defined or inherited
Manager	User defined Administrator defined Inherited	Administrator defined Workflow defined or inherited	Administrator defined Workflow defined or inherited
Approve	Not applicable.	Workflow defined or inherited	Workflow defined or inherited
Administrator	If you have been assigned the administrator role to a library, you automatically inherit all administration access down to the item-level. It cannot be turned off.

Delete items

When a new item is created, the creator can also delete the item. If an item is participating in a workflow, the creator can only delete the item in the first workflow stage.

 

Assigning access to different types of users or groups

When accessing a WCM Web site or rendering portlet, users login as either anonymous users, or authenticated portal users.

The following user and groups can be used to grant access to items.

anonymous portal user	Select this user to grant access to anonymous users
[all users]	Select this group to grant access to all users, anonymous and authenticated.
[all authenticated portal users]	Select this group to grant access to all authenticated users.
[all portal user groups]	Select this group to grant access to all user groups.
[creator]	Select this to grant access to the creator of the item.
[authors]	Select this to grant access to users who have been selected as an "author" of the item.
[owners]	Select this to grant access to users who have been selected as an "owner" of the item.

 

The access required to view a rendered item

To view an item on a rendered page, you need the following:

1. You need at least user access to the presentation template used to display the current content item.

2. You need at least user access to every item in the path to the current content item:

   • library/site/site area/content item

3. You need at least user access to every item in the path to any elements or components referenced in the presentation template:
   • library/component
   • library/site/element
   • library/site/site area/element
   • library/site/site area/content item/element

   These paths do not need to be the same as the path to the current content item.

4. There must be a valid template map.

 

Parent topic

Develop an access control strategy

 

Related tasks

Grant users or groups access to an item
Create a workflow stage