Manage The 7 Types of SharePoint Permissions: An Informative Guide

SharePoint is one of the most robust and efficient document-sharing platforms used by organizations worldwide. Beyond document management and collaboration, SharePoint allows businesses to create websites, manage operations, and enhance internal communication. As businesses scale, managing document access becomes more critical.

In SharePoint, permissions control who can access content, edit documents, and make changes within your portal. This post will guide you through the SharePoint permissions levels and how to effectively manage access across various SharePoint sites.

The primary purpose of SharePoint permissions is to ensure that sensitive documents and data are only accessible to authorized individuals. Permissions help organizations control access to documents, lists, and other content, ensuring that only those with valid access can view, edit, or manage them.

With SharePoint permissions, you can control:

• Who can access specific documents or content
• Which users can edit or view documents
• Which users are restricted from accessing certain information

These permissions also apply to SharePoint search results, meaning that documents that a user does not have permission to view will not appear in their search results.

SharePoint permissions are crucial for several reasons:

• Protect Sensitive Data: They ensure that only authorized personnel can view or modify sensitive documents.
• Efficient Team Access: You can restrict access to specific team sites or documents based on roles.
• Ease of Management: SharePoint enables you to manage permissions at both the individual level and group level, simplifying user access control.
• Automate Access Management: You can create ad-hoc SharePoint groups for different websites, ensuring that users are granted access automatically based on their roles.

There are a total of three permission groups you will find on every new SharePoint website:

• Owners: Full control over all site content.
• Members: Permissions to edit content.
• Visitors: Read-only access.

Experts suggest that these three groups are sufficient for most organizations and don’t need customization. However, you can create new permission groups if required, but this might introduce complexity into managing the site. It’s best to stick to the default groups unless you have complex processes that require additional groups.

Every time you make a new permission group, the site becomes more complex and challenging to manage. We recommend you not make a new group unless you strongly require one. Also, adding new SharePoint permission groups will make a transfer of ownership more challenging in the future.

Owners have full control over all the content within a website. It is a default setting. On the other hand, Members have edit access. Visitors, most of the time third parties, have only Read access.

Now, you can make changes to the SharePoint permission levels. Some organizations make changes for the Members as they sometimes need full control. However, if you have no challenging processes, you need to stick to the default permission settings only as it is more simple and less difficult to manage for a new Owner.

Every time you create a new intranet site, you will get options to create new groups. You can also rename groups or choose to use existing permission groups to assign the Visitors, Members, and Owners. However, as we have discussed, adding new groups is not recommended. Instead, you can use defaults to make the website simple and manageable.

SharePoint offers different permission levels that define what users can do within a site. These are categorized into the following:

Users with Full Control can perform all administrative actions, including managing site settings, adding subsites, and modifying permissions. This permission is typically granted to Owners.

Users with Design permissions can view, add, update, and delete customizations and site content. However, they cannot manage site-wide settings, such as permissions or site structure.

Contribute permissions allow users to view, add, update, and remove content. Most regular SharePoint users are assigned Contribute permissions to manage documents and other items within lists and libraries.

With Read permissions, users can view pages, documents, and list items. They can also download documents but cannot make any changes.

The Edit permission grants users the ability to manage lists, libraries, and documents. They can also contribute content and make edits but cannot manage site-wide settings.

View Only permissions allow users to view documents, lists, and pages, but they cannot edit or download content from SharePoint servers.

Limited Access provides users access to specific content or assets but prevents them from accessing other parts of the site. This permission is useful when you want to grant access to specific lists, libraries, or items without giving access to the entire site.

SharePoint permissions have three categories:

• List Permissions: These apply specifically to lists and document libraries. They include actions such as viewing, editing, deleting, and managing versions of items.
• Site Permissions: These apply to the entire site and include actions like managing site settings, creating groups, customizing pages, and viewing analytics.
• Personal Permissions: These permissions are for individual users and include managing personal views, adding or removing personal web parts, and updating personal settings.

Managing SharePoint permissions is straightforward once you understand the structure. You can assign permissions to Visitors, Members, and Owners. However, if you need to customize permissions further, SharePoint allows you to create new permission groups.

Here’s how you can manage SharePoint permissions:

1. Go to your SharePoint team site.
2. Click on SETTINGS > SITE PERMISSIONS.
3. Add or remove users from specific groups.

If members are already added to the Microsoft Office 365 Group, you can add them directly to the SharePoint team site. If not, you can manually add them to the site.

1. Click ADD MEMBERS TO GROUP and enter their email addresses.
2. Click SAVE to add them.

Once they’re added to the Office 365 group, they will automatically be added to your SharePoint site.

To change site permissions for specific individuals or groups:

1. Click the down arrow next to the SharePoint permission level for the person or group.
2. Select Edit to modify their permissions or assign them a new permission level.

You can assign a user full control, read-only access, or permissions to edit content based on your organizational needs.

If you need to create a new permission group:

1. Click SETTINGS > SITE PERMISSIONS.
2. Select ADVANCED PERMISSIONS SETTINGS.
3. Click CREATE GROUP.
4. Add the name and description for the group.
5. Choose a permission level for the group.
6. Click CREATE to finalize.

SharePoint permissions are vital for managing sensitive data and ensuring that the right people have access to the right content. By understanding how to use permission groups, create new permissions, and control access effectively, organizations can ensure that their SharePoint environment remains secure and organized.

To enhance your SharePoint experience further, you can integrate third-party apps such as SnapOn Software’s web parts for Microsoft 365, which offer powerful features to boost SharePoint efficiency. Visit SnapOn Software’s website to explore these tools and learn more.

To learn more about what SnapOn Software can do for you, click here.

If you are looking for a comprehensive overview of all user permissions from a single console, to rapidly identify, track and audit all aspects of user permissions across Microsoft 365 please check out ProvisionPoint Permissions.