Version: 2.1.715.0
SharePoint Column/View Permission allows administrators and list owners to manage access to all website content by setting field-level and view-level permissions for any list in a SharePoint site. With it, you can designate which users and groups have access rights to column contents, a particular list view, or even the ability to enter or change data in a particular list field, thereby enabling you to securely store both public and confidential corporate data within the same list.
Show or Hide Columns in a SharePoint List View
SharePoint Column/View Permission provides the ability to secure access to individual columns in list views or document libraries, making it an ideal solution for consolidating a broad spectrum of information into a centralized location without exposing secured data to unauthorized users. After configuring permissions for a SharePoint list view, only authorized users will see the content of a secure column as if it were a normal column, while unauthorized users will not see the content of the column at all. Column/View Permission also offers the ability to set individual columns as "read-only" in any list view, so that information can be viewed, but not edited, by users.
Form-level Permissions
With SharePoint Column/View permission, you can also assign form-level permissions for the "create new item", "edit item" and "view item" forms, allowing you to hide specific fields completely, or restrict them to read-only access so users can see them, but cannot make changes. Now you can create custom forms for different employees, departments, and roles to streamline the data-entry process while at the same time limiting access to information.
"Edit Item" Form before configuring permissions:
Configuring permissions to hide or set fields as read-only on the form:
"Edit Item" Form after configuring permissions:
View-level Permissions
View-level permission settings in Column/View Permission control whether SharePoint list views are visible, read-only or hidden. By setting a default permission level for each view in a SharePoint list, you can ensure that your confidential information is accessible only to those whom you have granted access - selecting "hidden" as your default view permission level means that new user accounts created will not have access to any views unless you specifically grant them access permission, while read-only will allow users to view list contents but not make any changes.
Column/View Permission also has the capability to provide customized "Actions" menus for each view in the list, meaning you can choose to disable any of the actions available by default in SharePoint without necessitating complex custom coding.
Set Permissions According to Conditions
Administrators and list owners can manage field-level access to items in a SharePoint list with conditions, so that the values of other fields in the same list or even fields from other SharePoint lists can determine access rights. Conditions will determine whether an item is fully visible, read-only, or hidden, and the parameters can be adjusted to apply to all users, a specific group or department, or even an individual employee.
SharePoint Column Permission
Please note that Column View Permission has to be activated before it can be used. For further reference, please see our Product Installation Guide.
Further information is also available in our FAQ.
Feature Introduction
Column Permission
This function lets the administrator globally enable or disable the Column Permission settings configured with Column Permission in this list.
Permission Settings
The Permissions Settings section gives the administrator an overview over all Column Permission settings already set up. Each settings part can be deleted, or enabled disabled. The status field display whether a settings part is enabled or disabled. To edit a Column Permission settings part click the name of the settings part which will open the settings page for the Column Permission settings part.
To add Column Permission settings, click the "Add Form Permissions Settings" link.
Import/Export Permission Parts
The new version of Column View Permission allows for importing and exporting permission parts. This function is based on XML files. Thus, creating similar permissions for different sites will be easier and less time consuming.
To import settings click the Import button. A popup window will open. There the administrator can either paste the XML file contents into the designated area, or browse for a file and upload it. After uploading the file the contents will be displayed in the area above the upload area. To confirm importing the XML file click the OK button. To abort importing the specified permission settings, click the Cancel button.
To export permission settings click the Export button. A popup window will open and display the XML file contents in the edit area. The administrator can then save the settings to any location and thus make it reusable in other lists. To abort exporting the settings, click the Cancel button.
Permission Settings Name
Name each Column Permission settings part. The settings part will be displayed with this name in the Permission Settings table in the main settings page for Column Permission.
User/Group Selection Process
The User/Group selection process has been modified and improved compared to the previous version. One distinctive difference is that administrators are now able to specify in far more detail which users to include and which to exclude from the selection process. It also makes understanding the selection easier as both parts share the same interface.
The first selection lets the administrator decide if he wants to include all users, or if he wants to select a small group of users based on criteria that he specifies below.
Column View Permission now allows for specific selection of users and groups by filtering them by:
a) Anonymous Users
This allows the administrator to include anonymous users in the permission settings.
An anonymous user is used for public access to your Web Site.
Anonymous access allows anyone to visit the public areas of your Web sites while preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to your Web server's critical administrative features and private information.
b) Input of user and group names
As in previous versions, Column View Permission provides a box to enter any user or group name. It also allows entering multiple users or groups, and as with the default user selection, the administrator can look up names or check the names entered into the box.
c) Selecting user/group columns, as well as relative lookup fields in this list
As in previous versions, Column View Permission provides checkboxes with all User/Group columns available. Checking these checkboxes will result in selecting the users which are contained within the selected column. This selection will filter the values in the column specified with the logged in user. The permissions are only set for items associated with the currently logged in user, but will not affect any other items.
The administrator can also select related columns, if the checkbox to display them is checked. This means that all user/group columns in the list that is looked up from will be available for selection.
d) Looking up users from other lists and filter them based on conditions
The process to select users from another list works in 3 steps:
Specify Selection Criteria Based on Conditions
We have introduced conditions to specify user and items even more precise, and thus providing an even more granular approach. The conditions sections have been added in two sections:
a) The process to select users from another list works in 3 steps:
b) Specifying items that will be affected by the permission settings:
By entering conditions, the administrator can specify for which items the permissions are set. The main difference to the user selection process is that these conditions are only based on the current list. There is no reference to other lists possible. Also, the selection process is not based on any associated columns with the user selection, but it takes direct effect.
Form Permission Settings
In the new version of Column View Permission the administrator has the option to not only set the permissions for columns, but instead can specify what columns are accessible in what way for each form.
To set columns read-only, they have to be set as read-only in the Edit Item Form.
To set columns hidden, they have to be set as hidden in all three forms, meaning the New Item Form, the Edit Item Form and the View Item Form.
Column Permission and View Permission are working closely together. This means that columns hidden from certain users will have to be removed from a view if these users should be able to access this view. If a view contains these columns it will not be accessible to the users.
Example
In a list that keeps confidential information on HR, most companies will have to restrict access to certain fields.
The screenshot above illustrates this issue; here a lot of information is included that normal employees should not be able to change. Column View Permission is designed to provide a way to manage permissions for forms. It also provides the option to hide columns, or to set them as read-only.
So for the Edit Item Form all values can be changed, even though the user should not be able to see or changed all the information in this form.
The same issue exists for the New Item Form. Not every user should be able to add information to the list, or enter values for all columns.
In the View Item Form, most often, companies would want to hide certain information from users. With default settings however the View Item Form looks like the one below.
To change this behavior, navigate to the Column Permission Settings. To do so, enter the List Settings page.
There click the Column Permission settings link.
This will direct you to the Column Permission Main Settings page. Here click Add Form Permission Settings.
Here, firstly specify the name of the permissions part, here it is called "Administration".
In the Include People section the checkbox is set to Select All Users. In this Permission part the users affected are specified by excluding users, thus the selection is actually made in the Exclude People part.
Firstly, the Anonymous Users are excluded from the selection. Furthermore, this settings part should only affect all users except employees in the "Administration" department. To exclude these users, the "Choose user or group from another SharePoint list" section can be used to filter users. To do so you have to specify the site and list to lookup from. In this case, this is actually the same list, so it is the HR Department site, and the HR Management list. After that, a column has to be selected from which the users or groups are pulled from. The "User" column contains all the users in the company; therefore this information has to be filtered. For filtering this information Column Permission provides condition settings. The condition in this case is:
[(HR Management).Department]=="Administration"
This condition specifies that only users working in the "Administration" department will be selected.
Looking at the whole user selection, this part specifies that only users should be affected by these settings who are not an anonymous user, and whose value in the Department field is not "Administration".
To complete the settings you have to specify what permissions the users should have for which form.
These permissions reflect the permissions for all users except the "Administration" department employees.
For the New Item Form, these users should not be able to add any information. Therefore all the columns are set to be hidden.
For the Edit Item Form, you can choose to set columns either as read-only, or as hidden. Information in columns like First Name, Family Name, Email, Department, Reporting to, and Phone should be visible, but not changeable for these users.
The permission settings for the View Item Form should reflect the settings in the read-only section for the Edit Item Form. This means that all other columns will be set invisible for this form.
After all settings have been made, confirm by clicking OK. Please note that you also have to click OK in the Column Permission main settings page to confirm any changes made.
Looking in as a user who is not working in the "Administration" department will change the forms displayed.
The New Item Form now does not display any column to edit, it is completely empty.
In the Edit Item Form only the columns set as read-only are displayed, all others are not shown anymore. The columns displayed cannot be edited at all, they behave like in the View Item Form.
The View Item Form is also only displaying the columns not set as hidden.
As Column Permission is linked with SharePointBoost's View Permission, views containing columns that are hidden from users will be not accessible.
So in this case, while Administration staff can see the Public view with the Address column included, this will throw an error message for employees who are not a member of the Administration Department. (Please note that you have to activate the Redirect Page settings in the View Permission settings. For further information please see the View Permission tutorial.)
However, the view is accessible if the column is removed from this view.
SharePoint View Permission
Feature Introduction
View Permission
This function lets the administrator globally enable or disable or View Permission settings configured with View Permission in this list.
Default View Permission Level
This function defines the default behavior for View Permissions. If the default level is set as "Hidden" then new users will not be able to access any views affected by View Permission settings unless the administrator specifically grants them access to these view. Setting the default to be "Visible" will thus allow all new users access to all views, unless the administrator specifically denies them access by creating separate View Permission settings. You can also configure custom "access type" settings for each view in a SharePoint list, but, depending on the Default View Permission Level you set, the Access Type menu in specific View Permission Settings will change.
If the default value is "Hidden" then the default in the Access Type menu will also be "Hidden (this view is not visible to users)" However, if the default value is set to be "Visible" then the default in the Access Type menu will change to "Full Access".
These are important settings if you will lists with a large number of views. Selecting a good default value will set the Access Type for all views so that the administrator does not have to change these settings for each view one-by-one. Also, for each new view this value will be set by default, so the administrator can save a lot of time with choosing the appropriate default value.
Permission Settings
The Permission Settings section gives the administrator an overview over all View Permission settings already set up. Each settings part can be deleted, or enabled disabled. The status field display whether a settings part is enabled or disabled. To edit a View Permission settings part click the name of the settings part which will open the settings page for the View Permission settings part.
To add View Permission settings, click the "Add View Permissions Settings" link.
The "Edit 'View Permission Redirect Page' settings" directs the administrator to a site to configure notifications for users if they do not have sufficient permissions to access a view.
Edit "View Permission Redirect Page" settings
These settings give the administrator the option to configure notifications if views are unavailable to users. Check the "Use redirect page" to use this feature. If activated, any users without sufficient permissions will be directed to a page presenting him with the following options.
There are four messages that can be configured. However, for each message a default message is preset. So activating this feature does not require to enter any messages, if the default messages meet the requirements of the administrator.
Import/Export Permission Parts
Importing and exporting permission parts for View Permission works in the same way as for Column Permission (see above).
Permission Settings Name
Name each View Permission settings part. The settings part will be displayed with this name in the Permission Settings table in the main settings page for View Permission.
User/Group Selection Process
The User/Group selection process now allows administrators to specify which users to include or exclude from the selection process. The first selection lets the administrator decide if he wants to include all users, or if he wants to select a small group of users based on criteria that he specifies.
With Column/View Permission, administrators have the option to:
Looking up users from other lists and filtering them based on conditions
The process to select users from another list works in 3 steps:
Specify Selection Criteria Based on Conditions
We have introduced conditions to specify user and items even more precise, and thus providing an even more granular approach. In View Permission, conditions are used for filtering users/groups from other sites.
The process to select users from another list works in 3 steps:
View Permission Settings
In the View Permission Settings the administrator can specify the permission level that the selected users will have for each of the views in a list.
The Access Type defines whether the view should be fully accessible, read-only, or hidden for the selected users. (Please note that setting a view as read-only will mean that no items in the list can be edited or deleted unless the user has the appropriate permissions. Also, the "modify this view" option in the Views dropdown menu will not be available for this view).
The default for these settings can be changed in the Default View Permission Level settings (see above for further information).
The "Actions" menu configures which options in the ‘Actions’ menu should be visible to the user. Selecting the first option ("Hide 'Actions' menu") will make the whole Actions menu completely invisible in the view, and thus disable all the options available in it. The administrator can also specify single menu items to be hidden from users.
The Datasheet View can be disabled by checking the checkbox in the "Disable Datasheet View" column for each view. This will not only make the Datasheet View "Actions" menu item invisible, but will also disable the URL to access the Datasheet View.
Example
In companies there is information that should only be accessible to certain people. So only staff in the Administration department has to be able to read and modify private information of employees. Other employees should not be able to access this kind of information. So information like address, social security number, etc should be hidden from any employee, except employees working for Administration.
Less sensitive information on the other hand like the department employees are working in, whom they are reporting to, etc is information that should be shared, however, it should only be read-only.
A way to achieve this goal is to define views that include the necessary information for its target audience, and then restrict the access level with SharePointBoost View Permission.
First, create a view that should be accessible for all employees. This view is called "Public".
Then, create another view for administrative staff only; this one is the "Administrative" view.
The Public View includes no sensitive information, while the Administrative view displays all fields of interest for the Administration Department. To set permissions for these views, navigate to the View Permission settings page.
In the List Settings page click on the View Permission link to be directed to the View Permission general settings page.
As this information in this list is confidential, the administrator wants the default set to be 'Hidden' for new users.
Also, the administrator has activated the Redirect Page; so that users are informed of their choices when they navigate to a view they do not have permissions to.
Then navigate back to the View Permission main settings page, and click "Add View Permission Settings". The administrator creates a settings part that allows users access to the "Public" view, while denying access to other views that contain confidential information. This settings part is called "Public".
Then the administrator has to specify which users will be affected by these view permission settings. As all employees should be able to access this view the administrator just selects the "Select all users" radio button. As external parties should not be able to access this information at all, anonymous users are excluded by checking the Select/Deselect Anonymous Users checkbox. Also, as employees working in the "Administration" department should not be affected, they are excluded as well, using the following condition:
[(HR Management).Department]=="Administration"
Now the administrator has to select what views are available to the employees, and what permissions they have for these views.
For the "Public" view they should be able to see it, however they should not be able to make any changes, thus selecting read-only access is the right choice. To ensure that they are not able to access the information by exporting the list information, check the administrator can hide the Actions Menu completely. Also, by disabling the Datasheet View, he ensures that the employees cannot access the datasheet view at all, and thus won’t be able to access any information in the datasheet view.
All the other views should be hidden from the employees, thus the administrator just selects the "Hidden" option in the Access Type menu.
Now, the administrator still has to set up the view permissions for the Administration Department. Firstly, again create a new View Permissions settings part. Name it as "Administration".
Then, select which users to include. To only select employees working in the Administration Department the administrator needs to specify the site and the list from which to look up. Here, this is the same as the existing list. Then specify the "User" column as the column to pull users from. Following he needs to filter for employees in Administration department only. This he can achieve with this condition:
[(HR Management).Department]=="Administration"
Now, the administrator has to specify what access type the administration employees should have for each view. For all views they should have Full Access. So the administrator can just specify full access for all views. Also, the Actions menu and all its options should be visible, and the Datasheet View available.
Logging in as Anthony from the Production & Development department, only the "Public" view is available. Also, the Actions menu is not displayed.
On the other hand, if John logs in, he can access all views and has permissions to change or add list entries.
Support Languages: English, Chinese, Japanese, German.
System Requirements
| Operating System: |
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x86/x64 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x86/x64 |
|---|---|
| Server: |
SharePoint Release: - Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services v3 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Microsoft .NETs Framework 2.0 or 3.0 Note: This product is not compatible with SPS 2003 and WSS v2 |
| Browser: | Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or greater is recommended for Advanced Administration features |
Release Notes
|
2.1.715.0 Jul 15th, 2010 |
New Feature: - Server license added. |
|---|---|
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2.1.528.0 Jun 7th, 2010 |
Bugs fixed: - When editing a view, uses intended to "Group By" by using an invisible column, the view failed to be hidden. - Users could not get access to "People and Groups" even though having been assigned "Full Control" to the site and the site collection; - Given Column/View Permission had been activated, the workflow created by SharePoint Designer could not work properly. |
|
2.0.401.2 Apr 2nd, 2010 |
New Features: - Allow for assigning form-level permissions; - Offer conditions to determine the users and user groups that will be assigned custom permission settings; - Import or export permission settings as an XML file. |
|
1.17.1209.0 Dec 15th, 2009 |
Bug Fixed: - An error happened when users intended to enter into a list with previous column/view permission configuration after the site collection that the list belonging to being exported and then imported. |
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1.16.916.0 Sep 16th, 2009 |
Bug Fixed: - A column might be invisible to all the users though it was supposed to be invisible only to certain person. |
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1.16.820.0 Aug 21st, 2009 |
Licensing module upgraded. |
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1.15.428.2 Apr 28th, 2009 |
New Feature: - Add items’ URLs to certain fields. Bug Fixed: - Removed groups from site user count. |
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1.14.113.1 Jan 13rd, 2009 |
Bug Fixed: - Web part connection failed in customized forms when applying column permission. |
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1.13.112.0 Jan, 12nd 2009 |
Bugs Fixed: - Folder parameter was lost when changing view when applying column permission; - Stopped supporting XLST form and XLST view, only support customized forms which are composited by Form Field or List Iterator). |
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1.12.1226.1 Dec 26th, 2008 |
New Features: - Fully support customized forms; - Allow users to set permissions on attachments. |
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1.11.1204.0 Dec 5th, 2008 |
New Feature: - Availability of farm license. |
|
1.10.1125.0 Nov 25th, 2008 |
Bug Fixed: - User fields could not be assigned permission in some cases. |
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1.9.1121.5 Nov 21st, 2008 |
Bugs Fixed: - Some views were hidden though they should be visible in those cases; - Improve performance for batch permission settings. |
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1.8.1104.0 Nov 4th, 2008 |
Bug Fixed: - Resolved the error happened when a view had an empty title. |
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1.8.1031.1 Oct 31st, 2008 |
New Features: - Support column permission for anonymous; - Allow users to assign permissions to list views. |
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1.7.0.3787 Oct 15th, 2008 |
New Feature: - Support assigning column permissions to user/group columns in a list. Bugs Fixed: - Resolved the error happened when users logging in as anonymous; - User lists were too long and no new line when assigning permissions to many users. |
|
1.6.0.3709 Oct 10th, 2008 |
New Features: - Allow AD groups who are not in SharePoint site to be assigned column permissions; - Allow assigning column permissions to all users except specified ones. Bug Fixed: - Fixed errors in page title and description. |
|
1.5.3.0 Aug 18th, 2008 |
Bug Fixed: - Resolved the errors happened when inserting an image into a new item, but failing to save the new item. |
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1.5.0.0 Aug 18th, 2008 |
New Feature: - Enable all workflow association when activating workflow features. |
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1.4.1.0 Aug 11st, 2008 |
Bug Fixed: - Column permission could not work on Survey list. |
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1.4.0.0 Aug 7th, 2008 |
New Feature: - Split SharePoint Permission Boost into three products (SharePoint features). |
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1.3.0.0 Jul 18th, 2008 |
New Feature: - Availability of a new product – SharePoint Item Permission Batch. |
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1.2.1.0 Jul 18th, 2008 |
Bug Fixed: - Increase the performance when users applying permission settings to lists which contained a great amount of items. |
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1.2.0.0 Jul 8th, 2008 |
New Feature: - Separate column permission settings from workflow settings, and add a link of column permission settings in list edit/setting page. |
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1.1.0.0 Jul 2nd, 2008 |
Initial Release |
Purchase FAQ
An end-user is defined as any user who has access to, or has accessed any site in your Site Collection/Farm at any point in time, either directly (e.g. signing in) or indirectly (e.g. assigning him a task). Once a user has accessed a site in the site collection or the farm where the product is used, he is counted, regardless of whether or not this user is active on the specific site where the product is used. For example, while you may only have 50 users who would need to use the product on Site A in the site collection, there are 360 users accessing Site B (including the 50 accessing Site A), making a total of 360 users with access to the site collection. Since Site A and Site B are in the same site collection, you would need to purchase a license for at least 360 users. SPB licenses increase in increments of 100 users, so if there are 360 people who have access to the site collection, you will need to purchase a 400 end-user license.
If you would like to place an order with a PO, please contact sales@sharepointboost.com.
