SharePoint 2010 : Grant Permissions to a File or List Item

When you’re on the manage permissions page for the file or item, you might be able to immediately change permissions, or you might have to first disconnect the permission inheritance for that file or item. Permission inheritance is on by default for all files or items in SharePoint. It means that the file or item inherits its permissions from the list or library in which it is located and has exactly the same permission sets. If the permissions for the list or library change, the permissions for the file or item are updated automatically.

While inheritance is active, it is not possible to set a different permission level on a file or an item . To stop a file or an item from inheriting permissions, click the Stop Inheriting Permissions button in the Permission Tools ribbon.

If you want to change the permissions for the parent—whether it’s a list, library, or site—you can click the Manage Parent button in the ribbon or click the link to the parent in the yellow bar .

After you click the Stop Inheriting Permissions button, a prompt appears, asking you to confirm that you want to disconnect the permissions inheritance from the list or library. The prompt also explains that after you do so, changes to the permissions of the list and library will not affect the file or item you are managing. This means, for example, that if a certain user is granted permissions to edit files or items in the list or library after you disconnect the inheritance of permissions, that user still can’t edit the specific list item or file that you managed unless you (or someone else) explicitly give that user the permissions to edit that document.

If you are sure that you want to manage the permissions for a file separately from the permission of the list or library, click OK. The page changes and allows you to manage the permissions for the file or item.

If the file’s or item’s permission inheritance was already disconnected in the past, by you or by someone else, you see the screen shown in Figure 1 when you click Manage Permissions for the file or list item. You can change your mind and switch the file or item back to inherit permission using the Inherit Permissions button on the ribbon.

Figure 1. The edit permissions page for a list item or file when permission inheritance is disconnected.

Now you can manage the permissions on the file or item. To add permission to a user or group that doesn’t already have permissions, click the Grant Permissions button in the Permission Tools ribbon. This opens the Grant Permission dialog, which enables you to select either a user or group and select what permission levels should be given (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Granting permissions to a new user or group.

In the Select Users section, type the name (or part of a name) or e-mail address for the user or group that you want to add. Or click the address book icon to open the people search dialog, where you can search for people by typing a name or part of a name. You can add more than one user or group at a time by separating the names with semicolons. This is similar to when you are writing an e-mail message in Microsoft Outlook and you choose who you want to send the e-mail to.

If you use the Check Name icon and there is no exact match for the name you entered, a red underline appears beneath the name (see Figure 3). You can then click the name to open a menu that shows users who are a close match to that name or select to remove the name. For example, typing “Joh” and clicking the Check Name icon causes a red line to appear under the name “Joh.” When you click it, you see that there is a user called John Doe. If this is the user you’re looking for, click the name. If not, you can either click Remove to delete John from the text box or click More Names to open the search dialog.

Figure 3. Typing part of a name in the text box.

The search dialog enables you to search for people. You just type part of the name of the person or group that you want, as shown in Figure 4, and click the Search icon. A list of possible matches appears. To select one of them, double-click the name, and it is added to the box at the bottom of the dialog. After you have chosen all the users and groups, click OK to close the dialog and return to the Add Users page.

Figure 4. Typing part of a name in the people search dialog.

After you have found the users and/or groups that you want to add to the list, select the permissions they should have by selecting one or more of the check boxes in the list of permissions under Grant Users Permission Directly (refer to Figure 10.6). Selecting options here gives the users the permissions you selected. As before, the higher permission level wins, so if you give someone the Read and Contribute permissions, the user can edit the file as well as read it because of the Contribute setting.

Alternatively, you can add the users or groups to a SharePoint group. If you do, they get whatever permission level the SharePoint group has. This is a useful mechanism for controlling permissions. For example, if you decide that all the users who have Contribute (edit) permissions on a document should now have read-only access, you have to edit each user’s permissions. Instead, by using SharePoint groups, you can add users to a SharePoint group that has the Contribute permission level, and when a change is required, you change the permissions only on that SharePoint group and not on each user individually. You can add both users and security groups to the SharePoint group.

To add users or groups to a SharePoint group, click the Add Users to a SharePoint Group option and then select from the drop-down list the SharePoint group to which you want to add the users and/or security groups (see Figure 5). Click on View Permission This Group Has to open another dialog that shows what permissions the group has on the different sites and lists.

Figure 5. Adding users and groups to a SharePoint group.

If the server hosting the SharePoint site supports sending e-mail messages, another option appears, allowing you to send e-mail to the users to tell them that they have permissions on the file or item . You have the option to select not to send the e-mail, or if you select to send it, you can change the title and body of the message.

When you are done selecting all the options, click OK to save the new permissions.