Managing Permissions on Sites,
Libraries, and Files
Unique permissions may be placed on a site, a document library or list, or a document itself. For
most sites there are typically three groups with unique permissions: a members group, an
owners group, and a visitors group. For example, on the Knowledge Management site there
exists the following groups and permissions:
Group
Knowledge Management Owners
Knowledge Management Members
Knowledge Management Visitors
Permission
Full Control
Contribute
Read
When handling permissions on a site, it is better to add (or remove) users to/from a group than
to add/remove them individually to/from the site. Site permissions can get very cluttered if you
have a lot of individual names on the site root. Although there are exceptions, it’s better to add
an individual to the group that already has the permissions you need the person to have.
Important Note: If your site is a subsite of a parent site, it is initially set up to inherit
permissions from the parent site. Before you make any changes to permissions on the
subsite, make sure you STOP inheriting permissions from the parent site FIRST. To do this, go
to Site Actions  Site Permissions and click Stop Inheriting Permissions. SharePoint will copy
the permissions from the parent site to the subsite and then break the inheritance. Once the
inheritance is broken, you may begin to change permissions on the subsite.
Figure 1
Managing Permissions on Sites, Libraries and Files – SharePoint 2010
Managing Permissions:
To view permissions, under Site Actions go to Site Permissions.
Figure 2
Figure 3
To see a list of the members of any group, click the group name.
1. To add a new user to one of the groups, click on the group name and click New Add
Users. (See Figure 4.)
2. Type in the user name and click the Check Names icon.
3. You may send the person a welcome email and message, or you may de-select this option.
4. Click OK.
Managing Permissions on Sites, Libraries and Files – SharePoint 2010
Figure 4
Another way to add permissions—either to add a person to a group or to add them
individually—is to click the Grant Permissions button in the ribbon. You will see a screen similar
to the one above, however there will be more options. You can either assign the user to a
group, or you may grant user permissions directly, without assigning them to a group. Each
permission level has a description beside it.
To delete a user from a group:
1. Click the group name to open it.
2. Select the check box by the user’s name.
3. Select Action  Remove Users From Group.
To change the permission of an entire group:
1. Select the check box by the appropriate group name.
2. Select Edit User Permissions from the ribbon.
3. Choose the appropriate permissions from the list and select OK.
Note: By default, most sites give read permission to FHI 360 Visitors, which is all of FHI 360
(Global). You may delete this permission if you do not want all of FHI 360 to have read
permission to your site. Simply check the box beside the group and select Remove User
Permissions from the ribbon.
To delete a user group: See above instructions for deleting FHI 360 Visitors group. You will
follow this same procedure to delete any group.
Creating a New Users Group
You can create a new users group if you know you will have a special group of collaborators that
is different from your members, owners, or visitors. To create a new users group, select Create
Group.
Managing Permissions on Sites, Libraries and Files – SharePoint 2010
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Give your group a name (required) and a description if you desire (Figure 5).
Determine who can view and edit the membership of the group.
Determine how you will handle membership requests and select appropriately.
Select the permission level group members will have for this site.
Click OK.
Note: As the owner of this group, you will be the only one who can view the membership and
add members to this group unless you check that group members can edit the membership of
the group in step 2.
Figure 5
Setting Permissions on Document Libraries
Document libraries inherit the same permissions as their sites. To place different permissions
on a document library, you will have to break this inheritance. To do this, open your document
library and click the Library tab at the top of the page and choose Library Permissions.
Managing Permissions on Sites, Libraries and Files – SharePoint 2010
1. To break permissions with the parent, select Stop Inheriting Permissions from the
ribbon.
2. You will see the following message:
This means you are breaking inheritance with the permissions of the parent site, and—as it
says—changes made to the permissions of the parent site from here on out will not affect this
document library. Click OK.
3. Change the permissions as needed. Refer to the previous section on changing user
permissions for the site if necessary.
Note: If you should decide later that document library permissions should be re-set to the parent
site permissions, you can click Inherit Permissions, and it will once again inherit the permissions
from the parent site.
Setting Permissions on a Document
1. Click the drop-down menu beside the file name of the document. Select Manage
Permissions.
2. Click Stop Inheriting Permissions on the ribbon.
3. Again, similar to above, you will see a message that you are about to break inheritance
from both the parent folder and the document library, creating unique permissions for
this document. Click OK.
Managing Permissions on Sites, Libraries and Files – SharePoint 2010
4. Set the document permissions as needed (see steps above for how to set permissions at
site level).
Note: It’s probably not a great idea to have lots of documents with varying permissions on them.
It is recommended to place a collection of documents that need a certain level of security into a
document library and then secure that document library. Setting permissions down to the
document level—while it has its place—can be cumbersome and confusing for users.
Managing Permissions on Sites, Libraries and Files – SharePoint 2010