What access rights mean for activities, participants and folders

This article shows what the rights Read, Edit and Manage let a user do with activities, participants and folders, and what happens to the items inside them.

A higher right always includes the lower ones: Edit includes everything Read allows, Manage includes everything Edit allows. With Off, the user doesn't see the item. Guests can have at most Read, so for them only the Read column applies.

Activities

These are the items in the Workspaces & Activities section: projects, work packages and tasks as well as deliverables and milestones.

Participants

If Hide personnel cost rates is switched on for a participant, users with only Read see its cost rates masked. See Create and edit personnel cost rates.

Folders and documents

A document always has the same right as the folder it is in.

Budget items and expenses

A user sees a budget item or an expense only if they can see both the activity and the participant it belongs to. If one of them is Off, the entry is hidden, also from the totals. For the entries a user can see, their right for Budget or Expenses decides what they can do:

Even Manage on Expenses never reaches entries the user can't see: a partner can only change expenses of activities and participants that are visible to them. The Budget and Expenses rights apply to the whole workspace; a high right on an activity gives no extra rights on its expenses.

Items inside other items

Projects contain work packages, work packages contain tasks, participants contain sub-participants, folders contain sub-folders. Between an item and the items inside it, these rules apply:

• New items take over the rights of the item they are created in. A new task gets the rights of its work package.
• Giving a higher right also lifts the items inside. If you raise the right on a work package with Refine, its tasks with a lower right get the higher right, too.
• Giving a lower right does not. If you set a work package to Off, its tasks stay visible. Set them to Off as well.
• The Access tab changes only the one item you opened.
• Each item counts on its own. With Read on a work package and Manage on one of its tasks, the user can edit and delete that task.
• Inside items can be visible on their own. If a user can see a task but not its work package, the Gantt chart shows the work package as an empty row. Documents works the same way for folders.

Sections and projects

The right a user has for a whole section, e.g. Workspaces & Activities, is the starting point for every item in it. It matters in these situations:

• Left menu: if a section is Off, its area disappears from the user's menu, e.g. Workplan. Analytics needs access to both Budget and Expenses.
• Only some items: set the section to Off and open single items with Refine. The user sees the area with only these items.
• Creating new items at the top level, e.g. a new participant or a new folder that is not inside another folder, needs Manage on the section. These new items get each user's section right. New projects can only be added by Admins and Managers.
• Projects: a workspace can contain several projects. They are top-level activities in the Workplan, so the Workspaces & Activities right applies to all of them. Budget and Expenses are never split by project.

Examples

Give a user access to one project only

1. In Users, set the user's Workspaces & Activities right to Off.
2. Click Refine in that column, give the project the right the user needs, e.g. Edit, and click Save changes. Everything inside the project gets at least this right.
3. For budget and expenses, also give Read on the user's participants and the right they need for Budget and Expenses.

Hide a work package completely

1. In Users, click Refine in the user's Workspaces & Activities column.
2. Set the work package and all its tasks, deliverables and milestones to Off, then click Save changes.
3. Open the work package's Access tab to check: if one of the user's groups gives a higher right, that right wins.

Hide a work package from everyone except two partners

EMDESK has no "only these people" switch: new users get Manage on everything, and the strongest right always wins. So you hide the work package from everyone who shouldn't see it:

1. Open the work package's Access tab. It lists all users and groups with their right on this item.
2. For every user and group that shouldn't see it, set the work package to Off. Keep the two partners' users (or their group) at the right they need.
3. Do the same for each task, deliverable and milestone inside it: Off does not pass down to them. With many users, it's quicker to do this per user in Users > Refine, where you see the work package and everything in it in one list.
4. Open the Access tab again and check the effective rights: nobody else should have more than Off.