Solution Permissions are used to control which specific user - or Team of users - have access to individual Solutions. For those situations where Solution Managers require granular control over who can read, create, update or delete records, SmartSuite offers an Advanced level of Solution Permissions.

Unlike the other two available permission levels which offer unrestricted access to everyone or to specific Teams, Advanced permissions supports four different levels of access that can be granted to individual users or Teams.

Advanced permissions support a wide variety of use cases, allowing Solution Managers to grant certain users anything from read-only to full access to the records in their Solution. This capability allows you to share important data across the organization, while still controlling who can update or delete the underlying records.

For example, Human resources might share an employee directory, ensuring that records were accessible but only changed by authorized personnel. Customer service staff can be given the ability to create and edit their own records, while preventing changes in records filed by their co-workers.

Advanced permission options are available from each Solution's Permissions configuration page. It is easily accessed by following these steps:

Once you select the Advanced permissions option, you have to specify which Teams and Member profiles should be assigned specific permissions in the current Solution.

The Add Teams or Members input box allows you to display available Members and Teams - simply click on the one that you want to assign permissions to. If there are multiple individual members or Teams that should have the same permissions, you can just keep clicking to add to the list. Everyone will be granted the same selected permissions level after you select it in the next step.

You can also start typing and the listed Teams and Members will be filtered dynamically. If there are no matches you'll see a message like the one below - just backspace to remove search text until results re-appear.

Select someone accidentally? Just click the small X next to the name and the Member or Team will be removed.

Once you have selected your Members and/or Teams, pick the right permission level for them. You have four options:

Once a permission level has been selected you're ready to add the permission setting. Just click Add and all the Members and Teams you selected will be assigned the chosen level of Solution permissions.

If you ever need to change or revoke permissions, just head back to the Solution Permissions dialog and follow these simple steps:

Modify Permissions

To change granted permissions, just find the Member or Team you would like to modify. The currently-assigned permission level will be displayed to the right. Select the desired setting and the permission level is immediately updated.

Revoke Permissions

To entirely revoke a Member or Team's permissions for the solution, just click the small X icon at the far-right side of the row - all permissions for the selected individual or Team will be immediately removed and they will have no access (not even read-only) to its content. (Note: it is possible that individual Members will still have access to the Solution if they are part of another Team that has permissions.)

The best use for the Everyone group is to assign it the Viewer role. This allows every user of the SmartSuite workspace to view and comment on records while ensuring that only select groups or individuals can add, modify or delete the content.

Use cases for this include:

There are many instances where you might want a team to have access to everyone's data but to limit who can update individual records. The Contributor permission level, in conjunction with the Assigned To field type, give you a ton of flexibility to do just that.

Here's a typical scenario - a project manager has an Assigned To field in their Tasks table, and gives the Project Team Contributor-level access to the solution. The PM then creates tasks, selects the appropriate assignee for that task in the Assigned To field, and saves the record. Now only the selected team member can make updates to their assigned Task. Simple!

Organizations change, priorities are modified, and people join and leave teams in what can seem like a constant flow. To avoid having to make numerous ongoing changes to Solution permissions, assign users to Teams that are responsible for different functions.

You could assign a Team called "Sales Managers" to the "Full Access" permission level in your Sales Opportunities Solution. Then when you hire a new manager, just add them to the Sales Managers Team and they'll automatically be granted the appropriate access (perhaps along with read-only access to the Marketing Resources and HR Solutions, and so on...)