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Field Permissions

Set viewing/editing permissions on each field of data

Emma Montgomery avatar
Written by Emma Montgomery
Updated over a year ago

Field permissions allow Solution Managers to define granular permissions for individual fields in their Table. This feature allows managers to control who can view and edit specific fields within the Table, and works in combination with Solution and Table-level permissions.

Note: Field permissions are available on the Professional and Enterprise plans.

Just like Solution and Table permissions, a Member must be a Solution Manager for the Solution (or have the Administrator Role) to view or change the Field Permissions. You can read more about changing a Member’s Role in this article.

There are two aspects of managing field permissions:

  • Defining who can view the field's value

  • Defining who can edit the field's value


Why Field Permissions are useful

By configuring Field Permissions, SmartSuite Solution Managers are able to customize a Solution by further narrowing the permissions granted to users at the Table level and granting individual Members or Teams more limited access.

This is useful in a variety of situations where you may want a broad population of users to access some fields while hiding internal workings of a department, team, or other subset of your organization.


Available Field Permissions

Who can View Setting

There are four options for determining who can view the field:

  • Everyone (by default)

  • Everyone except

  • Selected Members and Teams

  • Nobody

Everyone: Any member of the Table can see the field. This includes all members that have at least a Guest access to the Table and for records, they have viewing access. This is the default setting.

Everyone Except: Any member of the Table can see the field, except selected members or teams. For example, everyone except Guests.

Selected Members and Teams: Only visible to the members, teams, or permission groups explicitly added.

Nobody: Hidden from all users and only Solution Owners can view it.

Note: The Primary field and Auto-number Field cannot be set to Nobody

Who can Edit Setting

The second field permission option is specifying who can edit the field. Note: the members must already have viewing permissions to be an available selection for editing.

Similar to the view settings, there are four options for determining who can edit the field:

  • Everyone (by default)

  • Everyone except

  • Selected Members and Teams

  • Nobody

Everyone: Set by default and indicates (out of the members who can view the field) those who have permission to edit a record can also edit the field. This is the default setting.

Table-level permissions prevail as viewers are able to view the field, but this does not give them rights to edit,

Everyone Except: Any member of the Table can edit the field, except selected members or teams. For example, everyone except Contributors and the HR Team.

Selected Members and Teams: Field will be editable for only the members, teams, or permission groups explicitly added.

  • They have permission to view the fields

    AND

  • They are capable of editing a particular record

For example, only HR Team and Contributed can edit this field..

Nobody: The field becomes read-only for all Table members. No one aside from the Solution owners can edit this field. All-ready only fields will be hard set to Nobody.


Configuring Field Permissions

To configure permissions for fields simply:

  1. Click the field dropdown for the field you wish to set permissions on

  2. Select "Edit Field Permissions"

3. A window will display with the ability to set Viewing and Editing permission through two drop downs options.

4. From the "Who can view this field?' dropdown, the options for view settings will display.

5. After determining the field view settings, the "Who can Edit this Field?" dropdown will display the options for Edit settings.

NOTE: Changes to permissions are not applied until you click Save. If you try to close or exit the Table Permissions dialog without saving your changes, you will be prompted to Exit without Saving or Save Changes.

You can change the field permission configuration at any time from the same window.


Working with Inaccessible Fields

Users that are not allowed to view a specific field will be able to see the field's name and type in reports, records, and view controls, but will not be able to see its value.


Linked Record & Views

When viewing the Table, fields that are not accessible will be hidden in the Record Modal, Linked Record Tile, Grid, and Card Views.

Files & Images

In the case of using a files and image field as a cover image for cards, if a user does not have view access to that field the card will be displayed without the cover image. Users can choose another field to use as a cover image.

Map, Calendar, Timeline Views

In map, calendar and timeline views, hidden fields will not be displayed in the View By control and users can pick other fields they have access to, with the backend merging those newly added fields with hidden fields for users who have access.


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