Basic Lesson 4: Access Policies

Often you or your group will want to limit or increase access to the information in Workspace.  In Workspace, this is done through the use of access policies.  In this lesson, I’ll explain access policies and show you the different roles and permitted actions.

Every item in Workspace – documents, folders, calendar entries, tasks – is governed by an access policy.  You can view an object’s access policy by checking the People & Policies checkbox and clicking on the name of the access policy.  Access policies control who can do what to each item in Workspace.  Access policies allow users and groups to perform certain actions.  These actions are divided into roles: Reader, Contributor, Organizer, Editor, and Publisher.  Readers have the least access and Publishers the most. 

So, why are access policies important?  If you are wondering why you or a colleague cannot add documents to a folder, or use the Edit-in-Place feature, make sure you look at the access policy.  For example, to add documents to a folder, you must belong to a group that is a Contributor for the folder in question.  To use the Edit-in-Place feature, you must belong to a group that is an Editor for the document in question.  Similarly, if you are going to send a tell to a colleague, it’s important that you make sure they have the appropriate access. 

If you feel that an access policy needs to be changed to be more or less restrictive, please contact your project’s manager and me.

Now you know a bit more about access policies and how they affect items in Workspace.  At this time, you can return to workspace or view another video tutorial.