How can I restrict users from viewing work breakdown structure items?

Question

How can I restrict users from viewing work breakdown structure items?

Answer

Background

There might be cases where you want to restrict various work breakdown structure items, i.e. projects, phases or tasks, in some fashion. Permissions allow you to restrict which work breakdown structure items users can view and use.

Setting Up Work Item Permissions

To set permissions for users you need to make two major system changes: 

1. Change the Employee user security permission from, for example, Project Can View All to Can View Limited. This permission change will restrict users assigned this permission so can only see the projects they have permission to view. Here are the steps to change a permission setting:

• Navigate to System>Security>security permissions and edit the user security permission you want to modify. In this case, modify the Employee security permission.
• Scroll down to Project
• Modify the Can View permission to Can View Limited (from Can View All)
• Click Okay
• Now all users with Employee security permission will no longer be able to view and use any Projects unless you setup a permission assignment that allows them to do so. 

2. Assign an individual user or groups of users the security permission so they can view individual projects.

• Navigate to a project, e.g. Project A
• When viewing the Project A profile, scroll down the page and click on the Permissions show/hide button
• Cick Edit
• Click Add Employee 
• Search, find and select the employee you want to assign 
• Select the security permission for the assignment – i.e. in this case, the name of security permission where the Project security permission is set to Can View Limited.
• When setting up an employee permission the system will default the security permission to the employee's default permission setup in their employee profile.
• Click Okay to save.
• Now this employee will be able to view and user Project A
• You can use this method for any other project or any other work item
• You can also assign a group this same security permission so group members can view Project A.
• To assign a project to a Group repeat the steps but click on Add Group and select a group instead.

Tip: Troubleshooting Object Permission Assignments

After setting up a permission assignment on any system object (WBS items, pay codes, groups, etc.), use that object's Permissions dashboard for troubleshooting. For example, to troubleshoot Project security permission assignments:

1. Navigate to Projects>Tools (the downward blue triangle on the upper left) >Permissions
2. On this dashboard you can see all permission assignments and change settings by clicking on links to various projects.