If you'd like to watch a brief demo on setting user permissions, click here.

Permissions control what any normal (non-administrative) user can do in TrackVia. Permissions are defined on a per-database basis. Normal users will only be aware of and have access to databases for which they are explicitly given permissions.

Administrative users can see the permissions of all users and all databases by looking at the User List tab of the Setup page.

Database permissions come in three types:

• record permissions
• field permissions
• feature permissions

This article explains how these permissions work, and then gives step-by-step instructions for setting and changing permissions.

Record Permissions. In each database, record permissions control a normal user's ability to do the following:

• Add records.
• View records. This can be broken down by individual records, so that a user can view:
  • no records
  • only records they created
  • only records they are involved with (explained below)
  • both records they created or are involved with
  • all records
• Edit records. This can also be broken down into the above categories.
• Delete records. This can also be broken down into the above categories.

Record level permissions are shown in the Record Permissions section of the User List. In these columns, the word no means that the user has that permission for no records in the database, and the word both means the user has that permission for records they created or are involved with.

Involved records. The word involved refers to any record that has a TrackVia User field whose current value is the user in question. This can be either selected or calculated.  For example, suppose you have a database of Tasks which has a TrackVia User field called Assigned To. Then a user John Doe is involved with a task if the task's Assigned To field is set to John Doe. As another example, suppose your database of Articles has two TrackVia User fields: written by and edited by. Then a user Jane Doe is involved with any article that has written by set to Jane Doe or edited by set to Jane Doe.

Field Permissions. In each database, field permissions control whether a user can see or edit each individual database field. In the previous example of a Tasks database, suppose we used record permissions to prevent users from editing tasks they are not assigned to. It would then make sense to use field permissions to prevent users from changing their tasks' Assigned To value. In addition, each task could have a Manager's Notes field that normal users would not even be able to view. If a user does not have the ability to view a database field, they will be unaware of the field's existence – it will not show up in any record, view, Excel export, email, and so on.

Field permissions are summarized in the Field Perms section of the User List. In these columns, the word all means that the user can view or edit all of the database's fields, and the word some means they have reduced permissions. You can click the permission icon to see the specifics.

Feature Permissions. In each database, feature permissions control which TrackVia features a normal user can use. For example, an admin can disable a normal user's ability to export data to Excel, "mail merge" data with a document, create a new view, or send an email campaign. More than a dozen individual features can be disabled for a specific user in a specific database.

Note that some features are always available to normal users. For example, if a normal user has the ability to view a specific record (based on their record permissions), then they can always print that record, email that record, or mail-merge it with a template. Normal users can always use the Search box, the interactive map, and the Find Duplicates feature (of course, the records visible through those features will be subject to the user's record permissions). On the other hand, there are some features that normal users can never use. As explained in the Users article, these include adding or changing fields in a database setup, enabling email collection for a database, publishing a view to a public website, and so on.

Features permissions are summarized in the Feature Perms section of the User List. In these columns, the word all means that the user can use all of TrackVia's features in that database (except for the admin-only features), and the words some or none mean they have reduced permissions. You can click the permission icon to see the specifics.

Setting permissions. All permission changes are done from the Setup page, reached (by administrators only) using the link in the upper-right corner of any page.

To add a user to a database:

• From the Setup page, click on the Projects and Databases tab.
• Click the permission icon for the database you want to add the user to.
• In the Select Users to Change section, check the checkbox next to the user you want to add.
• Specify any record or field permissions in the bottom part of the page (the default permissions give full access to the database).
• Click Update permissions.

To remove a user from a database:

• From the Setup page, click on the User List tab.
• Click the delete icon next to the database name under the specific user you want to remove.

To change database permissions for one or more users:

• From the Setup page, click on the Projects and Databases tab.
• Click the permission icon next to the database you want to change permissions for.
• In the list of Current Settings, you can drill down to a specific user's permissions by clicking the permission icon next to their name.
• Or, to update permissions for many users at once, check their names in the Select Users to Change section, and adjust the permissions on the bottom part of the page.
• Click Update permissions.

You can also access a specific user's permissions for a database using the permission icons in the User List tab.