How to Manage User Groups and Permissions in Displayr

Each user account in a multi-user account can be assigned to one or more groups.

You can assign a user to groups when you first add the users to your account or after they've accepted the invitation. New user accounts are created by going to the Settings page and clicking the + New User button at the bottom of the Users section. By default, the Group membership setting will be set to View Documents, but you can choose different groups from the list.

To change the groups that an individual user is assigned to:

1. From your Account Settings, click on the Settings tab.
2. Scroll to the Users section.
3. Click on the name of the user you want to change.
4. Change the selections in the User Group Membership menu.
5. Click Save.

To update multiple users who are part of a group at once:

1. From your Account Settings, click on the Settings tab.
2. Scroll to the Groups section.
3. Click on the Group that you want to edit the group membership.
4. To add users, click + Add Member.
5. Select the user(s) to add to the group. You can hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple users at once.
6. To remove users from a group, click the X that appears in the Action column to the right of a user's name.
7. Click Save.

Setting Permissions

Administrators can set permissions at the account, folder, document or page level depending on your requirements:

• Account-level default permissions are where permissions are based on the User group with view access to published documents and User group with view and edit access to documents settings on your Account Settings page.
• Folder-based permissions are where permissions are imposed on documents and Displayr Cloud Drive files based on the user group access settings of their folders.
• Document-based permissions are where permissions are managed for each document individually.
• Page-based permissions are where permissions are managed for each page within a document individually.

Using folder-level permissions removes the need to individually set permissions on a document by instead grouping relevant documents within a folder with the necessary permissions set once. Users are also able to configure a mixture of folder-based permissions and document-based permissions. In this way, users can create subfolders which don't inherit parent permissions and some which do inherit user group edit and/or view access, and additionally configure more user groups to have access at the document-level.

Note: 

• Folders are mirrored in your Documents view and the Displayr Cloud Drive. This means if you create or move a folder in either location and set access permissions, these will apply to both locations.
• The Home folder defaults to use your Account Settings, and every existing or added folder defaults to inheriting permissions from their parent folder. If you update the settings for any folder to change access, the following will need to be considered.

User group access

• Users can only see folders they have view or edit access to or any parent folders that contain a document or files they have access to.
• Users with view access to a folder can only see published documents.
• If a user has full edit or view access to a document via folder-based permissions, then they have access to everything in that document, regardless of document-level or page-level permissions.
• If users have no access to a folder, but they do have document-level access to a document within that folder, they will then see the document and the folders where the document is stored, but no other documents.
• Users can only create or move documents in or to folders where they have edit access, otherwise they will appear greyed out and not be able to be used as a destination.
• When attempting to delete or move a folder, a user must have edit access to everything within that folder, including Cloud Drive files, otherwise the action is prevented.
• When a document is within a folder using Account Settings, its permissions are determined by the document’s permissions, i.e. it does not inherit anything from its parent folder.
• If the document is within a folder with Configured Access, document-level permissions (for both view and edit, and view only) and page-level permissions will still apply to the document. These document and page-level permissions apply in addition to the folder-level permissions.

Moving documents

• Moving documents between folders that have Configured Access permissions can cause the permissions of documents to change, and any user with edit permissions for a document can move it to a folder they also have edit access to.
• All document-specific permissions, including page, will be retained when moved into another folder.
• If you move a document with permissions in a folder using Account Settings to a folder with Configured Access, the document will inherit edit and view permissions from its new parent folder.
• If you move a document in a folder with Configured Access into a folder using Account Settings, the Configured Access permissions will continue to apply.
• If you move a document within a folder with Configured Access into another folder with different Configured Access, the permissions on the document change to the new/different Configured Access.

Moving folders

• If you move a folder with Configured Access that has non-inherited permissions, they remain when moved to the destination folder.
• If you move a folder with Configured Access that has inherited permissions, the folder begins to inherit permissions from the destination folder.
• If you move a folder which uses Account Settings, it remains using Account Settings in the destination folder.

Displayr Cloud Drive files

• By default, files stored directly within the Home folder of the Displayr Cloud Drive will follow your Account Settings permissions.
• If you have folders in your Cloud Drive, you will only see those you have access to and any parent folders that contain them. 
• Permissions can only be set on folders in the Cloud Drive and not individual files. This means, in order to have configured access, you will need to move any files into an appropriate folder with the necessary permissions.
• Automated built-in processes and those which use the Schedules feature to load, read, or write files to and from the Cloud Drive require the necessary permissions for the document in order to access any Cloud Drive files. This means any file added to a folder that has configured permissions can only be imported into or updated in a document where every user group that can edit this document also has Edit access to the folder containing the Cloud Drive files. These files include:
  • Data sets loaded from the Cloud Drive.
  • flipAPI R calculations (e.g., QLoadData, QSaveData) which reference Cloud Drive files.
  • Combining and stacking data sets.
  • Custom fonts and crtx template files.
• All other loaded files stored within a folder with configured access require the user to be a member of a user group which has access to the folder they are stored in. These files include:
  • QScripts/RScripts
  • Templates, e.g. a visualization or variable set template
  • Images
  • QCodes file

See How to Use the Displayr Cloud Drive for more details.

Setting default home folder user group access

You can begin by setting the access permissions of your Home folder:

1. Go to the Documents page.
2. Click the Folder Settings icon.
3. By default, Use account settings will be selected which is based on your Account Settings.
4. Change to Configure access to this folder if you wish to select which user groups can access this folder. 
5. When configuring access, change the selections in Create, edit and view to choose which groups can edit the document in addition to being able to view it.
6. When configuring access, change the selections in View only access to choose which user groups may view the document but not edit it.
7. Note: changing this setting will, in turn, modify the permissions of any sub-folder configured to inherit permissions.

Choosing which user groups may access a folder

You can set user group permissions to a folder so that all documents (or files) within it are accessible to these groups:

1. Go to the Documents page.
2. Create a folder via New > Folder.
3. Tick the checkbox adjacent to the document on hover and click Move.
4. Select the desired folder and press Move.
5. Select the folder and click the Folder Settings icon (or from the Home folder, click the 3 dots icon and select Settings).
6. By default, Inherit access from the parent folder will be selected, which will automatically apply the access settings from that folder.
7. Change to Use account settings if you wish to leave the folder to follow your default Account Settings page.
8. Change to Configure access to this folder if you wish to select which user groups can access this folder. 
9. When configuring access, change the selections in Create, edit and view to choose which user groups can edit the document in addition to being able to view it.
10. When configuring access, change the selections in View only access to choose which user groups may view the document but not edit it.
11. Click Save.

Note, creation of a folder and setting permissions can also be performed on the Displayr Cloud Drive side if you wish to simply store files within it. See How to Use the Displayr Cloud Drive for details.

See also How to Manage Documents in Displayr.

Choosing which user groups may access a document

Access can also be assigned to each individual document if they are not already inheriting the appropriate user groups.

To set the access at an individual document level from the Documents page:

1. Go to the Documents page.
2. Hover over the name of the document that you want to change, click the 3 dots icon, and then select Settings.
3. Expand the Access section.
4. Change the selections in View access to choose which user groups may view the document but not edit it.
5. Change the selections in View and edit access window to choose which groups of users can edit the document (in addition to being able to view it).
6. Click Save.

Note that you can expand the User with Access section to display a list of users who have access to the document, along with their current group membership.

To modify access to documents from the Groups settings:

1. From your Account Settings, click the Settings tab.
2. Scroll to the Groups section.
3. Select the group that you want to modify access to documents for.
4. Click the Access tab (under the Save button).
5. Click the cog in the Manage column next to the document's name.
6. This will take you to the Access section of the Document Settings page.
7. Change the selections in View access to choose which groups may view the document but not edit it.
8. Change the selections in View and edit access window to choose which groups of users can edit the document (in addition to being able to view it).
9. Click Save.

Restricting access to individual pages (Page-based access)