Reviewing and Editing the Exported Folder Security Settings

When you export security settings, the Excel report shows all of the security settings — both explicitly set and those inherited, and for both folder and workflow security types — of all the folders and work areas in the exported folder structure.

You can also edit permissions in the Excel file before you import them. In this way, you could export the security settings of the current folder structure, edit individual permissions as needed, and then import them back to the same folder, or to another matching or closely matching folder structure.

CAUTION: Use care if you choose to edit the Excel file. Entering/editing permissions incorrectly (entering a permission mask in the wrong location, or using the wrong letter casing) and then attempting to import the Excel file will cause the import to fail.

The Excel report contains a list of:

all the folders and work areas whose security settings were exported
all the participants of all the folders and work areas whose security settings were exported
the current folder and workflow security settings defined for each participant for each folder and work area whose security settings were exported

In the upper left corner of the file is a legend that helps you understand the abbreviations used in the file.

The first item below the legend is a hyperlink to the top folder or work area you selected to export the security settings of, and is displayed with its full folder path in the datasource.

All the folders and work areas whose security settings were exported to this file are listed under Column B. Each folder or work area is a hyperlink that you can click on to take you back to the same folder or work area in ProjectWise Explorer. Subfolders and sub-work areas are listed in order, under their parent folder, based on their ProjectWise folder ID.

Column A shows the sequence number for each folder listed in column B. For example, the top folder whose security settings you exported has the sequence number 1. Its direct subfolders would have sequence numbers of 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and so on. If the subfolder whose sequence number is 1.1 has subfolders, then their sequence numbers will be 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, and so on. The purpose of the sequence numbers is so you can see at a glance what the folder level is of the subfolder or sub-work area whose security settings you are viewing.

Column C lists the workflows that have security settings defined for the folder, and column D lists the specific states of those workflows that have security settings defined.

Each participant has its own column, starting with column E. Scroll down a particular participant’s column to see which security settings that participant has for the folders and work areas listed in column B.

In the rows below each folder, and under the respective column, are where the actual permissions are displayed. Each permission is represented by an upper or lower case letter, called a permission mask. Any permission that is turned off is represented by a dash (-).

The folder security type permissions for a folder or work area appear on the same row as the folder or work area.

The workflow security type permissions for the same folder or work area appear in the yellow rows below the folder security type permissions.

Permission Mask	Permission
F	Full Control
P	Change Permissions (user can change permissions of this folder, if set under Folder Security) (user can change permissions of this folder’s documents, if set under folder level Document Security)
C	Create (user can create folders in this folder, if set under Folder Security) (user can create documents in this folder, if set under folder level Document Security)
D	Delete (user can delete this folder, or its subfolders, if set under Folder Security) (user can delete documents of this folder, if set under folder level Document Security)
r	Read (user can see this folder, view its properties, if set under Folder Security) (user can see this folder’s documents in the document list, view their properties, if set under folder level Document Security)
w	Write (user can edit the properties of this folder, if set under Folder Security) (user can edit the properties of this folder’s documents, if set under folder level Document Security)
S	Change Workflow State (user can change the workflow state of documents in this folder; this permission is valid for folder level Document Security only) (- appears in this position, under Folder Security)
R	File Read (user can open this folder’s documents for viewing; this permission is valid for folder level Document Security only) (- appears in this position, under Folder Security)
W	File Write (user can open this folder’s documents for editing; this permission is valid for folder level Document Security only) (- appears in this position, under Folder Security)
f	Free (user can free documents in this folder; this permission is valid for folder level Document Security only) (- appears in this position, under Folder Security)
N	No Access (user cannot see this folder, if set under Folder Security) (user cannot see this folder’s documents in the document list, if set under folder level Document Security)
-	permission is turned off for the user

Tip: If a user has full control to a particular folder, the permission mask will be displayed in the Excel file, under the Folder column, as FPCDrw-----. If a user has no access to a particular folder, the permission mask will be displayed as ----------N. When editing permissions under the Folder column, make sure you always leave the four dashes between the Write (w) permission mask position and the No Access (N) permission mask position.

Tip: If a user has full control to documents in a particular folder, the permission mask will be displayed in the Excel file, under the Document column, as FPCDrwSRWf-. If a user has no access to documents in a particular folder, the permission mask will be displayed as ----------N.

Tip: Excel treats any cell beginning with a dash (-) as a formula, therefore if you want to edit permissions in the Excel file, you should either copy and paste permissions from one cell to another, or enter the correct permission mask string in a text editor and then copy that string into the desired cell. The only time you could manually edit the permissions within the cell itself (without copying and pasting permissions from elsewhere) is if the existing permissions were less than Full Control (--CDrwSRW--), and you changed them to Full Control (FPCDrwSRWf-). If you do copy and paste permissions from one cell to another, make sure you only copy folder permissions to another cell in the Folder column, and make sure you only copy document permissions to another cell in the Document column.