How to create a project folder with permissions – an example
by Ute Schwietering
Specific folder structures crop up again and again during the daily life of an administrator. A classical example is a standard project folder, the structure of which is used for all projects in a company and which often contain a number of subfolders. As the staff members in such projects nearly always cover different specialist roles, the access rights to the single folders normally differ. In such cases the automating of folder creation with the help of a folder template would be well worth while.
Business requirements of project folders
A project folder must fulfill the following tasks:
- A structured filing of all project documents needed
- Be able to implement the different roles of the project staff via access permissions
Draft of a project folder
The folder template can be created after the requirements have been defined:
- Define your required folder structure
Here is an example: A folder is defined for each project task, this can also contain additional subfolders. The following project tasks are to be supported:
Project Management, Requirements, Consulting, Implementation and Tests.
- Define the permissions as per project tasks
To keep the permission concept simple, assign only the first folder level in the project folder with permissions.
The following table contains a draft of the folder and permissions:
| Folder (Project Tasks) | Permissions (Active Directory Group) |
|---|---|
| / | P_$(OrgUnit)_ProjectMember_RWD |
| 1 Project Management | P_$(OrgUnit)_ProjectManagement_RWD |
| 2 Requirements | P_$(OrgUnit)_Consulting_RWD |
| 3 Consulting | P_$(OrgUnit)_Consulting_RWD, P_$(OrgUnit)_Consulting_R |
| 4 Implementation | P_$(OrgUnit)_Implementation_RWD |
| 5 Test | P_$(OrgUnit)_Test_RWD |
| 6 General | inherited |
The permission name equates the later Active Directory group and contains the project and task names ($(OrgUnit) is a place holder for the actual project name). The group name suffix shows which permissions the group has in the folder (R = Reading, W = Writing, D = Delete).
The Folder / eqautes the project folder itself. The permission P_$(OrgUnit)_ProjectMember_RWD is defined for this, and each project member will receive it.
In our example concept a consultant works out the requirements and also prepares consulting concepts. Therefore, folder 2 Requirements receives the same permissions as folder 3 Consulting.
Folder 3 Consulting receives an additional group with reading rights, so that project members who are not consultants can read the created documents (e.g. implementers and testers).
Folder 6 General receives no special permissions, it inherits the project folder permissions.
Later, through the group names with project and task, a staff member can be assigned to several groups and so have different roles in several projects.
- Create the folder template with Parks Authorization Manager (PAM)
Create your folder structure and define the folder permissions as described in the table.
Then save the folder template; this will now always be at your disposal for new project folders.
Fazit
With a few steps a standard folder template has been created for project folders. You can now use the new template to create folders for new projects. We will show you the exact functioning in a further article.
If you already have a number of project folders and now feel you would like to tidy these up, the question arises as to how to transfer the existing project files into the new structure. Parks Authorization Manager (PAM) offers a special copying function which will help you.
Folders for departments or other organisational units can also be defined and administered as per the procedure described in this article. If you wish to administer a complete file system with various folder types, then you should read our article on process orientated definition of folder structures.