Working With the Permissions Tab
There are several places within the Forums feature where you make choices that affect a role’s permissions. This procedure deals with how to make choices on the Permissions tab.
About the Permissions
The Permissions tab lets you give a role any of the following permissions, in any instance of the Forums feature.
If your site has an additional permission listed—Can Manage Categories and Topics—note that we do not recommend using this permission. If you need to give a role permission to manage categories and topics, we recommend giving that person the Can Administer Portlet permission.
Can Add Posts
Lets members of a role submit posts in any topic that they have permission to view.
Can Administer Portlet
Gives members of a role full administrative rights in the feature instance. That is, this permission automatically gives the role all abilities associated with the other permission levels in this list, as well as the ability to display and modify all categories and topics in the feature instance and to complete any task described in this chapter.
Though this permission is called Can Administer Portlet, it does not give users the ability to administer permissions, layout, and other advanced settings. This can only be done by giving the role the Can Admin privilege for the context, which is a much bigger privilege overall (as described in the Give a Role Permission to Administer a Context section).
Can Edit and Delete Own Messages
Lets members of a role edit and delete their own messages. In order for this permission to be meaningful, you also have to give the role either the Can Add Posts permission or the Can Reply to Posts permission).
Can Manage Categories and Topics
Lets members of a role do both of the following:
Create categories and topics.
Edit or delete any category or topic that the role has permission to display.
Can Reply to Posts
Lets members of a role respond to posts in any topic that they have permission to view.
Use this procedure to give a role any of the permissions listed in Working With the Permissions Tab.
Log in to the portal as a member of the Administrators role or someone with Can Administer Portlet privileges in the appropriate feature instance. Navigate to the appropriate feature instance.
Click the wrench icon in the upper-right corner of the page.
The admin bar displays.
Click the Access link in the admin bar.
The system displays the Access page, which lists all the roles defined for this context as well as all the global roles. Roles that have access to the page are highlighted in green. Roles that do not have access to the page are shaded gray.
Locate the role that should be granted permissions, and take one of the following steps:
If the role is highlighted in green, this means the role already has permission to view the page. Click the role to display a pop-up window that lists the permissions available in each of the features found on the page.
If the role is shaded gray, this means the role does not have access to view the page. You must first grant the role access to the page before you grant permissions. To do so, click the role and then click the Hidden button to change it to Visible. Now that the role can view the page, the screen refreshes to list the permissions available in each of the features found on the page.
Under the list of permissions for the Forums feature, grant the role one or more of the following permissions by clicking the button next to the permission:
Can Add Posts
Can Administer Portlet
Can Edit and Delete Own Posts
Can Manage Categories
Can Reply to Posts
The button changes from No to Yes to indicate the permission has been granted to the role.