Assign Permissions to Users and Groups

The Business Central security system allows you to control which objects a user can access within each database or environment. You can specify for each user whether they are able to read, modify, or enter data in the selected database objects. For detailed information, see Data Security in the Developer and ITPro help for Business Central.

Before you assign permissions to users and user groups, you must define who can sign in to by creating users according to the license as defined in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. For more information, see Create Users According to Licenses.

In Business Central, there are two levels of permissions to database objects:

  • Overall permissions according to the license, also referred to as the entitlement.
  • More detailed permissions as assigned from within Business Central.

To make it easier to manage permissions for multiple users, you can organize them in user groups and thereby assign or change one permission set for many users in one action. For more information, see To manage permissions through user groups.

Note

An additional method of defining which features a user has access to is by setting the Experience field on the Company Information page. For more information, see Change Which Features are Displayed.

You can also define what users see in the user interface and how they interact with their permitted functionality through pages. You do this through profiles that you assign to different types of users according to their job role or department. For more information, see Manage Profiles and Customizing Business Central.

To assign permission sets to users

A permission set is a collection of permissions for specific database objects. All users must be assigned one or more permission sets before they can access Business Central.

A Business Central solution contains a number of predefined permission sets that are added by Microsoft or by your solution provider. You can also add new permission sets tailored to meet the needs of your organization. For more information, see To create or edit a permission set.

Note

If you do not want to restrict a user's access more than already defined by the license, you can assign a special permission set called SUPER to the user. This permission set ensures that the user can access all objects specified in the license.

A user with the Essential license and the SUPER permission set has access to more functionality than users with the Team Member license and the SUPER permission set.

You can assign permissions sets to users in two ways:

  • From the User Card page by selecting permission sets to assign to the user.
  • From the Permission Set by User page by selecting users that a permission set is assigned to.

To assign a permission set on a user card

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter Users, and then choose the related link.
  2. Select the user that you want to assign permission to. Any permission sets that are already assigned to the user are displayed in the Permission Sets FactBox.
  3. Choose the Edit action to open the User Card page.
  4. On the User Permission Sets FastTab, on a new line, fill in the fields as necessary. For more information, see To create or edit a permission set.

To assign a permission set on the Permission Set by User page

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter Users, and then choose the related link.
  2. On the Users page, select the relevant user, and then choose the Permission Set by User action.
  3. On the Permission Set by User page, select the [user name] check box on a line for the relevant permission set to assign the set to the user.
  4. Select the All Users check box to assign the permission set to all users.

To get an overview of a user's permissions

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter Users, and then choose the related link.

  2. Open the card of the relevant user.

  3. Choose the Effective Permissions action.

    The Permissions part lists all the database objects that the user has access to. You cannot edit this section.

    The By Permission Set part shows the assigned permission sets through which the permissions are granted to the user, the source and type of the permission set, and to which extend the different access types are permitted.

    For each row that you select in the Permissions section, the By Permission Set section shows which permission set or sets that the permission is granted through. In this section, you can edit the value in each of the five access type fields, Read Permission, Insert Permission, Modify Permission, Delete Permission, Execute Permission.

    Note

    Only permission sets of type User-Defined can be edited.

    Rows of source Entitlement originate from the subscription license. The permission values of the entitlement overrule values in other permission sets if they have a higher ranking. A value in a non-entitlement permission set that has a higher ranking than the related value in the entitlement will be surrounded by brackets to indicate that it is not effective as it is overruled by the entitlement.

    For an explanation of ranking, see To create or edit permissions manually.

  4. To edit a permission set, in the By Permission Set part, on the line for a relevant permission set of type User-Defined, choose one of the five access type fields and select a different value.

  5. To edit individual permissions within the permission set, choose the value in the Permission Set field to open the Permissions page. Follow the steps described in To create or edit permissions.

Note

When you edit a permission set, the changes will also apply to other users that have the permission set assigned.

To create or modify a permission set

Permission sets function as containers of permissions, so that you can easily manage multiple permissions in one record.

Note

A Business Central solution typically contains a number of predefined permission sets that are added by Microsoft or by your software provider. These permission sets are of type System or Extension. You cannot create or edit these types of permission sets or the permissions within them. However, you can copy them to define your own permission sets and permissions.

Permission sets that users create, from new or as copies, are of type User-Defined and can be edited.

To create new permission set from scratch

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter Permission Sets, and then choose the related link.
  2. To create a new permission set, choose the New action.
  3. On the new line, fill in the fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description. When you have created a permission set, you must add the actual permissions. For more information, see To create or modify permissions manually.

To copy a permission set

You can also use a copy function to quickly carry all the permissions of another permission set to a new permission set.

Note

If a System permission set that you have copied is changed, you will be notified (depending on your selection), so that you can consider if the changes are relevant to copy or write into your user-defined permission set.

  1. On the Permission Sets page, select the line for a permission set that you want to copy, and then choose the Copy Permission Set action.
  2. On the Copy Permission Set page, specify the name of the new permission set, and then choose the OK button.
  3. Select the Notify on Changed Permission Set check box if you want to maintain a link between the original and the copied permission sets. The link is then used to notify you if the name or content of the original permission set changes in a future version that the solution is upgraded to later.

The new permission set, containing all the permissions of the copied permission set, is added as a new line on the Permission Sets page. Now you can modify permission in the new permission set. Note that the lines are sorted alphabetically within each type.

To export and import a permission set

To quickly set up permissions, you can import permission sets that you have exported from another Business Central tenant.

In multitenant environments, a permission set will be imported into a specific tenant, i.e. the scope of the import is "Tenant".

  1. In tenant 1, on the Permission Sets page, select the line or lines for the permission sets to export, and then choose the Export Permission Sets action.

    An xml file is created in the download folder on your machine. By default it is named "Export Permission Sets.xml"

  2. In tenant 2, on the Permission Sets page, select the Import Permission Sets action.

  3. On the Import Permission Sets dialog page, consider if you want to merge existing permission sets with any new permission sets in the xml file.

    If you select the Update existing permissions check box, existing permission sets with the same name as those that exist in the xml file will be merged with the imported permission sets.

    If you do not select the Update existing permissions check box, permission sets with the same name as those that exist in the xml file will be skipped during import. In that case, you will be notified about permission sets that are skipped.

  4. From the Import dialog page, find and select the xml file to be imported, and then choose the Open action.

The permission sets are imported.

To create or modify permissions manually

This procedure explains how to add or edit permissions manually. You can also have a permissions generated automatically from your actions in the UI. For more information, see To create or modify permissions by recording your actions.

Note

When you edit a permission and thereby the related permission set, the changes will also apply to other users that have the permission set assigned.

  1. On the Permission Sets page, select the line for a permission set, and then choose the Permissions action.
  2. On the Permissions page, create a new line or edit the fields on an existing line.

In each of the five access type fields, Read Permission, Insert Permission, Modify Permission, Delete Permission, and Execute Permission, you can select one of the following three permission options:

Option Description Ranking
Yes The user can perform the action on the object in question. Highest
Indirect The user can perform the action on the object in question but only through another related object that the user has full access to. For more information about indirect permissions, see Permissions Property in Developer and IT-Pro Help Second highest
Blank The user cannot perform the action on the object in question. Lowest

Example - Indirect Permission

You can assign an indirect permission to use an object only through another object. For example, a user can have permission to run codeunit 80, Sales-Post. The Sales-Post codeunit performs many tasks, including modifying table 37, Sales Line. When the user posts a sales document, the Sales-Post codeunit, Business Central checks if the user has permission to modify theSales Line table. If not, the codeunit cannot complete its tasks, and the user receives an error message. If so, the codeunit runs successfully.

However, the user does not need to have full access to the Sales Line table to run the codeunit. If the user has indirect permission for the Sales Line table, then the Sales-Post codeunit runs successfully. When a user has indirect permission, that user can only modify the Sales Line table by running the Sales-Post codeunit or another object that has permission to modify the Sales Line table. The user can only modify the Sales Line table when doing so from supported application areas. The user cannot run the feature inadvertently or maliciously by other methods.

To create or modify permissions by recording your actions

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter Permission Sets, and then choose the related link.

  2. Alternatively, on the Users page, choose the Permission Sets action.

  3. On the Permission Sets page, choose the New Action.

  4. On a new line, fill in the fields as necessary.

  5. Choose the Permissions action.

  6. On the Permissions page, choose the Record Permissions action, and then choose the Start action.

    This starts a recording process that captures all your action in the user interface.

  7. Go to the various pages and activities in Business Central that you want users with this permission set to access. You must carry out the tasks that you want to record permissions for.

  8. When you want to finish the recording, return to the Permissions page, and then choose the Stop action.

  9. Choose the Yes button to add the recorded permissions to the new permission set.

  10. For each object in the recorded list, specify if users are able to insert, modify, or delete records in the recorded tables.

Security Filters - To limit a user's access to specific records in a table

For record-level security in Business Central, you use security filters to limit a user's access to data in a table. You create security filters on table data. A security filter describes a set of records in a table that a user has permission to access. You can specify, for example, that a user can only read the records that contain information about a particular customer. This means that the user cannot access the records that contain information about other customers. For more information, see Using Security Filters in Developer and IT-Pro help.

To manage permissions through user groups

You can set up user groups to help you manage permission sets for groups of users in your company.

You start by creating a user group. Then you assign permission sets to the group to define which object users of the group can access. When you add user to the group, the permission sets defined for the group will apply to the user.

Permission sets assigned to a user through a user group stay synchronized so that a change to the user group permissions are automatically propagated to the user. If you remove a user from a user group, the involved permissions are automatically revoked.

To group users in user groups

The following procedure explains how to create user groups manually. To create user groups automatically, see To copy a user group and all its permission sets.

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter User Groups, and then choose the related link.
  2. Alternatively, on the Users page, choose the User Groups action.
  3. On the User Group page, choose the User Group Members action.
  4. On the User Group Members page, choose the Add Users action.

To copy a user group and all its permission sets

To quickly define a new user group, you can copy all permission sets from an existing user group to your new user group.

Note

The user group members are not copied to the new user group. You must add them manually afterwards. For more information, see To group users in user groups.

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter User Groups, and then choose the related link.
  2. Select the user group that you want to copy, and then choose the Copy User Group action.
  3. In the New User Group Code field, enter a name for the group, and then choose the OK button.

The new user group is added to the User Groups page. Proceed to add users. For more information, see To group users in user groups.

To assign permission sets to user groups

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter User Groups, and then choose the related link.
  2. Select the user group that you want to assign permission to. Any permission sets that are already assigned to the user are displayed in the Permission Sets FactBox.
  3. Choose the User Permission Sets action to open the User Permission Sets page.
  4. On the User Permission Sets page, on a new line, fill in the fields as necessary.

To assign a permission set on the Permission Set by User Group page

The following procedure explains how to assign permission sets to a user group on the Permission Set by User Group page.

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter Users, and then choose the related link.
  2. On the Users page, select the relevant user, and then choose the Permission Set by User Group action.
  3. On the Permission Set by User Group page, select the [user group name] check box on a line for the relevant permission set to assign the set to the user group.
  4. Select the All User Groups check box to assign the permission set to all user groups.

To remove obsolete permissions from all permission sets

  1. On the Permission Sets page, choose the Remove Obsolete Permissions action.

To set up user time constraints

Administrators can define periods of time during which specified users are able to post, and also specify if the system logs the amount of time users are logged on. Administrators can also assign responsibility centers to users. For more information, see Work with Responsibility Centers.

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter User Setup, and then choose the related link.
  2. On the User Setup page opens, choose the New action.
  3. In the User ID field, enter the ID of a user, or choose the field to see all current Windows users in the system.
  4. Fill in the fields as necessary.

Viewing permission changes telemetry

You can set up Business Central to send changes that are done to permission to an Application Insights resource in Microsoft Azure. Then, using Azure Monitor, you create reports and set up alerts on the gathered data. For more information, see the following articles in the Business Central Developer and IT Pro help:

See Also

Create Users According to Licenses
Manage Profiles
Change Which Features are Displayed
Customizing Business Central
Getting Ready for Doing Business
Administration
Add Users to Microsoft 365 for business
Security and Protection in Business Central in Developer and IT-pro Help

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