Introduction

In this tutorial, we will guide you on how to configure the Permissions of your Joomla website. This will help you gain more control over what users of a given group are allowed to do on your website. You will learn how to re-configure the default permissions and control the level of access granted to specific user groups to edit content, change settings, and access administrative functions.

Accessing the Global Configuration page

To begin with, please log in to your Joomla Admin Dashboard and navigate through the top menu bar to System > Global Configuration.

Once you access the “Global Configuration” page, please switch to the “Permissions” tab.

Under the “Permissions” page you will see the group hierarchy, list of the actions each group can perform, the permission granted, and the settings in effect.

Configuring Permissions

The first column displays the hierarchy of the default Joomla groups, where the “Public” group is the parent group of the rest of the groups. An important detail to mention is that when you set the parent group permissions they are automatically inherited by the child groups under it. To configure specific group permissions you will need to select the given group from this column.

The second “Action” column lists the default actions that a specific user can perform on your website. Even though they are pretty self-explanatory if you are not sure what certain action means you can hover over it and a pop-up with an explanation will appear.

The third “Select New Setting” column represents the actual permission granted for the corresponding action. There are four options to choose from regardless of the action.

• Not Set - This permission is only applicable to the Global Configuration, i.e. to the “Public” group. It defaults to the “Denied” permission, however, compared to the “Denied” permission, it can be overridden by the “Allowed” permission set to child groups or levels.
• Inherited - This permission inherits the permission value set for the parent group or level. The “Inherited” permission is applicable to all levels apart of the Global Configuration, i.e. the “Public” group.
• Allowed - This permission allows the action to the given group or level and for all child groups and levels under it. Please bear in mind that if a higher level or group is set to “Denied” you will not be able to override it by setting the “Allowed” permission to a child group or level.
• Denied - This permission denies the action to the given group or level and for all child groups and levels under it.

The last “Calculated Settings” column indicates the settings in effect for the given action of the selected group. The output displayed can be either “Not Allowed” (the default, for “Public” group only), “Allowed”, or “Denied”. It is helpful to understand what the outcome of the configured permission for the corresponding group and action actually is. Please bear in mind that the output will not be updated until you save the configuration.

When you configure the permissions as per your requirements, please do not forget to click on the “Save” button to record them.

Note that the permissions determined here, in the Global Configuration can be overridden by Component Permissions for a given component (e.g.  Articles, Menus, Users, Banners, etc.).

Congratulations! Now you are familiar with the hierarchical structure of groups and levels in Joomla and you can customize the permissions for each group and for each action. We hope you have found the information in this tutorial useful and we would like to welcome you to contact our Support Team in case you have any further questions.