SiteRocket has a powerful permission system that enables you to control how different people can manage and edit different parts of your website. Configuring permissions might seem complex at first, but it’s actually fairly easy to understand once you grasp the following three concepts:

With SiteRocket, you must first create “groups” and assign your desired permissions to each group. (SiteRocket comes with pre-configured groups (like Administrators, Editors and Publishers) but you can edit most of their permissions and add new groups as you please.) Then, create users and add each user to one or more group. The users will inherit the permissions from the group(s) to which they belong.

Users who belong to multiple groups with conflicting permissions will inherit the addition of all permissions. For example, if Susan Williams belongs to one group that has permission to delete pages and another group that does not have this permission, she will be able to delete pages.

To create users and groups, use the Users & Groups tab. If this tab is missing, you lack the permissions to be able to do this; please contact your website administrator.

Most websites are structured like an upside-down tree:

As you can see, the various sections and pages of the website all descend from a “root”. This root is not a real page and doesn’t really exist anywhere. Instead, it’s just an imaginary thing that we added to this diagram to help you understand how page permissions work! When you manage users and groups on the "Users & Groups" tab, their page permissions (view, edit, add, delete, publish) apply to this imaginary “root” of your website. All pages, sub-pages, sub-sub-pages, etc., on all levels of the website, inherit these permissions by default.

So… let’s say that on the "Users & Groups" tab, you prevented your company’s “Sales” group from having permission to edit pages. By default, members of this group will be unable to edit pages on the root of the website and everything underneath it – which is your entire website. This might not be a very useful thing to do if you want your sales team to post content on your website!  Luckily, you can fine-tune this group’s permissions further; keep reading to find out how.

As mentioned above, permissions cascade through your website from the root (level 0) and downwards. However, you can override these inherited permissions by going to any page on your website and editing its permissions separately using the "Settings" dialog box. The permissions that you enter will apply to the current page and any pages that are located below it.

Using our example above with the Sales group, let’s say that you want members of your sales group to be able to edit pages on the "Products" section of your website only. Currently, the permissions that you’ve configured on the "Users & Groups" tab applies to the root of the website and everything below it, including the Products section. Now, go to Products page on your website (or click its checkbox on the "Manage Pages" tab) and click the Settings button. On the "Permissions" tab of the dialog box that appears, select “Yes, this page has separate permissions…”. Using the boxes below, enable your Sales group to Edit that page. These edit permissions will apply to the Products section and all pages inside it.

You can fine-tune it further: Let’s say that the Products section on your website contains a page about a new product which you would NOT like your Sales group to edit. Navigate to this page and click the Settings button. On the Permissions tab, select “Yes, this page has separate permissions…” and remove this permission accordingly.