How user permissions work
This page is for administrators: the operations described require access to the administration area.
A user's permissions determine what they can see and edit in openlane. You set them in the user's record under Admin → Users, and they work together: to edit a product attribute, for example, the user must have permission to edit both that attribute and products belonging to that brand.
Administration areas
Admin Areas lists the parts of the administration area the user can access, such as Attributes, Channels or Users. If at least one area is assigned, the administration area icon appears in the top bar. The administration menu only shows entries for the user's assigned areas.
Anyone with access to the Users area can edit permissions for all users, including their own. Only assign it to people who manage access.
Who can edit attributes
The following rules apply to attributes for products, media and marketing tools:
- with Can edit all fields, the user can edit all attributes that are not read-only;
- without Can edit all fields, the user can edit attributes whose Editable by setting includes one of their groups, selected in Groups;
- attributes with Hidden User Groups are not visible to users in those groups, unless they have Can edit all fields.
Groups are the values in the UserGroup reference data list and are also used for workflow approvals. For the full rules, see Who can see and edit an attribute.
Brands, channels, languages and companies
These permissions restrict the user to part of the catalogue:
| Permission | Effect |
|---|---|
| Product brands | For each product entity type, either All Brands or the brands in Enabled Brands. Products belonging to other brands remain visible but are read-only |
| Channels | Either All Channels or the selected channels. The user can only select and manage their assigned channels: they cannot edit other channels in the product record |
| Enabled locale | The languages in which the user can work and edit text. If left empty, all languages are available |
| Enabled companies | The companies for which the user can change the status in StatusValue attributes |
If no brands are enabled for an entity type, all products of that entity type are read-only for the user, even with Can edit all fields.
For setup instructions, see How to restrict a user to specific brands, channels and languages.
Features
Other permissions enable individual features: creating products, editing them in bulk, exporting and importing them in Excel, uploading and downloading media in bulk, managing marketing tools, reference entities, workflows and data flows, and using Insights and AI features. Without the relevant permission, the feature's button or menu entry is not shown. For the full list, see User settings.
Workspace-specific media library permissions are described in the Media space, under Media library permissions.
When changes take effect
Permission changes take effect immediately for operations the user performs. Buttons and menu entries update when the user reloads the page.